When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

I knew I wanted to write on religious themes when I was a GI in World War II. I saw and experienced so much violence that I thought I could express my outrage best with music.

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.

The use of rock, folk, or pop music serves a purpose. It gets people into the church. But an inexperienced guitar player who doesn't have much to say, for example, can make me wish to leave the church immediately, whereas one great jazz or classical guitarist can confirm that I will have a spiritual experience in the church.

The first choral music I remember hearing was Handel's 'Messiah' when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast it over the radio.

Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

If I told you all the people that have secretly told me I've influenced them, you'd never believe it, and you'll never see it in print, either.