Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave well enough alone. And that's a lifelong quest.

As a melody instrument player, it's all about getting from one note to the next, and those intervals and how you navigate your way through these vertical structures of chords. You realize that everything's moving forward and it's all linear.

Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn.

When I make records, I never listen to stuff after it's done. Ever.

I think that that's the way the music grows and changes and becomes new and creative and vital. It's by synthesizing elements from all around it and not to maintain this kind of rigid myopic kind of tunnel vision, in a sense, trying to maintain a certain kind of purity, or whatever.

My name is on the thing, but the reality of it is, when I get up there on stage, I'm part of a band. I'm part of a unit. It's like a basketball team.