You never get it figured out. You just keep playing.

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized and there's just no outlet, there's no venue for it, in terms of media.

Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, you take all the drama out of it.

I look at the artistic process as like experiencing the world, channeling it through your personality and sending it back out there. That's the process.

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

When you have an acoustic bass in the ensemble it really changes the dynamic of the record because it kind of forces everybody to play with a greater degree of sensitivity and nuance because it just has a different kind of tone and spectrum than the electric bass.

To me, the object of practicing is to allow you to play what you hear. But you're always hearing new things, so you never get to the end of it.