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.

I think 'Horace Silver' was actually the first live jazz group I ever heard back when I was a kid in St. Louis. So along with most players of my generation, I have a real affection for the music of 'Horace Silver.

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

In most of the stuff that I've done over the years as a sideman, I wasn't really a session musician, because to me, a session musician is a guy who makes his living in the studio, and I never really did that.

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.

Music is just kind of an expression of who I am. It's what I do.

You're only as good as your last record.