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

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.