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

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

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.

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.

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

I tend to play in a way that feels natural to me. To me that's authentic for myself. I play by where I'm led by some sense of where I feel I'm supposed to be.

Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.