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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.