My dream as a child was to play with a bass player like Ray Brown, who played with the Oscar Peterson Trio. The feeling I had listening to his work was almost carnal, so to actually play for him was earth-shattering for me.

The best advice my mom ever gave me was that you have to talk about your emotions. If something upsets me, she'd say, 'Get mad about it; it's healthy for you,' and I could feel like: Good; now it's over...next!

I spent a lot of time playing in miserable places that were not a lot of fun. Somebody once said it is character building and I was like: My character is just fine.

You're creating an intimacy that everybody feels, that it's their experience, not yours. I'll never introduce a song and say, now this song is about 'my' broken heart.

Denzal Sinclaire embodies the tradition of the great singers I love like Nat Cole, yet definitely has his own voice. He is one of my favourite singers.

The greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out.

So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination, and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.