Basically, my mother is a piano teacher, and she actually teaches piano at Yamaha School of Music today. She's a really, really amazing human being and is very patient. She had enough patience for me, as a kid, which I'm very thankful for. She made sure that music was a part of my general education as well.

Hearing Oscar Peterson was something that resonated within me. There are so many musicians I've been fortunate to play with. The people that inspire me are the people I play with.

When I was four, I started taking lessons from my mom. That's pretty much how I started.

As far as the people that have inspired me, they're the people that I have played with the most. For example, the record that I made called Virtue, there was a wonderful band and a wonderful drummer by the name of Ludwig Afonso and a wonderful bass player by the name of Armando Gola.

The main thing about the word jazz, is that it's very limiting to what people are doing.

My dad would play me all of these records: Miles Davis records, John Coltrane records, Bill Evans records, a lot of jazz records. My first exposure to music was listening to jazz records.

Basically, my mother is a piano teacher, and she actually teaches piano at Yamaha School of Music today. She's a really, really amazing human being and is very patient. She had enough patience for me, as a kid, which I'm very thankful for. She made sure that music was a part of my general education as well.