Music is a thing where, the more vocabulary you gather, the more you can express yourself.

"Jazz" to begin with, is a really bad word... all the true musicians that really play jazz, jazz is the worst word for it. Jazz is a process. Jazz is a creative process. It's not so much a genre, but a way of expression.

I grew up in Kansas City from when I was about two years old to my mid-teens. Kansas City at the time was an amazing place, because there was so much music going on there. As a kid, I was playing there all the time and learning a lot about music.

My dad, was, by trade, he had a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He's a huge, huge jazz fan. He used to travel all the time for projects, and he used to collect jazz records. He used to collect hundreds and hundreds of jazz records because he had this passion for it. That's kind of how they had certain hobbies together with my mom.

My mom was a musician, and my dad had this passion for music. That's kind of how a lot of their relationship was built. When I came around, I was constantly exposed to music.

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.