Whoever you are, if you know what you're doing, you don't want other people to overtake the merit of your art.

I did grow up in a rough neighborhood in Portland, which is an abstract concept for anybody who's rolled through Portland because now it looks like a TV set, literally.

Jazz has always been a melting pot of influences and I plan to incorporate them all.

I love people, and I love to be with people and to make music with people, but my natural state is to revert back to being by myself in my house, which is cool because thats where I practice and write and listen and study.

You don't have to be fearless to do anything, you can be scared out of your mind.

There's the juiciest music that makes me so happy, music that I need on that deserted island when I'm stranded for the rest of my life, and nobody cares that it's there.

My name means 'hope' in Spanish and it's a name I want to live up to.