I like Simon Cowell - look at how many great artists have come out of the U.K. because of him.

People who love jazz musicians love us when we play what we want to play and we're starving. But as soon as you commercialize your sound like Wes Montgomery did, the jazz fans and the critics are down on you!

Never give up on a good thing, never give up, never give up!

The first time I tried to sing along with my guitar, everybody in the studio booed. They all said it wouldn't work.

The greatest guitar player in the world today for me is Paco de Lucia, who is actually Spanish.

Of course we've lost so many superstars who've made jazz what it is. We've lost so many musicians who created new things and changed the way we think about music and who took jazz to a new level. So jazz is suffering from that. But we still have a lot of incredible people playing jazz in the world. We have a lot of people leading the way.

As my career has progressed, I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest jazz cats on the planet. But that doesn't change my desire to entertain folks. That's really who I am.