The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there.

I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.

So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did.

Jazz to me is the spirit of freedom. I mean real freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. Freedom to pour out your guts.

When I was young I used to listen to everything.

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.