We can all be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and all be together.

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

I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.

I don't view myself as a musician anymore - I view myself as a human being that functions as a musician when I'm functioning as a musician, but that's not 24 hours a day. That's really opened me up to even more perspectives because now I look at music, not from the standpoint of being a musician, but from the standpoint of being a human being.

I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness.