I'm very conscious of the idea of trying to each time present something that I haven't presented before. It's a challenge to me to find something new, to find something innovative, but it's also very exciting.

Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today.

I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.

Being vulnerable is allowing yourself to trust. That's hard for a lot of people to do. They feel a lot more secure if they kind of put walls around themselves. Then they don't have to trust anybody but themselves. But to allow you to trust not only yourself but trust others means - is what's required to be vulnerable, and to have that kind of trust takes courage.

I hope to use dialogue and culture as a means of bringing people of various cultures together, and using that as a way to resolve conflict.

It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.