Music truly is the universal language.

I have to care and I have to be honest and have the courage to be vulnerable. If that happens, then that's the best I can do. To just be a puppet for the audience is not very courageous. Just to do whatever they say they want - because a lot of times people will hear something new that they hadn't heard before and get turned on by a new experience and will want to hear more of that.

I try to practice with my life.

Fact is that I played piano and performed, as a young kid, a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra . Don't forget I was only eleven-years-old and to be on the stage at that age had tremendous impact on me. Basically love for classical music and performing as a kid on the big stage probably led toward this decision, which meant that music is going to be my big love but also my profession.

The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

Each human being exists because there's something they have to offer for the evolution of the universe that only they can fulfill.