I keep recycling and repackaging music that I've done in the past, as though I can't write anymore. Like, okay, I'm done with that. But I need to kind of prod myself again into come on, Herbie, get off your duff and start writing some new music.

Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision.

I spent five years, at least, working with Miles. Together, we recorded ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer -- and I can tell you; each of these albums instantly became jazz classics. Hey, we had Wayne Shorter playing tenor sax, Ron [Carter] on bass, Tony Williams played drums. That was great band we had.

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

The music becomes something that is its own entity.

You make different colors by combining those colors that already exist.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.