The music we're playing now is based on my heritage, which is Russian, Romanian and Hungarian.
Think about it: Look at the strides of awareness and treatment and tests that women have had with breast cancer, that the gay community has had with AIDS, because they're active and they talk about it.
If you want to play somebody's music, you'd better go into his house.
My ego is controlled enough that I don't have to be the focus.
My father's father came from Russia; my mother came from Romania.
As much as I think John Coltrane belongs on the list, I think without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, both of whom defined improvising on the tenor sax, there would not have been the evolution of the craft by John Coltrane.