I started to listen to Japanese jazz musicians when I went to high school. Some people I listened to were Yosuke Yamashita, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe.

When you play with someone you can feel the chemistry with, just the first show is already magic.

Individuality and originality is was separates good and great artists! How much they can move people with what they do! If they can shake the heart with what they do, is the key!

For me I always need to have two sides to me when I play! I need to be a performer and at the same time the producer. So I need to be somewhere up in the air and producing my music. I can't just be the performer; otherwise I can't see the whole view. I need the big view!

Once I meet the piano, I have no other choice, because I need to have a good date right! So I am trying to please the piano to have the best outcome.

A child isn’t born bitter. I point no fingers as to who tainted the clean, pure pool of my childhood. Let’s just say that when I realized that I didn’t want to grow up, the damage was already done. Knowing that being grown up was no swell place to be means that you are grown up enough to notice. And you can’t go back from there. You have to forge another route, draw your own map.

My biggest musical dream is to keep playing all my life. There's nothing bigger than that and that's very challenging because you have to satisfy yourself at every stage.