Jazz is not background music.

We all have to open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to try and arrive at something new and different.

Good Lord's been kind to me, that's all I can say. I wake up in the morning with music in my head a lot of times. I won't say every morning, but I wake up in the morning sometimes with eight bars in my head and I just go to the piano.

Jazz is not background music.

I will search for hidden talents that I didn't know I had and do my best to cultivate them. I am grateful for each day, and I will try to use each day as a stepping stone to greater achievements.

Basically my influences have been American influences. It's been blues, gospel, swing era music, bebop music, Broadway show music, classical music.

I've found in composing that being simple and profound—having in-depthness in your music—is the most difficult thing to do. Anybody can write a whole lot of notes, which may or may not say something . . . But why make it complicated for the musicians to play? Why make it difficult for the listeners to hear?