I practice all the scales. Everyone should know lots of scales. Actually, I feel there are only scales. What is a chord, if not the notes of a scale hooked together?

For me, rhythm is a type of divine mathematics in a way. No matter where you're from, we can all understand the mathematics of rhythm. I try to apply this mathematical thinking to my playing.

I believe everybody is spiritual and no one is any more spiritual than anyone else.

I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.

Spirituality is worthless if it's not practical. Music is my work. I am a musician.

Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?

Music speaks from spirit to spirit and in that sense you could call it a true spiritual language.