I don't get writer's block. I don't try to write anything; when something comes, I write it. I just practice and when I get an idea I write it down.

There used to be a club in new york called Bradley's - I've never been there, it closed in the 80's - but I used to study with Junior Mance, and he would tell me about Bradley's. It was a very important place for a generation of jazz musicians in New York. It was really all about pianists there.

I've sort of realized there's a definite pattern to my output at this point: there's an album that everybody sort of loves, that's a real balance between the old and new, like The Dreamer or No Beginning No End, like a blend of jazz and hip-hop, or r&b and soul and hip-hop.

The other songs [of Billie Holiday] - "Body and Soul" is like the standard - I also wanted some songs that I knew I would sound good on, as a producer. It's been the same nine songs since I debuted it back in 2012.

If you look at the other singers of Billie Holiday's time, they were really trying to entertain. They were trying to make people feel good. They were singing fast - and she was singing the blues.

[Billie Holiday] was keeping it super real, and you can feel that to this day. Everything that she sang, she believed in. So I had to pick songs that I felt the same about.

I go by the "Miles Davis school of production and band-leading", where you pick the best musicians you can, you provide them with a minimum of direction, and you just let the music happen. I've seen it work time and time again.