I believe that a truly valuable artist must be an artist who realizes the impossibility of his task -and then continues to do it.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

I can't even tolerate my own playing on electric keyboards. It's not about the musical ideas - the sound itself is toxic. It's like eating plastic broccoli.

I grew up with the piano. I learned its language as I learned to speak.

You know, when people look at a tree, they look at the leaves; they don't look at the spaces between the leaves. They're focused on the tree. I think there's an awareness of spaces or it wouldn't look like a tree to them.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

... The 'cleverness' syndrome has taken the place of melody. It's like everyone has come down with this terrible disease in jazz....you are always expected to do your own material, which is a strange thing to do if you're a poor composer but a great player.