It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do.

Miles Davis came in a couple of days and said, "Oh, man, I love that. Keep going." So he said, "Let me know when you need trumpet." And he came in, and he was sitting there, and I was very intimidated, because now he's going to play the trumpet on something that I wrote." He starts to play, and I go, "That's not right, but I don't know how to tell him it's not right." Finally he goes, "When are you going to tell me what to do?" He said, "This is your music. I know you know how it's supposed to sound. Stop fooling around. We don't have time."

I brought the music out to L.A., and the producer Tommy LaPuma heard it and he said - "Man, I love it. Let's do it. Let's record it." I said, "Okay, where's the band?" He said, "We don't have a band. We want it to sound exactly like your demo." I said, "Well, I played all the instruments on the demo." You do that when you're making demos. You got your guitar, you got your sax. He said, "Well, I want it to sound just like that, so get all your instruments out here." So I ended up playing all the instruments.

Luther Vandross was doing fine, but he said, "Man, I want to do my own project." So he got us all to do a demo, and that demo was "Never Too Much." It took him a year and a half to get signed, because he didn't have a gimmick. The record companies were looking for his gimmick. They said, "What's your gimmick?" He said, "I sing. That's my gimmick." Anyway, he finally got signed and the record was released, and the rest was history.

Watching Michael Jackson was like taking a history lesson and a lesson on the future at the same time. If that weren’t enough, Michael then went and single-handedly revolutionized music videos. It’s amazing that today, some twenty-five years later, everyone who makes a pop music video still feels obligated to include a 'group dance' sequence like the one Michael pioneered in 'Beat It'. That’s how influential and ahead of the times he was.

I was with Miles Davisfor a couple of years as his bass player, and it was a beautiful experience. After two years I said to him, "Listen, man, I want to leave your band." He goes, "Why?" I said, "Because I want to develop not just as a bass player, but I want to get more into composition, into producing, and I'm working with Aretha Franklin and Luther Vandross and all these guys, and I want to really see how much I can grow and develop." He actually gave me his blessing.

I got so many emails and text messages, my phone blew up because it couldn't handle everybody. It's like almost being at your own funeral because of the way the headline read.