By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.

Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn't recognize my voice.

It doesn't matter to me what is going on today because my music encompasses every kind of mood that exists in human beings. That's my stick.

I can read and arrange, but I can't write.

Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways - it's infinite. It's like God... you know?