I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about Jazz.

Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.

I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted

I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times.

...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing.

I have to admit that more and more lately, the whole idea of jazz as an idiom is one that I've completely rejected. I just don't see it as an idiomatic thing any more...To me, if jazz is anything, it's a process, and maybe a verb, but it's not a thing. It's a form that demands that you bring to it things athat are valuable to you, that are personal to you. That, for me, is a pretty serious distinction that doesn't have anything to do with blues, or swing, or any of these other things that tend to be listed as essentials in order for music to be jazz with a capital J.

The first thing I learned was the theme from Peter Gunn.