Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

I look back and say, "This must have been somebody else." I am not going to tell you that when I was 4, I dreamed about all of this.

You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.

My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children's books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.

Count Basie practically adopted me at 13. We became closer and closer and I ended up conducting for him and Sinatra.