The trip had become boring. It wasn't exciting anymore to totally be a singer/songwriter because it wasn't working for me.

Jazz was always cool. That was what I liked about jazz - it was always cool. Now I see the cats that were basically cool getting kind of uncool. So that ruins what I feel about jazz.

The idea [of A Period of Transition album] was to get a break from everything for a while because I've been doing it for so long. I started doing it when I was 12.

What I don't like is taking it to extremes and making all these intellectualizations about what basically is simple music. It's simple stream-of-consciousness stuff in my songs. What I'm trying to get across is misinterpreted.

Did you ever hear about the rock and roll singer who got 3 or 4 Cadillacs, saying power to the people, dance to the music, wants you to pat him on the back.

There aren't any labels - all jazz means is improvization and you can never play a tune the same way twice. So jazz spills over into everything.

My responsibility is to fulfil what that natural thing is. The thing that I dislike about pop rock Top 40 music is that it's not natural.