Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.

Music has always been transnational.

As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.

I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.

Music is one of the ways we can achieve a kind of shorthand to understand each other.

When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives.