“America used to be proud of abstraction, and we have fallen away from it. The future depends on people trying to promote that abstract thinking. Not just in relation to music and jazz and the arts, but the economy, social strife, tension between people.”

“As a listener, we're looking for that person who kind of excites the molecules within us - who knows how to tell the story that resonates deeply to our core and almost prompts us into action. Fats Waller has been that person for decades. When people need a lift, sometimes they go to him. I know I do.”

“As an improviser, my nature is to take a theme and constantly rework it.”

“Bjork's album, 'Homogenic,' it's got beats, strings, traditional Icelandic stuff. That's my benchmark for what an album should sound like, right up there with Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' and Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On.'”

“Confidence is the key. When you're playing something new, find the part you know very well and play it really strong. That'll make you believe that you really do know it.”

“From being a teacher and educator, I see the state of the music through the eyes of an 18-year-old coming on to the scene, and we want to make sure it stays intact. With my generation, it's our duty to do that.”

“I am a huge fan of Adrian Piper: how she works, how she reveals her process in the work, how she writes about it.”

“I don't want any of my records to sound like one style throughout. That's why I choose different grooves and songs: tunes that are sensitive and slow as well as pieces that are abstract and fast. The approach I want to take with my records is to give the listener a variety of grooves, concepts, and composers.”

“I don't want to be defined solely by what I do as a jazz musician at a club or a festival. That's not all of me. It's not even close.”

“I feel like I'm a torchbearer for jazz, fostering its tradition but its future, too.”

“I grew up with KTSU, and that station gave me so much info about the pantheon of black sounds: reggae, gospel, blues, soul, hip hop, and mostly they played jazz. That was a major part of how I understood music.”

“I have that huge print from Pollock by the piano because the influence is reciprocal. He was into hearing music while he created, and I sometimes do the opposite. I'm influenced by everything from an ant to a dream.”

“I kind of want to get the music back on a road it hasn't been on for a while. I want to promote the arts as part of the American diet.”

“I play a Monk song, it's like you get possessed. And then you have to break that spell. You have to remind yourself that you are an individual, or that you aren't Thelonious Monk.”

“I see how people look at me, all around the world. They see something because of the race I belong to. I have to understand that and put it into my music.”

“I used to watch those rock videos where they would chainsaw the piano. And I thought, 'That's what I want to do.' I thought classical music was corny.”

“I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I kind of mangle things as I perform in a contemporary way.”

“I'm lazy. I don't practice enough. I do other stuff. I'm not a musician's musician, and I don't necessarily know if I want to be. When I hear something and want to work on it, then that's what my project will be.”

“Jazz musicians don't make any money, so I might as well make some on the market. I pick my own stocks - Microsoft, Dell - the tech stocks, the breadwinners.”

“Music, many times, around the world, serves to help us understand other people without having to talk.”

“My killer crossover project would be to combine Bjork and Grace Jones with the West Coast rappers and create this massive music. That's, like, one of my dreams.”

“Pianos - if they don't like what you're saying, then they won't talk back to you. And you want it to talk back to you.”

“The great jazz radio stations have a duty to continue evolving their format just as audiences ask the musicians to evolve. How do you do that with a form of music that has 100 years of recorded history? How do you also keep it contemporary so you don't isolate your listeners? These are major questions.”

“Tons of musicians who I love are imprisoned by their identity. That can be totally fine because they are so amazing in their technique, but for me, I'm a little too restless for that.”

“Usually, when I see films that don't have any score attached to them, I think they're beautiful. I love just the naked sound of the voice. That's already music.”

“You make a record because you have to chart your progress, not only for yourself, but for your audience.”