Are we, as humans, gaining any insight on how to talk about ourselves and how something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context. So I want to continue those dialogues. Those are the things I want to foster.
I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I kind of mangle things as I perform in a contemporary way.
You make a record because you have to chart your progress, not only for yourself, but for your audience.
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 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.
If you hear Thelonious Monk play a run that goes from the top of the piano, OK, he has opened up the Grand Canyon with that. He's the river that's carved this entire space that we call the Grand Canyon. He does that with one run. He lets you know, like, what the possibility of the sound of the piano can do.
As an improviser, my nature is to take a theme and constantly rework it.
There's mediocre jazz, mediocre salesmen, mediocre golfers. If you want to be good, you have to really hone your skills.
Monk's music is often defined as enigmatic, eccentric and humorous - as if it had little to do with the pain he may have endured to create his art. But I believe Monk routinely shared his history with his audience, no matter how unpalatable that history was, and it is for that very reason that his music connects with people around the globe.
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.'
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.
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.
For a while, I was working on transcribing rap lyrics and then converting them into rhythmic patterns on the piano. And so in my mind, when I was taking a solo, I would be saying the lyrics and trying to play actual notes to their rhythms. Now, the influence just comes in and out in my playing.
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.
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 feel like I'm a torchbearer for jazz, fostering its tradition but its future, too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
