I always hope that as a performer I'm able to come out with something that not only makes people feel inspired but even beyond that, I always hope that what happens on the stage makes people feel like they can do it. |
I am still a jazz musician and not a pop star in terms of money and so I have to take care of my family first, then my extended family and my country." |
I brought my 40 years of jazz experience to the table, ... but I wanted to make something more ambitious than a little box. |
I decided years ago that I wasn't interested in being a virtuoso of the piano. |
I didn't know much about this new electronic scene. I knew it was going on, but I hadn't really followed it or paid any particular attention to it. |
I don't go back to anything, I just add. Just like when you eat a meal, it you eat one thing all the time it gets kind of boring. |
I don't look at music from the standpoint of being a musician; I look at it from the standpoint of being a human being. |
I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness. |
I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism. |
I get bored easily, but later I learned that it is OK to do something that others have done. |
I had just come out of college, and I figured that I would probably be in Chicago for the next couple of years, and then maybe, I 'd get a chance to go to New York and hang out with the big boys. |
I hope to do more movie scores, I hope to do more work in the orchestral setting, some more tours that are more in the line that classical musicians play. |
I hope to still be making records, but still traveling and touring, I don't know to the extent that I am now, because it's pretty wearing on your physical energy. |
I just wish more attention could be placed on the human being. |
I knew of jazz, but I didn't like it. I always thought only older people liked jazz - you know, you had to be 19 or 20. |