“To me, jazz is a place where anything is possible.”

Lovesick, bitter and hardened heart. Aching, waiting for life to start

In so many ways, it feels the same now when I play as the very first time I picked up the instrument. There’s always this sound out there that’s just a little bit beyond my reach and I’m trying to get there and that just sort of keeps me going.

I can write the stuff and play it myself and have something in my head, but the best feeling is when somebody else plays it and they’re hearing something other than what I’m hearing.

It’s incredible how one song or even one little phrase or just a few notes, if you really concentrate on it, can be a kaleidoscope of possibility.

I used to edit myself. If something seemed super-simple I had to make it more complicated.

Every time I play with someone, not just a new person, but someone I’ve been with all along, that’s where I really learn.

There’s so much music out there & so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

I hate labels; the problem is that if you say you’re one thing, it’s hard for people to imagine you as something else. Music is way more complicated than that.

I’ve been lucky with the circle of people I’m playing with. We’ve played enough that there’s a language we talk with each other when we play.

“Music, for me, has always been a place where anything is possible.

For me the music community was always like a model for what could be. The way people would play together, just harmony and being – old guys and young guys, black guys and white guys. It was setting an example for what the rest of us could be.

I do know the older I get, the more I’m referencing music I heard as a kid.

I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players.

Now I’m trying to let what’s in there come out and acknowledge where I come from. I’m trying to make it more. ..true.

The things that stress me out haven’t changed. But I don’t wanna lose anything. So I thought that at least I would change. I’m lucky…that I’m afraid of losing something.

It took us five hours to reach Tokyo, but I was really happy. I kept talking about myself, and didn’t hear anything about Nana. But now that I know you better; I know you wouldn’t say anything.

As expected life isn’t that sweet at all. When I came to Tokyo I thought I could achieve anything with my own two hands. It’s not like that.

I had a feeling that my generation-and me, also-we were naked. We did not belong to anything.

Selling high or low doesn’t mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.

I never regret anything.

The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.

A meditative mind is at ease because it’s not trying to acquire anything.