“Get up from the piano … Oscar is in the house. Who wants to be at the piano when Oscar is there? Find something else to do.”

In all honesty, I think I just played what I felt was right for me. And I think I would have done the same thing, even if I’d been born later, when Charlie Parker was influencing everybody. The truth is, I never gave it much thought. I just played what I had to play.

I didn’t know Charlie Parker well, but I spent some time with him, and he was articulate and well-spoken with a lot of curiosity about music and the world. But the only way he seems to be depicted is as a junkie. And that’s not the full picture.

At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I’ve got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself.

He’s no Bill Clinton!

I’ve found that since I’ve been playing the acoustic, listening to a horn player has left me thinking, well, what can I do with that? But somehow piano players, I feel more of a connection to , now that I’m using the acoustic.

When I was 14 I came very close to becoming a gay teen suicide ‘statistic’ but I then turned to music, my piano, my loved ones, and discovered that it does in fact get better.

Steinway is the finest piano ever made. Its tone is magnificent and its well-balanced action superb.

My grandmother played the piano, and I used to toddle over there and pick out little things that sounded good to me.

I have long admired Steinway pianos for their qualities of tone, clarity, pitch consistency, touch responsiveness, and superior craftsmanship.

My audition song is, and has been since 1977, ‘I Love a Piano.

The piano is just a different animal. It’s expensive, it’s big, it’s heavy, and it doesn’t fit in the mix easily.

I like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of ‘Plans’ came out of samples and vocal lines.