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

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.

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.

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

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.

Evil is simple and empty. Evil has no mysterious depths. We stare into a dark hole and fill it with our fears, but it is only a hole.

The Factor concept is very simple: Watch all of those in power, including and especially the media, so they don’t injure or exploit the folks, everyday Americans.

Our mandate is simple: raise up a generation that can openly display the raw power of God

Well, everybody faces the fact there really aren’t many records stores around to just go and browse.

Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile.

The thing that bothers me the most about the media is simple accuracy.

Sometimes it was daunting, knowing how easily I could break things. This one simple curse seemed to dominate my entire life.

If there’s a simple, easy design principle that binds everything together, it’s probably about starting with the people.