When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

It's part of life to have obstacles. It's about overcoming obstacles; that's the key to happiness.

It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

I think risk-taking is a great adventure. And life should be full of adventures.

It's easy to get sidetracked with technology, and that is the danger, but ultimately you have to see what works with the music and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, less is more. In most cases, less is more.

The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.

You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.

Back in the day for me was a great time in my life - I was in my 20s. Most people refer to their experiences in their twenties as being a highlight in their life. It's a period of time where you often develop your own way, your own sound, your own identity, and that happened with me, when I was with a great teacher - Miles Davis.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

World peace is no longer some pie-in-the-sky thing, because no single person or country is going to solve it on their own.

As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in. So, I'm concerned about peace. I'm concerned about - about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment.

But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.