Not too many people my age really zeroed in on the blues. Most of the people that listened to it were older than teenagers.

Another thing that I noticed is a lot of people in the hip hop scene have a great respect for jazz and have incorporated by sampling some elements that come from jazz.

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.

I'm aiming that towards people, towards humanity, not even just musicians. Because this is about life, not about musicians.

One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.

Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.