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I actually was a musician in college, a composer and singer, and really intended to be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein when I got out.

I think a lot of Bernstein - but not as much as he does.

My dad is a big jazz fan, and that was the reason I first got into jazz.

As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe.

Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me - he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.

I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians.

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians.

So I was always around music and my dad was in his own way a progressive jazzer, a big band jazzer guy.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Growing up, I was very much interested in jazz music.