Quote

Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

What I believe to be jazz is constructed and improvised music which is in the air right now. But I don't think that's most people's definition of jazz, you know? We don't know what we're talking about, because we don't know the definition.

I think everybody has to kind of decide what the word 'jazz' means to them, and that's fine.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

I don't think I've ever been true to jazz. There's always a kind of jazz element to what I do. There are a very few genres that I haven't tried out, really, in what I've been doing. As a jazz musician, you can kind of mess about with things with a certain level of musicianship, which helps.

I always felt of myself as a composer, performer, improviser. I've never called myself a jazz man. I make art.