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I'm still more comfortable with standards than with my own songs.

I've just always been around great songwriters. To me, they were the standard.

I have a very varied taste in music. Everything from rap to classical to Latino to Rat Pack to jazz.

I started out playing traditional jazz, and I still do: I love standards, I love the music. But it must move on, and it must live and breathe, and continue to grow, and continue to change, and continue to mesh with other music - all that kind of stuff. Jazz can be on the playground too, you know.

The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record and they want to know which standards you're going to play. I'm saying let's break the formula.

I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.

I am not a music snob. If anything, my musical taste is bad by any critical standards.

I listen to jazz mainly. Mainstream jazz.

I have a pretty wide range of musical tastes.

If you play the very subtle jazz tunes with acoustic pianos, acoustic bass and it's a dead standard, you are going to play very differently. It depends on the music.