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I got into music when I was a little boy. My dad was always into jazz. I got my education from him. The first time I listened to jazz, he gave me a Thelonious Monk record. It was so different from anything I had ever heard. It took me a while to understand it, and I liked that. I liked the fact that it wasn't immediately palatable.

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

Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.

My dad was a huge big band and jazz fan, and we both sort of enjoyed be-bop, but man, it required so much skill to play it. And then there was cool jazz, the era that Miles, Coltrane, and Ornette ushered in, and that found a home in me. It turns out that that music was just really where I breathed.

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

Actually, a lot of my influences were horn players. I really liked Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Miles Davis - people like that. My dad had a lot of those records. So when I started playing jazz primarily, it wasn't jazz guitar that I was listening to.

I had a very thorough grounding in music; I'd grown up around songs. My parents listened to a lot of music. My dad was majorly into jazz, which was absolutely a big influence on me, even if it was more subconsciously as a kid.

I was totally into jazz in my teens.

I've always loved jazz.