I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted.

I wanted to play music. I didn't think about where it would go or what it would do.

I think that's my gift in this world is to put experience into music.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.

I think I'm making music that's pretty universal.