To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.

Lately I've been listening to some classical music again, some jazz.

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things -- all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.