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" I was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about. "

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" I don't really have a more intellectualized approach. After the fact, I can sure talk about stuff a lot - but when I make decisions, I really just follow what sounds good to me. "

" I'm a goof, man. "

" If you're going to be transparent, you're going to have to let the music come that wants to come. "

" I listened to a lot of King Crimson back in the day. "

" Each of the CDs prior to 'Flirting With Twilight' were more like roller-coaster rides. "

" I've got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way. "

" Romance is one of the things that most countries share, and I've noticed how different communities have their own ways of singing about love and heartbreak. "

" I consider myself very fortunate. I have a beautiful wife who supports my work and is raising our daughter when I'm out on the road. "

" You don't know what bravery is until you overcome fear. "

" Grammy nominations are certainly pleasant, but you can forget about them and lead a perfectly happy life - provided you have the approval of the musicians you work with. "

" If you start to dwell on your pain, the amount of pain will increase. "

" I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close. "

" You don't just let a guy drop off the earth and not come together with everybody who knew him and loved him and respected him. You try to do it the right way. "

" Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study? "

" Karl Johnson, my first piano player at Milt Trenier's, he just swung really hard and gave me a sense of really belonging to the jazz scene. "

" I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could. "

" Chicago has a burly, action-oriented but still self-assured and relaxed confidence to its stride. The city has a lot of wide-open space and all the possibilities that suggests. There's a lot of horizontal grandeur here. "

" People just want to dig; they want to dance. They don't want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting 'out there,' but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical. "

" It's pretty rare in jazz to have a full-on steady band. "

" The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle. "

" Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown. "

" Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves. "

" Listening to something without being present is different from being there in the flesh. "

" With a smaller setting, you have a lot more freedom and flexibility within a given moment, but not necessarily the velocity you have with a big band. "

" We live in a society where it's cool to be criminal. "

" I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz. "

" You learn as much as you can from the people that you work with. That's why you want to surround yourself with the heaviest people that you can possibly get to. "

Surround Yourself

" I think I make most of my decisions pretty organically. "

" It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect. "

" I try to stick with things that I can sing with honesty. "