In The Midst Of Creating, A Person

I Think It’s Very Important To Live In The Present. One Of The Great Things That Improvising Teaches You Is The Magic Of The Moment That You’re In … Because When You Improvise You’re In Right Now. You’re Not In Yesterday Or Tomorrow—you’re Right In The Moment. Being In That Moment Really Gives You A Perspective Of Life That You Never Get At Any Other Time As Far As Learning About Your Ego… You Have To See Your Unimportance Before You Can See Your Importance And Your Significance To The World.

I Always Told The People At Cal Arts That If They Wanted Me To Do Jazz Studies, First Of All, There Couldn't Be A Big Band Within 500 Miles And That I Could Do What I Wanted To Do. And They Said I Could.

I Want Them To Come Away With Discovering The Music Inside Them.

I Just Sit Down At The Piano And Rattle It Off.

I Told My Students The Other Day In Class, Which Is About The Spirituality And Creativity As Much As It Is About Music. I Said, 'if You're Walking Down The Street And You See A Baby Carriage, And There's A Baby In The Carriage; You Look Down And Your Eyes Meet The Eyes Of The Baby. The Baby Looks At You: That's The Kind Of Moment You're In When You're Playing.