I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.

But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.

Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around.

Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me.

I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.

I think I was supposed to play jazz.

I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn.

I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.

I try to practice with my life.

I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.

I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time.

In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development of the music.

It is people's hearts that move the age.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

Miles' sessions were not typical of anybody else's sessions. They were totally unique.

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

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

The music becomes something that is its own entity.

The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.

The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best.

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.

My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.

One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.

Music is not the only reason that I practice Buddhism anymore because it has affected my whole life.

Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.

Back in the day for me was a great time in my life - I was in my 20s. Most people refer to their experiences in their twenties as being a highlight in their life. It's a period of time where you often develop your own way, your own sound, your own identity, and that happened with me, when I was with a great teacher - Miles Davis.

Being vulnerable is allowing yourself to trust. That's hard for a lot of people to do. They feel a lot more secure if they kind of put walls around themselves. Then they don't have to trust anybody but themselves.

I like to be on the edge, on the cutting edge, or be into the unknown, into the territory where I have to depend on being in the moment and depending on my instincts.

When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.

I've been curious ever since I was a little kid.

All you have to do is play one note. But it needs to be the right note.

It's not easy to play in a framework that requires simplicity and to tastefully find ways to interject the kind of freedom that we have in playing jazz.

My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.

Hip-hop is all over the planet.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.

It's part of my nature. I get excited when trying out new stuff, whether it be an idea or equipment. It stimulates my juices.

We need to put into practice the idea of embracing other cultures. We need to be shaping the kind of world we want to live in instead of waiting for someone else or some other entities to do it for us.

Music truly is the universal language.

I don't see how we can have both the freedoms we had before and the safety net that we all need considering the way the world is today. And that's just because human beings can't trust each other. We've given in over and over to some of the darkest elements that exist in life itself.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.

When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being?