When talking about writing, I often use the analogy of archaeology. There are these great tunes all around. Your skill as a musician allows you to pick them out without breaking them.
The pianist Cecil Taylor is extremely melodic; the guitarist Derek Bailey is extremely melodic, and Ornette Coleman.
If we are going to list guitar influences, the biggest one by far is Wes Montgomery. Also, Gary Burton was obviously huge for me in a number of ways. But beyond that, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard.
One of the things jazz has always excelled at is translating the reality of the times through its musical prism.
I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about jazz.
I have three young kids and a great family. I love hanging out with them more than anything.
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'm always trying to find 'connections' between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable.
The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.
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.
There are some musicians who are talented and see themselves as some kind of natural geniuses or something because of a certain amount of natural ability. But that is often rarely the case over the long term.
There are musicians who go through their lives sort of shedding their skins. For me, I've always felt backward-compatible to Version 1.0.
I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.
From 1962 to 1965, the guitar became this icon of youth culture, thanks mostly to the Beatles.
