The thing that is making jazz healthy today is that people are coming out of other backgrounds - from rock, folk, from ethnic music. It's changing the music, and for the better.

Jazz is America's classical music.

Steinway is the finest piano ever made. Its tone is magnificent and its well-balanced action superb.

Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it?

There is nothing healthier for a man than to walk on his own two legs

What most people don't understand about failure in innovation is that it's an investment. It's actually an investment in experience.

Football is becoming all about money. I would like to be in a lift with Gordon Brown and say, 'Please do something about football.'

I play music as much as I can. I have a band called The Abiders. We've put out a couple of albums you can find on iTunes. We tour and all that stuff, so music is very much a part of my life.

The gun of the father is always the undoing of the son.

The minimum necessary structuring ingredient of every ideology is to distance itself from another ideology, to denounce its other as ideology.

I'm always sticking up for other people.

Energy and time are finite resources; conserving them is very important.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.