Jazz is a state of mind. There's no boundaries.
When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.
There is a modern take on certain things you can do that, to me, is still jazz.
I'm not really married to the craft of jazz - I'm married to me, and my style, and whatever I produce.
If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.
For the most part, 99 percent of jazz is boring; you've heard it before. People aren't doing anything creative that's extremely modern. They tend to always be like "Let's do a tribute to Miles Davis!" All the new albums are tributes to history. It becomes too much at a certain point, it leaves us waving like "Hello? I'm alive, I'm here!" You know? So I really do feel like it needs some spice, it needs to be relevant to today's times, today's people, today's sound.
Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.
