That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed."

Endeavour to play easy pieces well and with elegance; that is better than to play difficult pieces badly.

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.

In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems.

As for my stuff, I'm just doing guest verses for other people's records. I try to stay recording, because if I don't, I get rusty.

For a long time I wasn't listening to music, to the rock and roll stuff on the radio, because it would cause me to get sweaty. It would bring back memories I didn't want to know about, or I would get that feeling that I'm not alive 'cause I'm not making it. And if it was good, I hated it 'cause I wasn't doing it. And if it was bad, I was furious 'cause I could've done it better.