Jazz is not background music.
Music should be an elective experience. You should go, "I'm going to sit down and listen to some Beethoven, by God," and then you get to hear it.
Music is everything that one listens to with the intention of listening to music.
There's a Slow Food movement. I think I'm part of the Slow Music movement.
Whether you're with a group of people, whether you're playing music or whether you're by yourself, even if it's written material, you have to be listening.
Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.
Sometimes people think it's what you say when you're in a huge group that makes you a leader. But sometimes it's the one-on-one conversations you have with guys individually, just getting to know them. I think I've done that a lot. Not intentionally - it just happens.
I want to listen with an open mind, but I don't want to listen with an empty mind.
It's true that interacting through text means no eyelines, no facial expressions, no tone of voice. That can be an advantage, helping us to consider content rather than eloquence, import rather than source.
I don't want it to be all that self-conscious or artificial, but it really grows out of my having invented myself as a listener so that I could hear her voice.
