(...) Jazz doesn't happen on a pedagogical level. It doesn't happen on a verbal level. It's a non-verbal mode of expression. So the degree that you can explain what you're doing, is the degree to which you are estranged from it, in a way. The degree from which you can tell, and be lucid to someone - about what you're playing, and what jazz is - is the degree to which you are so far away that you've lost all connection with it.

What does the piece want to say, rather than what is it I want to say? Forget about what I want to say. What I want to say is minimal. But the piece wants to speak, the music wants to say something.