I grew up playing in youth orchestras, so they were my most treasured memories, so to be in front of an orchestra playing my own material would be incredible.
Fame hasn't really affected me. I have a really close knit group around me, and my sister is always with me, so it's like a bit of a travelling circus.
If I'm playing a gig in London, it feels so important. The adrenaline rush here is bigger than anywhere else. I kind of like the pressure that London puts you under.
I always start with emotion. That's where I start all of my improvisations, on the piano. I always start with the mood or the feel of where I am in that moment.
'Mvula' is my married name, but for some reason my nan calls me 'McVula.' I'm not sure if it's one of those jokey Caribbean things, or whether she's just getting it wrong.
The Dalai Lama's entire being is about peace and harmony, forgiveness and self-discipline. Those are qualities to be admired. I am really looking forward to meeting His Holiness.
The funny thing is while the grown-ups in the family may indulge, we really try to offer our son Duke clean food, as all his meals are made with organic ingredients as the rest of us eat cookies straight out of the freezer.
This business switching styles can't be done honestly by one man. As soon as he can play his instrument well, he can express himself, and all his life he has only one self.
I designed a sports car, the Cizeta-Moroder, with Marcello Gandini from Lamborghini; he did the Countach, of course. The Cizeta cost $600,000, but we could bargain - if a Japanese businessman says he wants it for three, fine.
I was involved with a sports car called Cizeta-Moroder, which was the first 16-cylinder car, beautiful. I think we sold about eight cars, and then in '92 the economic crash came, and we had to close the shop.
I had a very thorough grounding in music; I'd grown up around songs. My parents listened to a lot of music. My dad was majorly into jazz, which was absolutely a big influence on me, even if it was more subconsciously as a kid.
It's a spirit that was given me and the relationships and meeting all these great people, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong; through Max I met a lot of people too. My first album was with Benny Carter.
I became a musician because I love music, and that is what has sustained me; it's not because I thought it was a great way to make a living. Music saved my life.
But, on balance, we seized the marketplace. We've got a great infrastructure. And yes it's struggling in some areas because of some external factors and some internal factors.
When music is crashing around us, when you hear the same five songs on the radio that aren't really saying much, we can always go back to great music. Great music always lives on.
As a young girl, I saw commitment in my grandmother, who helped Grandpa homestead our farm on the Kansas prairie. Somehow they outlasted the Dust Bowl, the Depression, and the tornadoes that terrorize the Great Plains.
I am a basketball junkie, and as a product of the great basketball state of Kansas, I have watched many a ball game between the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the Tar Heels.
So I'm a young boy in the 1940s growing up, seeing Ralph Bunche on a regular basis, seeing Duke Ellington on a regular basis. We know that these people are famous. They're living in the same community as we live in. They go to the same stores and sho...
There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly.
But that kind of falls in line; when you think about it, James Brown was a funk minimalist. All of those parts create a sum that's larger than than the individual parts.
So it's really hard for a horn player to comp. But I'm totally into trying to switch those paradigms around and find a little magic space where that works, and try to mine that.
