I try to visit people in hospitals when I can, smiling and joking while I'm there. But when I leave, I just start crying.
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.
We asked our friends and relations to lend us their children, and, because we lived in London, children loved to come and stay for their half-term holidays.
With the advent of Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites, genuine privacy can only be found by renting a private villa for a holiday. Hotels are now out of the question for my wife and I.
I no longer have a style to maintain. I rent a little flat in Los Angeles, I don't take holidays, I don't dine out and I take cheap flights.
I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.
My family often travels to New York City during the holidays, and that's always a good time.
I miss both of my parents terribly every day, but especially as we approach Thanksgiving. We always came together as a family for that holiday, playing capture the flag and touch football and laughing a lot.
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.
There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play which is dangerously where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before.
I just got a call one day from Ringo asking me if I wanted to go out on the tour. It was as simple as that. He was putting together this band and he heard of me in the context of doing this and he gave me a call. I jumped at the chance.
When Hank Jones had his night off, I would get somebody to take my place as intermission pianist and I'd play the show with Ella, so I would get a chance to play with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as well.
My earliest attempts at writing were when I was seven. I would sit at the piano and transcribe the songs I heard on the radio. I'd change little things in the music and write different lyrics.
I thought people cared about music in a deep way, so I was writing to that spirit in people and in myself. It was me, thinking I knew what was up. Youth, who else can change the world?
I was born in London in 1919. I first went to America in 1946 for a three-month holiday. Then I came back, worked here for almost a year sold up my home and went back on immigration in 1947.
I take my mobile phone and iPad wherever I go. I like to switch off when I'm on holiday, but I always check emails in case someone at home is trying to get hold of me.
I have published in 'The New Yorker,' 'Holiday,' 'Life,' 'Mademoiselle,' 'American Heritage,' 'Horizon,' 'The Ladies Home Journal,' 'The Kenyon Review,' 'The Sewanee Review,' 'Poetry,' 'Botteghe Oscure,' the 'Atlantic Monthly,' 'Harper's.'
