The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard.
...I might mention my belief that girls who like Woody Allen movies are nicer girls than girls who don't...
Woody Allen has done some excellent serious movies, too, like Crimes And Misdemeanors. Very overlooked movie, I think, and really his best. And currently I like Big Fish!
I generally sell my records online or at the show. You can undersell the distributor and the stores, and people know what they're getting cause they've just seen you live.
When I have to compete with John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Louie Armstrong on iTunes, which I'm doing now, that's a problem. That means that jazz is not being heard by younger audiences.
We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it's beautiful, not necessarily commercial.
I was able to interpret the difference between the sharp, quick sound and the slow, deep sound of percussion and manipulate it, get a third sound out of things, if the beats were rapid enough.
I was in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories in 1980. It was only a bit part and I didn't get to speak but I felt that I was in a real movie and heading where I had always wanted to be.
The act of thinking and interpreting is so central to Judaism that it makes more sense that we've become people like Woody Allen - thinkers and talkers and drafters of law.
My uncle was in a ska band called the Top Cats; that was my first proper influence, as I was taken to see them every week. It sort of built up, the want to replicate it creatively.
Jazz is more raw than punk in a lot of ways. It's so expressive. A lot of people say to me, especially older people, 'It took me ages to get into jazz.'
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.
I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.
Even the multiplex audience wants this flavour. No big-budget film can be a commercial hit until it does well both at multiplexes and single screens. 'Ghajini' and 'Dabangg' are examples.
Influence, people think about it as someone you like but influence is also what you're revolted by. In fact, often it's what you're running away from.
His name, even, is part of the marketing scheme, I mean, Thelonious Sphere Monk - how can you think of a better name to fit his style of playing?
People come from a certain generation and a certain whole way of looking at things, and you really do become a prisoner of your own world.
