“Kamau is like being at the beach, just laying in the warm sand. He made me not afraid of music. When I first started at the academy I was terrible at soloing. I was slow and unsure. I was doing classical music at the time and the only jazz musician I cared about was Bill Evans. Without Bill Evans I wouldn’t have never even considered jazz. I always wanted to play what sounded like him. But since i was just starting jazz, I didn’t quite know what vibe i wanted to bring out to the air. I didn’t know what I wanted to hear. But under kamaus tutelage, I began to let my sound flow through without worrying.”