The one thing I've learned, getting out to all those foreign and domestic locales, is that people in every country of the 'civilized' world wish - either secretly or openly - that they had the expressiveness, the flair, the I'm-so-glad-to-be-me spirit that black folks have made a part of American life.
I think my knowledge of music theory is rooted in jazz theory and a lot of the writers of standards - Rodgers and Hart and Gershwin.
I totally related to Cole Porter's magnetic pull to any piano that was in the room which he was famous for doing as was Gershwin. You couldn't drag them away from a piano.