You said somewhere that the upright bass liberated you. In what way did it, as opposed to the violin, which, I believe, was your first love?

The way that I’ve always engaged in music was more on the lines of a jazz musician than a classical musician. And I didn’t know that until I played the bass. It’s like spending the first ten years of your musical life trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and then when I picked up the bass and started studying that music, and playing that music, was like that’s what I wanted to do all these years — to take a basic musical concept and be able to unpackage it in the moment.

The bass just invited me to use all the aspects of myself as a musician and when you finally connect with yourself like that, I thought I could be myself. Could I dare say that you injected glam into jazz … made it look sexy?

Well, that’s disputable. It depends on who you ask. I think of something Duke Ellington said: ‘When you’re dealing with highly creative music there’s always going to be a very small percentage of people who like it’. This is the way it is. Whether it’s dance, painting or theatre when you’re dealing with creative, experimental art it’s always going to appeal to a smaller percentage of music consumers. And that’s OK, because there’s always going to be individuals who like creative music. The same applies to me when I’m not considered a sexy person anymore, or ‘glamorous icon’ and all that’s left is the audience who actually dig what I’m doing creatively, maybe my public will dwindle but they will never go away. There will always be people who really, really appreciate creative, ex-