"This reminds me of the time I went through a big Miles Davis phase. Talk about going into different worlds with an artist – he did that every time, from Kind Of Blue and Porgy and Bess onwards, anyway. This album's still the one I return to, from 1969, and the band is phenomenal. You've got Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea on electric piano, Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone, John McLaughlin on guitar. This is truly cosmic music for me, or even music that feels like it's emerging from the cosmos. As it plays, you feel like you're coming up with the sunshine."

"I have three copies of Live Evil on vinyl because I play it so much. My favourite period of Miles Davis is from Bitches Brew to Big Fun, but in terms of the musicians on it, this is a compilation so you get almost every musician he played with in that period. Hermeto Pascoal is on it, and Airto Moreira – usually it's just one of those guys. John McLaughlin's on it, Billy Cobham my favourite drummer and Jack DeJohnette, my other favourite drummer. On the same song! Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Joe Dallin... you get all the greats of that period on one record. In terms of the Miles Davies free form jazz album, that's the one to get."

"There's at least 10 Herbie Hancock albums that would be in my top 100 of all time, I listen to a lot, but the thing I like about Crossings is how dark it is. The opening of the second song, 'Quasar'… it's one of the darkest moments in Jazz history, this horn line that sounds more like a dark planet in a sci fi movie. It's so moody, it's mysterious and sexy. Me and my girlfriend like to listen to this record when we sit and maybe get down… we like to listen to really weird shit… I notice that if we're at a party and we put on a song we'll clear the floor. Those dark, mysterious melodies really turn us on. We get off on it, maybe it's because we're damaged. I get most excited about music when it's dark and weird and sad, like I prefer Mozart's Requiem to his symphonies because it's so sad and devastating."

"I started playing flute when I was about six or seven and I transferred to saxophone when I was 14. It was mostly just playing trad jazz in the school jazz band and so I'd actually played a lot of jazz, because I was classically trained too, so I'd read a lot of jazz solos. But I hadn't really heard much modern jazz. I started listening to Miles Davis and Charlie Parker at the same time as I started listening to The Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin. I was completely obsessed with jazz for so many years. That was all I listened to. John Coltrane and Miles Davis were like my bread and butter for so long. But obviously, where there's John Coltrane, there's Wayne Shorter, there's Archie Shepp, Joe Henderson, all these other people, and the same with Miles Davis. Miles Davis I've taken such inspiration from because he's someone that says: you've got to change, you've got to adapt to survive. You can't just stay doing what you're doing, you've got to try and engage with the zeitgeist. He was unique in the jazz world really. The people that came after him, that he brought up musically, if you like - Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Weather Report, Chick Corea - obviously they were very much engaged in the music of the time but Miles was so fearless and iconic, not just as a musician but as a figure in his society. To be young, angry and black was such a unique thing. He was absolutely amazing. I've got so much respect for him."