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" Art is a direct reflection of the life you live. What you experience comes out in your work. "

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" I come from a family of musicians. "

" I listen to music all the time, and a lot of the things I cover are the standards of my time, and they work for me. "

" I'm always inspired to push forward. "

" If a song feels good to me, it's not very difficult to make it my own. "

" Nina Simone is a musical genius and a rich and precious treasure who paid a heavy price for her artistic freedom. "

" I really enjoy going out with my jazz group. That's something that I don't ever want to stop doing. "

" Some people think that all you do is record, and it's not the case. You take on other projects as well, and you have to live a little bit because it inspires your work. "

" My musicians know all of my music, and so that makes for something different. "

" I look back at Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, and especially Betty Carter, whom I admire the most, and I say, OK, they set a standard of excellence. I listen to them not for what they are doing, but to study where they are coming from because, for me, jazz is life experience. "

" I had really great art classes. Really great art teachers. Arts played a very important role in having a place to express yourself uniquely. "

" I grew up with great mentors in my life who helped me become the singer I am today. "

" And I've found that, you know, the world of music is so vast and so broad, but at the same time, it's easy to find parts of yourself in places that you wouldn't even think that you were, you know? "

" I always have a little bit of Brazil and New Orleans in my band. "

" I've always had really wonderful people around me. But early on, I remember I would walk into a session or go do something with some musicians, and they viewed me, basically, as their chick singer. "

" I think jazz is the foundation for a lot of great musicians, and then after that, you know, it's this broad expression of things that really have influenced and addressed your life. "

" Go out into the world with your passion and love for what you do, and just never give up. "

" When I was in junior high school, I knew I really wanted to sing. "

" Early on, I started with classical voice and had that wonderful foundation. For where I wanted to go at that time, there were no teachers to teach it, so I came up with all kinds of different ways to develop the sound of my voice. "

" Now, jazz institutions are more readily available for young people, but for me, the institutions were the bands that I was in. When I worked with Clark Terry, that was the beginning of school for me, and Harry Belafonte and Sergio Mendes, they were all my universities. "

" I'm a great cook. People have asked me to do a cookbook. "

" Music is a conversation between the audience and me, and I love that about my profession. "

" I loved singing something like 'I've Got My Eye On You' when it's really about the FBI. It turns a love song into something else! "

" I always say that improvisation is the utterance of one's spirit, and it dictates your life experience, and that's how you find your concepts and your way for painting your musical picture. "

" I had aunts who played piano and sang and also were entertainers, so music was very much a part of my life. "

" I think an artist who has it in their heart to do or say something, they'll say it. It's not something that's mandatory, but it will come out. "

" My demographic is very broad. Once they come, they had an idea about jazz, and then they hear me, and they come back with sisters, brothers, and kids. My audience looks like America to me. "

" I never wanted to do anything else, really. I left home at an early age trying to find my voice, my niche in music. "

" There is a certain kind of fire that happens when you fall in love with a musician. I guess you understand one another because you're connected by a creative desire. "

" Each project that you do is something you believe in for that moment in time. "

" I came up at a time in the late '60s, early '70s where music was without boundaries. You'd go into a music store, and the music was in alphabetical order. I hadn't heard of that word 'genre.' "