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" Audiences have taught me how to sing better and entertain better. "
Kurt Elling
Sing
Me
Taught
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" It's easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They're such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It's a drag, man. "
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" Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves. "
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" It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect. "
Kurt Elling
Myself
Respect
Own
" That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think. "
Kurt Elling
Experience
Think
Art
" One doesn't have to scat to be a jazz singer. "
Kurt Elling
Jazz Singer
Singer
Jazz
" It's a beautiful thing to have time in the world, as a singer and as a musician, to make friends with people of the musical caliber of a Tommy Smith, an Arturo Sandoval, a Richard Galliano, a Till Broenner. "
Kurt Elling
World
People
Time
" There are incredible musicians around the world. "
Kurt Elling
Incredible
Musicians
World
" Romance is one of the things that most countries share, and I've noticed how different communities have their own ways of singing about love and heartbreak. "
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Own
Love
Singing
" I've got more low notes than I had when I started. "
Kurt Elling
Started
Low
Than
" My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of. "
Kurt Elling
Know
Strength
Audience
" I'd been studying philosophy at the University of Chicago. I hadn't been doing well, because I was sitting in with jazz musicians at night - it's hard to read Heidegger, but it's especially hard if you're half asleep. "
Kurt Elling
Jazz
Doing
Musicians
" I remember seeing Tony Bennett on television. He was the only guy in the orchestra who was wearing a white tux, and I thought, 'That would be good. To be the only man on stage in a white jacket.' "
Kurt Elling
Remember
Good
Television
" I've got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way. "
Kurt Elling
Mind
You
Enough
" I've tried to learn as much as I can about the great jazz singers to understand what makes them important, vital artists, but there is always something more to learn. "
Kurt Elling
Jazz
Learn
Important
" You don't show respect to Frank Sinatra and his great example by trying to sound exactly like him. You show it by sounding exactly like you, and that's the way jazz has always progressed as an art form. "
Kurt Elling
Art
Trying
Great
" Part of my joy as a singer is to give gifts to people, and one way I try to connect to them is to add something in French or German or whatever. "
Kurt Elling
Singer
Gifts
Joy
" I consider myself very fortunate. I have a beautiful wife who supports my work and is raising our daughter when I'm out on the road. "
Kurt Elling
Wife
Myself
Beautiful
" There is an actor's responsibility in presenting the emotional content of the lyrics to an audience. But whether you do that in a straightforward fashion or an ironic fashion or a blase fashion is all about opportunities, and singers are missing opportunities as artists if they don't pay attention to the lyric. "
Kurt Elling
Opportunities
Fashion
Responsibility
" I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could. "
Kurt Elling
Had
Gain
Giving
" Karl Johnson, my first piano player at Milt Trenier's, he just swung really hard and gave me a sense of really belonging to the jazz scene. "
Kurt Elling
Me
Belonging
Sense
" I don't want to take it easy. "
Kurt Elling
Take
Easy
Want
" I think my intention was there, and my love for the music was apparent. And there are very few singers who get up and desire to take the kinds of risks that jazz musicians routinely need to be taking. "
Kurt Elling
Musicians
Music
Risks
" Chicago is my home. And the way Chicago sounds will always be a part of who I am. "
Kurt Elling
Way
Will
Always
" A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of. "
Kurt Elling
Off
Fun
Something
" You don't just let a guy drop off the earth and not come together with everybody who knew him and loved him and respected him. You try to do it the right way. "
Kurt Elling
Earth
Loved
Try
" In New York, the drummers rush for a reason - because there's so much energy crackling through everything in that city and so many collisions at a highly accelerated rate. "
Kurt Elling
City
Reason
New
" I like the power and versatility of a big band and how an orchestra can vary the dynamics from very loud to very quiet, and SNJO covers those bases. "
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Like
Big
Power
" Chicago has a burly, action-oriented but still self-assured and relaxed confidence to its stride. The city has a lot of wide-open space and all the possibilities that suggests. There's a lot of horizontal grandeur here. "
Kurt Elling
Space
Possibilities
Confidence
" If I was going to sell out, I would do it for more than 10,000 records. "
Kurt Elling
More
Going
Out
" I've tried to educate myself in the world and what's beautiful and what has meaning and is lasting. Then I just follow my intuition and see how it fits. "
Kurt Elling
Beautiful
Meaning
Myself