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" I grew up listening to all kinds of music. When I came up, you would hear people like Marvin Gaye talking about Sarah Vaughan. You would go to a show and see Ella Fitzgerald performing the music of the Beatles. "

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" People think jazz music is all standards and the Great American Songbook. But it's really about the sensibility, the feel you bring to the music. "

Dianne Reeves

Great

People

Think

" 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. "

" 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. "

Dianne Reeves

Jazz

Looks

" 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! "

" When I first heard Nina Simone, her naked truth shocked me. Whenever she sang, it felt like lightning bolts in my soul. Every song was like a movie, a unique and very different vignette. "

" Herb Wong was an incredible man. We met when I was performing with Clark Terry at the Wichita Jazz Festival around 1974. "

" I've dated a few musicians in my life, and it's kind of always been that way for me. You unite through creativity and share that process and more together. "

" I come from a family of storytellers. My grandmother was great at telling stories, and my mother was an amazing storyteller. "

" 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. "

" In any event, I'm proud to wear the badge of jazz vocalist if that's what people want to call me; but at the same time, there are many other things I like to do. "

Dianne Reeves

Proud

People

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

" I've always liked a lot of different kinds of music. "

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

" The biggest thing is to just keep your voice in shape so that when the emotion hits, it's there to have the colors to paint those pictures with the lyrics as well as the sound. "

" Your voice is not your instrument. Your voice is the character that you build, your innermost feelings, the things that you want to say, and your instrument is the vehicle that you use to carry the message. "

" My records are one thing. My live performances are something totally different because they're very improvised performances. "

" When I found out how music made me feel and how my singing made other people feel, that's when I decided this is what I wanted to do. "

Dianne Reeves

Singing

Feel

" The music industry is changing. You only hear a sprinkling of big names, but there are a lot of really wonderful young musicians with great voices and lyrical content who have refined their sound. They're up in here, so don't think they're not. There's this wealth of talent below the surface that's ready to explode. "

" It's funny: I look at songs, and I guess they each tell a story, and the different songs talk about different things. But they're unified by the rhythm underneath and the way that we decided to arrange and play them. "

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

" I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things. "

" I believe that music should really be without boundaries. "

" Jazz is such a living art form. It happens right in the moment. You weave a story by changing certain elements and components. "

" Brazilian music has been a part of almost every record I've done, and I'd eventually like to record an entire album of Brazilian music. "

" I never looked or really believed that music should be categorized into particular genres. "

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

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

" 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. "

" Art and culture and all of these things - they really matter. They shape your individuality. "