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

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

" I feel proud of my journey. I wouldn't change it. "

" My mother was really amazing and left me with a whole lot of treasures. I miss her terribly. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I have one closet that's just shoes. The woman go, 'Amen,' and the men go, 'Oh my God.' It's color-coordinated from the ceiling to the floor, from evening to casual. "

" 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 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. "

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

" The thing that I tell young people is everybody is unique in their approach to the music, and you have to protect that. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The music we do is weaved together through stories and life experiences. When people come to hear us, I hope they are are uplifted and that we give them a lot to take home. "

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

" The biggest thing is, when I was coming up, the thing that made you wonderful was your uniqueness. People celebrated that. "

" I don't like a lot of monitors on stage. I like the real raw sound of the open piano. "

" 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. "

" One of the things that I love about Sarah Vaughan is that she was always very current. "

" I did a project called 'Sing The Truth,' which was a lot of fun. It started out being a celebration of the music of Nina Simone, and it was me and Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo. "

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

" I think that when I started singing, I didn't know what I wanted to do; I only knew what I didn't want to do. "

" My musical selections are a reflection of how I grew up. Because, back then, you could see Miles Davis and Ravi Shankar on the same stage. And nobody thought anything of it, other than the fact that it was great music. "

" I think the only way for you to grow and evolve is to keep listening, keep moving forward, keep jumping in and trying to experience. "

" 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 didn't learn the word 'genre' until way, way late - I mean, like, in the '80s. "

" 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. "

" My life has been going in ways I never could have dreamed of - doing the closing celebration for the Olympic Games and being appointed the creative chair for jazz at the L.A. Philharmonic. So I've just decided I'll go with my flow and be very prepared. "