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

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" I've always respected and taken care of my instrument. "

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

" My friend Harry Belafonte is an activist and musician, an extraordinary man who has dedicated his life to human rights. He taught me the power of words and that music can be used to heal and educate people. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

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

" I had a few celebrity crushes when I was growing up, including Eddie Kendricks from the Temptations. And I loved Marvin Gaye - I thought he was everything and instantly fell for his voice. "

" I'm always inspired to push forward. "

" My mother would say, 'Stay ready so you don't have to get ready.' I spent a lot of my early years preparing for beautiful moments that have unfolded in my life so far. "

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

" I lived in Los Angeles for a long time, and in a lot of ways, I felt like I lived in my car. "

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

" Too many people judge a singer like Beyonce by what they see on the surface. Knowing the musicians she's worked with and how she works, I have a lot of respect for her. "

" I'm a chameleon. When you put me in certain soils, musically speaking, I will be in that place. "

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

" My foundation is jazz. I do all the things jazz musicians do. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In high school, we had a really great jazz program that I finally was able to be a part of. They only wanted instrumentalists; they didn't want any singers. But I made my way in, and I remember the conductor of the band wrote a lot of arrangements and asked me what I wanted to sing. "

" Anything that had to do with music is what I wanted to do. "

" Jazz musicians have always taken the standards of their time and performed them with a jazz sensibility. "

" 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. "

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

" Even in a world with much sadness, at its essence, life is beautiful. "

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

" 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. "