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

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

" I like coming home and sharing things I've tasted or seen. "

" 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 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 believe that music should really be without boundaries. "

" 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'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 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.' "

" 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. "

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

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

" I love New York City because there's something to do 24/7, something that will make you see things in a whole different light. Like they say, it's the city that never sleeps. "

" My mother was actually born in Toledo and raised in Detroit. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" Lizz Wright, we call her lovingly 'Amazing Grace.' She has a folk and gospel kind of approach to the music, and she writes beautiful lyrics and songs. She's like this balm that is really full and very rich and deep. "

" I'm always inspired to push forward. "

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

" Jazz musicians have always tended to have cult followings, which is pretty wonderful. "

" 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. "

" Jazz onstage is a very intimate exchange between everybody that's onstage. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My junior high school teacher, Bennie Williams, was really more than a music teacher. She taught us poetry. She helped us put on school shows. She did all these kinds of things to help us stand in each other's shoes, and it was a really powerful time. That's when I discovered that I could sing. "