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" I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close. "

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" I try to sleep as much as I can. I drink a lot of water. I practice consistently and just try to be ready for the gig. "

" 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.' "

" The idea is to be unrestrained by categories. "

" 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. "

" I don't really have a more intellectualized approach. After the fact, I can sure talk about stuff a lot - but when I make decisions, I really just follow what sounds good to me. "

" A lot of the commercial world wants to bank in on the cachet that jazz brings. "

" You want to be doing your best work whatever field of the arts you're in because your life's going to be over all too soon, and you have to make the most of it. "

" There are incredible musicians around the world. "

" Music is a physical expression that has a physical impact upon the listener. Sound travels in waves through the air. This is not abstract. This is scientific fact. And it makes physical contact with the eardrum... and with the heart... and with the rest of the body. "

" I'm one of the culprits who keeps turning stuff around, shaking up original tunes and trying to stand the canon on its ear. But sometimes, you just need to sing the song. "

" 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. "

" I didn't arrive on the scene until after Jaco Pastorius had passed, but 'Three Views of a Secret' is a long-time favourite of mine. "

" I'm a guy who has more slapstick than Joe Cool moments in his day, so I'm not taking myself so seriously. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You can never predict what the specific shape of your life is going to be, and you won't really know its general shape until, God willing, you're advanced in years and you have the time and opportunity to look back in a coherent way and see what your life was about. "

" 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. "

" While I revel in the memories of my own Grammy moment, I also know how it feels to walk away empty-handed. "

" 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. "

" I try to stick with things that I can sing with honesty. "

" You don't want to make records so you can win a Grammy. You make records because you want to be a musician. "

" I've worked with a number of big bands, but there's nothing in life like the Basie band. "

" The great jazz and jazz-influenced singers carry themselves with a certain panache and a certain elegance and, for lack of a better word, self-confidence. "

Self-Confidence

" With a smaller setting, you have a lot more freedom and flexibility within a given moment, but not necessarily the velocity you have with a big band. "

" 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. "

" Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown. "

" I'm a goof, man. "