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" In New York, the drummers rush for a reason - because there's so much energy crackling through everything in that city and so many collisions at a highly accelerated rate. "
Kurt Elling
City
Reason
New
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" I spend upwards of 200 nights a year on the road. "
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" 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. "
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" Audiences have taught me how to sing better and entertain better. "
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" It's a beautiful thing to have time in the world, as a singer and as a musician, to make friends with people of the musical caliber of a Tommy Smith, an Arturo Sandoval, a Richard Galliano, a Till Broenner. "
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" 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.' "
Kurt Elling
Remember
Good
Television
" Out in L.A., things relax even further than they do in Chicago. There's such a looseness to it, and there's a potentially refreshing advantage to that. "
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Things
Refreshing
Relax
" Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves. "
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Know
Define
Too Much
" 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. "
Kurt Elling
Musicians
Music
Risks
" I've tried to educate myself in the world and what's beautiful and what has meaning and is lasting. Then I just follow my intuition and see how it fits. "
Kurt Elling
Beautiful
Meaning
Myself
" My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of. "
Kurt Elling
Know
Strength
Audience
" We live in a society where it's cool to be criminal. "
Kurt Elling
Criminal
Where
Society
" At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated. "
Kurt Elling
Point
Work
Graduate School
" 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. "
Kurt Elling
I Can
Practice
Water
" The idea is to be unrestrained by categories. "
Kurt Elling
Categories
Idea
" Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study? "
Kurt Elling
Limit
Study
Why
" It's easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They're such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It's a drag, man. "
Kurt Elling
Get
Man
Tired
" You don't just let a guy drop off the earth and not come together with everybody who knew him and loved him and respected him. You try to do it the right way. "
Kurt Elling
Earth
Loved
Try
" I know how hard it's been for me to get my thing out there. "
Kurt Elling
Me
Out
Know
" It's pretty rare in jazz to have a full-on steady band. "
Kurt Elling
Band
Steady
Rare
" It's a lovely thing to have people in any circumstance appreciate your work. "
Kurt Elling
People
Your
Work
" 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. "
Kurt Elling
Jazz
Doing
Musicians
" A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of. "
Kurt Elling
Off
Fun
Something
" When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up. "
Kurt Elling
Up
Thinking
Way
" Every record is a gate of a certain kind for me. "
Kurt Elling
Every
Record
Certain
" 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. "
Kurt Elling
Space
Possibilities
Confidence
" Listening to something without being present is different from being there in the flesh. "
Kurt Elling
Listening
Without
Present
" You don't know what bravery is until you overcome fear. "
Kurt Elling
Overcome
You
Bravery
" 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. "
Kurt Elling
Singer
Gifts
Joy
" My goal is to be really incredible by the time I'm 70. "
Kurt Elling
Incredible
Goal
Really
" I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close. "
Kurt Elling
Pretty
Innovation
Jazz