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" 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. "

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" There are incredible musicians around the world. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" It's a lovely thing to have people in any circumstance appreciate your work. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I travel all the time. And as I go around the world, I try to learn a little something and not just take up all the available air. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The singer is always an ambassador of music. "

" You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment. "

" I haven't been afraid of John Coltrane or Miles Davis or Bill Evans or Wayne Shorter or Herbie Hancock. Why would I be afraid of the Beatles? "

" The idea is to be unrestrained by categories. "

" Man, I just feel so fortunate to be a jazz musician at all. I have a hard time thinking of it any other way. It's such a fulfilling vocation. I love it. "

" 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. "

" There's a spiritual complement to any attempt at transposing a commitment to humanity through music or art. "

" 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. "

" It must be a hellish thing to know what's possible in music, to be hearing things all the time and not have an appropriate outlet for them. "

" You don't know what bravery is until you overcome fear. "

" When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up. "

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

" 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. "

" Salacious? I suppose every once in a while the salacious thing is not a bad thing. It's kind of monochromatic if that's all you do. "

" I can't say New York's home, but I've made a lot of friends, and I'm developing a map of what cats are here and where they play, and as a singer, you're always looking for projects that tie things in emotionally and intuitively with your life. "

" I'm lucky that I enjoy touring as much as I do. I'm not going to make a living just making records. "

" I've got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way. "

" I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could. "