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" 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. "

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" 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. "

" 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'm a goof, man. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You learn as much as you can from the people that you work with. That's why you want to surround yourself with the heaviest people that you can possibly get to. "

Surround Yourself

" Romance is one of the things that most countries share, and I've noticed how different communities have their own ways of singing about love and heartbreak. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" As improvisers, we're acting as composers in front of people. "

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

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

" I couldn't do what I do without the encouragement and influence of the musicians I played with in Chicago. "

" Every record is a gate of a certain kind for me. "

" My intellect was quickened at divinity school, and my abilities to discern were strengthened, and that's always valuable. "

" 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 people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of. "

" I've got more low notes than I had when I started. "

" I know how hard it's been for me to get my thing out there. "

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

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

" If you're going to be transparent, you're going to have to let the music come that wants to come. "

" 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. "

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

" If I was going to sell out, I would do it for more than 10,000 records. "

" 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. "

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