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" Making a record and being a touring artist is about cooperation between spirit, craft, emotion, and focus. "

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" I am more prolific when I have something to respond to. I get my juice from people and real stories and things that seem common but are amazing. "

" I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation - that constant conversation and tension - I've always wanted in every genre and song that I perform. "

" I come from a family that has grown their own food from well into times of slavery, provided for themselves and people around them. So I found, through conversations about the earth and about the house with my neighbors, a lot of common ground. "

" As a southern woman, we often define ourselves by who we are with. But I wanted my life to be built differently. "

" 'Salt' is like this snapshot in midair, an action shot. It's about my relationship with the church, the classical and choral music that I dealt with in school, and my new introduction to jazz. It's very hard for me to listen to from beginning to end, because I hear how lost I was. "

" I think living in a way that's close to nature makes you feel like that - makes you feel how thin the veil is between life and death. "

" I love songs that create moments that are very personal and that tell a story. "

" I'm in love with the way that Ella Fitzgerald delivered a lyric. She would deliver a lyric with the kind of clarity that would make you wonder why it was written, and make you think about the writer. I think every writer hopes an Ella of any genre or anytime gets a hold of their work and works the song like that. "

" The truth is, when you want a great show, it's not 'entertaining' the audience - it's you sharing with them... an experience of communion. "

" Where I come from, music is not a business. Sharing music is a business, but music is not a business. It comes from the people and belongs to the people. "

" Everyone I perform and tour with looks out for each other; we ensure we stay healthy. "

" At 16, I was going to church and playing music for church, and Dad would only pay for piano lessons so I could play at church. "

" Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience. "

" The church is an institution of music and of production and performance, and it has to do with taking people to places inside of themselves and giving them an opportunity to sit deep in their own feelings, and to be together and deeply alone at the same time, and to process things. "

" I've begun to realize, as I'm getting older, that I was taught to go for a certain kind of stillness to get things done. I missed that in my life. I loved my grandmother's property, out in South Georgia right above the Florida line, so I just thought I'd find some property where I could feel that again. "

" We had no television, and I only heard the radio when my parents went out to a Bible study group. They liked a quiet, meditative house. "

" Singing in church is a very different approach to music. It's very much about transcending the idea of self. It's about finding something greater that connects all of us. Gospel music is about tapping into that. "

" I studied opera for a year at Georgia State University, but I wasn't interested in that meticulous, technical approach to music. So I left school and went back to jazz. "

" It's very hard for me to place myself alongside another artist. Everyone has something unique to express. "

" There's a beautiful, kind of seductive trap in being autobiographical in our writing of songs: We just get stuck in our own syrup, and it's so personal that it almost can be embarrassing to the listener. "

" I think, as singers and performers, we are ambassadors of the human experience. I don't want to get bored just talking about myself. "

" Music is primal: when it's done without pretension, you can really feel the shape of someone's soul. "

" The whole musical institution of the church involves a lot of different styles of communication at the same time. Things like call and response. Sometimes they use the music to pray and work things out. And there's so much repetition in gospel, it's like churning butter. "

" There's a lot of pressure that comes from the mainstream stuff, and already people who have been saying - people who don't know any better - have been saying things to me like, 'You should really think about neosoul. You'd definitely be more successful in that.' But that's not my expression. "

" Life is good. It might not go the way we plan it, but that's fine. We just do what we can. "

" Jazz has provided the framework for all the other stuff that I've done. "

" I come from a lineage of ministers. "

" Whoever is playing with me, they participate in the arrangement; I learned from Craig Street to really pool the stories and the skill and the voices of everybody around you on the bandstand to build an arrangement in the moment. "

" I'm a real Otis Redding fan, and I just think he sounds so good. He sounds like he's always at the end of a long day, and he just won't give up. I just love his wearied devotion - that beautiful, beautiful, weathered sound. "

" I'm so grateful for just the inherent mercy of life. "