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" Music is a conversation between the audience and me, and I love that about my profession. "

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" Art and culture and all of these things - they really matter. They shape your individuality. "

" I listen to music all the time, and a lot of the things I cover are the standards of my time, and they work for me. "

" When I was in junior high school, I knew I really wanted to sing. "

" I always have a little bit of Brazil and New Orleans in my band. "

" I think people have come to know that I am not comfortable in a box, you know, and that I love music. "

" Jazz musicians have always taken the standards of their time and performed them with a jazz sensibility. "

" Early on, I started with classical voice and had that wonderful foundation. For where I wanted to go at that time, there were no teachers to teach it, so I came up with all kinds of different ways to develop the sound of my voice. "

" My life has been going in ways I never could have dreamed of - doing the closing celebration for the Olympic Games and being appointed the creative chair for jazz at the L.A. Philharmonic. So I've just decided I'll go with my flow and be very prepared. "

" My demographic is very broad. Once they come, they had an idea about jazz, and then they hear me, and they come back with sisters, brothers, and kids. My audience looks like America to me. "

" I've always respected and taken care of my instrument. "

" Jazz onstage is a very intimate exchange between everybody that's onstage. "

" My junior high school teacher, Bennie Williams, was really more than a music teacher. She taught us poetry. She helped us put on school shows. She did all these kinds of things to help us stand in each other's shoes, and it was a really powerful time. That's when I discovered that I could sing. "

" In high school, we had a really great jazz program that I finally was able to be a part of. They only wanted instrumentalists; they didn't want any singers. But I made my way in, and I remember the conductor of the band wrote a lot of arrangements and asked me what I wanted to sing. "

" I feel proud of my journey. I wouldn't change it. "

" I have a sketch of an idea and I never really talk about: perhaps do another jazz record, but with other elements involved. "

" I come from a family of storytellers. My grandmother was great at telling stories, and my mother was an amazing storyteller. "

" Go out into the world with your passion and love for what you do, and just never give up. "

" Brazilian music has been a part of almost every record I've done, and I'd eventually like to record an entire album of Brazilian music. "

" One of the things that I love about Sarah Vaughan is that she was always very current. "

" Your voice is not your instrument. Your voice is the character that you build, your innermost feelings, the things that you want to say, and your instrument is the vehicle that you use to carry the message. "

" When I first heard Nina Simone, her naked truth shocked me. Whenever she sang, it felt like lightning bolts in my soul. Every song was like a movie, a unique and very different vignette. "

" I think an artist who has it in their heart to do or say something, they'll say it. It's not something that's mandatory, but it will come out. "

" Anything that had to do with music is what I wanted to do. "

" I never looked or really believed that music should be categorized into particular genres. "

" Lizz Wright, we call her lovingly 'Amazing Grace.' She has a folk and gospel kind of approach to the music, and she writes beautiful lyrics and songs. She's like this balm that is really full and very rich and deep. "

" The thing that I tell young people is everybody is unique in their approach to the music, and you have to protect that. "

" The biggest thing is, when I was coming up, the thing that made you wonderful was your uniqueness. People celebrated that. "

" My musicians know all of my music, and so that makes for something different. "

" Too many people judge a singer like Beyonce by what they see on the surface. Knowing the musicians she's worked with and how she works, I have a lot of respect for her. "

" I lived in Los Angeles for a long time, and in a lot of ways, I felt like I lived in my car. "