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" The great jazz and jazz-influenced singers carry themselves with a certain panache and a certain elegance and, for lack of a better word, self-confidence. "

Self-Confidence

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" Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study? "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" I listened to a lot of King Crimson back in the day. "

" 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. "

" Audiences have taught me how to sing better and entertain better. "

" 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. "

" That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think. "

" We live in a society where it's cool to be criminal. "

" 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. "

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

" 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? "

" 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. "

" I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz. "

" 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

" People want to have access to jazz because it has a vibe that's very strong. "

" My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of. "

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

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

" Each of the CDs prior to 'Flirting With Twilight' were more like roller-coaster rides. "

" 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. "

" There's a wide spectrum of possibilities in how to deliver a song. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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