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" 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. "

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

" You want to be doing your best work whatever field of the arts you're in because your life's going to be over all too soon, and you have to make the most of it. "

" 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. "

" I didn't arrive on the scene until after Jaco Pastorius had passed, but 'Three Views of a Secret' is a long-time favourite of mine. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 don't want to take it easy. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle. "

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

" 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.' "

" The idea is to be unrestrained by categories. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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, with vocalese, I'm dealing with something, a great solo from the past, which is so iconic I can't presume to change it or mess with it. "

" 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. "

" We all know that jazz demands a cultivation of the mind. "

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

" I've worked with a number of big bands, but there's nothing in life like the Basie band. "

" It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect. "