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

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" It's pretty rare in jazz to have a full-on steady band. "

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

" The singer is always an ambassador of music. "

" 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. "

" You don't know what bravery is until you overcome fear. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" While I revel in the memories of my own Grammy moment, I also know how it feels to walk away empty-handed. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated. "

Graduate School

" 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. "

" I spend upwards of 200 nights a year on the road. "

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

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

" 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? "

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

" It's true that I'm not known as a crooner or balladeer. I'm known for a more crusading or quixotic temperament. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment. "

" The idea is to be unrestrained by categories. "