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" 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. "

Kurt Elling

Life

You

Work

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

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

" Chicago is my home. And the way Chicago sounds will always be a part of who I am. "

" Every record is a gate of a certain kind for me. "

" People just want to dig; they want to dance. They don't want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting 'out there,' but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical. "

" My goal is to be really incredible by the time I'm 70. "

" 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. "

" I've tried to educate myself in the world and what's beautiful and what has meaning and is lasting. Then I just follow my intuition and see how it fits. "

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

" 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. "

" I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could. "

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

" If you start to dwell on your pain, the amount of pain will increase. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Kurt Elling

Decisions

I Can

" 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. "

" There are incredible musicians around the world. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves. "

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

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