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" 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. "

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" The biggest thing is to just keep your voice in shape so that when the emotion hits, it's there to have the colors to paint those pictures with the lyrics as well as the sound. "

Dianne Reeves

Pictures

Colors

Voice

" My friend Harry Belafonte is an activist and musician, an extraordinary man who has dedicated his life to human rights. He taught me the power of words and that music can be used to heal and educate people. "

" Oh my gosh, I love Jon Hendricks. "

Dianne Reeves

Gosh

I Love

" I had a few celebrity crushes when I was growing up, including Eddie Kendricks from the Temptations. And I loved Marvin Gaye - I thought he was everything and instantly fell for his voice. "

Dianne Reeves

Loved

Thought

" I really enjoy going out with my jazz group. That's something that I don't ever want to stop doing. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

Dianne Reeves

You

People

" I love being with artists because I'm always open to getting into something. "

" My mother would say, 'Stay ready so you don't have to get ready.' I spent a lot of my early years preparing for beautiful moments that have unfolded in my life so far. "

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

" I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things. "

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

" I didn't learn the word 'genre' until way, way late - I mean, like, in the '80s. "

" I loved singing something like 'I've Got My Eye On You' when it's really about the FBI. It turns a love song into something else! "

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

" 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. "

" I believe that music should really be without boundaries. "

" I think that when I started singing, I didn't know what I wanted to do; I only knew what I didn't want to do. "

" My mother was really amazing and left me with a whole lot of treasures. I miss her terribly. "

Dianne Reeves

Mother

Amazing

" I remember my grandmother used to always say, 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket.' But when I realized that music was inside of me, I decided I'm putting all my eggs in one basket. "

Dianne Reeves

Say

Grandmother

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

" Each project that you do is something you believe in for that moment in time. "

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

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

" I did a project called 'Sing The Truth,' which was a lot of fun. It started out being a celebration of the music of Nina Simone, and it was me and Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo. "

" When I moved to Los Angeles, right away I met all kinds of musicians. "

" The Confederate flag is a divisive presence - it's the opposite of everything my artistry means and represents. "

" I always say that improvisation is the utterance of one's spirit, and it dictates your life experience, and that's how you find your concepts and your way for painting your musical picture. "