Quotes by Kurt Elling - Page 2

My intellect was quickened at divinity school, and my abilities to discern were strengthened, and that's always valuable.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Divinity
Intellect
Valuable
Discern
Strengthened
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It's easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They're such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It's a drag, man.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Drag
Tired
Fundamentalists
No Sense
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The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Chicago
Jazz Musician
Vocation
Calls
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Available
Time Travel World
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Favourite
Views
Arrive
Passed
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Bad Thing
Suppose
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Beautiful Wife
Work Myself Beautiful
Raising
Supports
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Belonging
Johnson
Piano Player
Swung
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Appropriate
Hellish
Outlet
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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?
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Coltrane
Miles
Wayne
Davis
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Add
German
Connect
Gifts
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Iconic
Mess
Solo
Dealing
Presume
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I like the power and versatility of a big band and how an orchestra can vary the dynamics from very loud to very quiet, and SNJO covers those bases.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Band
Bases
Dynamics
Loud
Orchestra
Quiet
Vary
Versatility
Big Band
Covers
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Flexibility
Setting
Velocity
Big Band
Smaller
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Out in L.A., things relax even further than they do in Chicago. There's such a looseness to it, and there's a potentially refreshing advantage to that.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Chicago
Refreshing
Relax
Further
Potentially
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Intuition
Lasting
Fits
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Fulfilling
Jazz Musician
Vocation
Love Time Thinking
Any Other Way
Hard Time
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Elegance
Singers
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Miles
Enough Your Mind
Belt
Enough Mind Your
Envision
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Heartbreak
Romance
Communities
Noticed
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You don't just let a guy drop off the earth and not come together with everybody who knew him and loved him and respected him. You try to do it the right way.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Right Way
Drop
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Surround
Surround Yourself
Work Yourself People
Heaviest
Possibly
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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 / Vocalist
Best Work
Life Best Work
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I've tried to learn as much as I can about the great jazz singers to understand what makes them important, vital artists, but there is always something more to learn.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Singers
Vital
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I hope to be at the top of my game when I'm 65 or 70. I don't want to reach my peak at 29. Not that I'm holding back anything, but there's a bunch of junk I don't know.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Bunch
Junk
Holding
Peak
Reach
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Communicate
Music Way Know
Define
Directly
Selves
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Grammy nominations are certainly pleasant, but you can forget about them and lead a perfectly happy life - provided you have the approval of the musicians you work with.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Approval
Grammy
Happy Life
Pleasant
Perfectly
Provided
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I'm one of the culprits who keeps turning stuff around, shaking up original tunes and trying to stand the canon on its ear. But sometimes, you just need to sing the song.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Canon
Shaking
Tunes
Ear
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Accelerate
Rate
City Energy New
Drummers
Rush
So Much Energy
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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.'
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Orchestra
Bennett
Jacket
Tony
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Intention
Singers
Apparent
Jazz Musicians
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Frank
Art Form
Great Example
Sinatra
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Caliber
Beautiful Thing
Time Beautiful World
Till
Smith
Tommy
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Chicago
Asleep
Jazz Musicians
Musicians
Studying
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Chicago
Grandeur
Horizontal
Relaxed
Stride
Possibilities
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Communication
Levels
Philosophical
Work Night People
Dig
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Developing
Projects
Life Home Always
Cats
Emotionally
Singer
Intuitively
Map
Tie
York
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I really thought I was gonna have a straight gig. But these jazz musicians put their arms around me time and again and said, 'Hey, young fella, you're one of us. Come with us.' That's a big deal when you're young and looking for your way in the world.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Arms
Big Deal
Hey
Time World Me
Time World Your
Fella
Gig
Jazz Musicians
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Life Time God
Predict
Advanced
Life God Time
Coherent
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Abstract
Contact
Listener
Scientific
Scientific Fact
Travels
Waves
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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.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Arrangements
Jazz
Settings
Respect Myself Me
Audiences
Languages
Cultures
Helps
Oftentimes
Reflect
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There is an actor's responsibility in presenting the emotional content of the lyrics to an audience. But whether you do that in a straightforward fashion or an ironic fashion or a blase fashion is all about opportunities, and singers are missing opportunities as artists if they don't pay attention to the lyric.
Kurt Elling / Vocalist
Ironic
Missing
Pay Attention
Presenting
Singers
Straightforward
Lyric
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Kurt Elling Quotes - Page 2

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