Oh my gosh, I love Jon Hendricks.

Jazz was home. It created a hunger within me.

I feel proud of my journey. I wouldn't change it.

I've always liked a lot of different kinds of music.

I've always respected and taken care of my instrument.

I'm a great cook. People have asked me to do a cookbook.

I believe that music should really be without boundaries.

I like coming home and sharing things I've tasted or seen.

There's a bridge to tomorrow, There's a bridge to the past.

My mother was actually born in Toledo and raised in Detroit.

My foundation is jazz. I do all the things jazz musicians do.

I always have a little bit of Brazil and New Orleans in my band.

When I was in junior high school, I knew I really wanted to sing.

You can't get to no better days Unless you make it through the night

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

Even in a world with much sadness, at its essence, life is beautiful.

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

I particularly like Hershey's chocolate, the kind which has almonds in it.

Don't think because there's a ring on your finger, you needn't try anymore.

Because I'm shy and a bit quiet, I think people assume I'm an elegant person.

I love to create something new every night onstage; that makes a big difference.

I grew up with great mentors in my life who helped me become the singer I am today.

Jazz musicians have always tended to have cult followings, which is pretty wonderful.

I don't like a lot of monitors on stage. I like the real raw sound of the open piano.

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

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

Music is a conversation between the audience and me, and I love that about my profession.

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

I lived in Los Angeles for a long time, and in a lot of ways, I felt like I lived in my car.

Art and culture and all of these things - they really matter. They shape your individuality.

Art is a direct reflection of the life you live. What you experience comes out in your work.

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

I'm a chameleon. When you put me in certain soils, musically speaking, I will be in that place.

Jazz musicians have always taken the standards of their time and performed them with a jazz sensibility.

I had aunts who played piano and sang and also were entertainers, so music was very much a part of my life.

When I worked with my uncle, I loved the fact that jazz music demanded that you use your own unique approach.

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

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

Nina Simone is a musical genius and a rich and precious treasure who paid a heavy price for her artistic freedom.

I never wanted to do anything else, really. I left home at an early age trying to find my voice, my niche in music.

I listen to music all the time, and a lot of the things I cover are the standards of my time, and they work for me.

Herb Wong was an incredible man. We met when I was performing with Clark Terry at the Wichita Jazz Festival around 1974.

The first thing to remember: There's no substitute for cold steel. They do not like it up 'em, they DON'T LIKE IT UP 'EM

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

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

My records are one thing. My live performances are something totally different because they're very improvised performances.

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

Jazz is such a living art form. It happens right in the moment. You weave a story by changing certain elements and components.

When people say to me, 'What do you think of rap music?', my answer is, 'There's no such thing. There's rap, and there's music.'

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!

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