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.
I'm a goof, man.
At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated.
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.
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.
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 think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close.
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.
When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up.
Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown.
You work very hard on the lyrics. Getting them to fit the contours of improvised melodies.
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.
I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.
The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle.
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.
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.
I'm thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.
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.
I want to be the jazz singer.
One doesn't have to scat to be a jazz singer.
