The idea is to be unrestrained by categories.
— Kurt Elling
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.
You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment.
My goal is to be really incredible by the time I'm 70.
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.
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.
A lot of the commercial world wants to bank in on the cachet that jazz brings.
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.
Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study?
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 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.
It's a lovely thing to have people in any circumstance appreciate your work.
You don't want to make records so you can win a Grammy. You make records because you want to be a musician.
I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.
I hope that I'm also maturing emotionally as a human being as things go on.
That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think.
'Man in the Air' was an experience in exercise.
It's true that I'm not known as a crooner or balladeer. I'm known for a more crusading or quixotic temperament.
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 was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about.
I know how hard it's been for me to get my thing out there.
I don't want to take it easy.
I want to be the jazz singer.
My intellect was quickened at divinity school, and my abilities to discern were strengthened, and that's always valuable.
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.
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.
We live in a society where it's cool to be criminal.
There's a spiritual complement to any attempt at transposing a commitment to humanity through music or art.
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.
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.
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?
I've got more low notes than I had when I started.
There's a wide spectrum of possibilities in how to deliver a song.
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.
When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up.
A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of.
If you're going to be transparent, you're going to have to let the music come that wants to come.
People want to have access to jazz because it has a vibe that's very strong.
The singer is always an ambassador of music.
Each of the CDs prior to 'Flirting With Twilight' were more like roller-coaster rides.
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.
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.
You work very hard on the lyrics. Getting them to fit the contours of improvised melodies.
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.
As improvisers, we're acting as composers in front of people.
The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle.
I listened to a lot of King Crimson back in the day.
You don't know what bravery is until you overcome fear.
