QUOTES by Kurt Elling
Find most favourite and famour Authors from A.A Milne to Zoe Kravitz.
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
Chicago is my home. And the way Chicago sounds will always be a part of who I am.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I couldn't do what I do without the encouragement and influence of the musicians I played with in Chicago.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I'm a guy who has more slapstick than Joe Cool moments in his day, so I'm not taking myself so seriously.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I'm lucky that I enjoy touring as much as I do. I'm not going to make a living just making records.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I've worked with a number of big bands, but there's nothing in life like the Basie band.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
It's true that I'm not known as a crooner or balladeer. I'm known for a more crusading or quixotic temperament.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
If you're going to be transparent, you're going to have to let the music come that wants to come.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
Each of the CDs prior to 'Flirting With Twilight' were more like roller-coaster rides.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling