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.

You work very hard on the lyrics. Getting them to fit the contours of improvised melodies.

I'm thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.

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.

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.

I spend upwards of 200 nights a year on the road.

The idea is to be unrestrained by categories.

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.

I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.

As improvisers, we're acting as composers in front of people.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study?

Each of the CDs prior to 'Flirting With Twilight' were more like roller-coaster rides.

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.

The singer is always an ambassador of music.

I want to be the jazz singer.

People want to have access to jazz because it has a vibe that's very strong.

I don't want to take it easy.

If you're going to be transparent, you're going to have to let the music come that wants to come.

I know how hard it's been for me to get my thing out there.

A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of.

I was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about.

My goal is to be really incredible by the time I'm 70.

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.

It's true that I'm not known as a crooner or balladeer. I'm known for a more crusading or quixotic temperament.

There's a wide spectrum of possibilities in how to deliver a song.

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.

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.

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.

My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of.

At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated.

If I was going to sell out, I would do it for more than 10,000 records.

I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could.

I've worked with a number of big bands, but there's nothing in life like the Basie band.

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.

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.

I think I make most of my decisions pretty organically.

I'm lucky that I enjoy touring as much as I do. I'm not going to make a living just making records.

It's pretty rare in jazz to have a full-on steady band.

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.

I'm a goof, man.

I'm a guy who has more slapstick than Joe Cool moments in his day, so I'm not taking myself so seriously.

I couldn't do what I do without the encouragement and influence of the musicians I played with in Chicago.

Chicago is my home. And the way Chicago sounds will always be a part of who I am.

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.

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.