QUOTES by Kurt Elling
Find most favourite and famour Authors from A.A Milne to Zoe Kravitz.
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
Listening to something without being present is different from being there in the flesh.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
You don't want to make records so you can win a Grammy. You make records because you want to be a musician.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
Salacious? I suppose every once in a while the salacious thing is not a bad thing. It's kind of monochromatic if that's all you do.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I've got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
My intellect was quickened at divinity school, and my abilities to discern were strengthened, and that's always valuable.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
While I revel in the memories of my own Grammy moment, I also know how it feels to walk away empty-handed.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
The great jazz and jazz-influenced singers carry themselves with a certain panache and a certain elegance and, for lack of a better word, self-confidence.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
You can never predict what the specific shape of your life is going to be, and you won't really know its general shape until, God willing, you're advanced in years and you have the time and opportunity to look back in a coherent way and see what your life was about.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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?
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I don't really have a more intellectualized approach. After the fact, I can sure talk about stuff a lot - but when I make decisions, I really just follow what sounds good to me.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
A lot of the commercial world wants to bank in on the cachet that jazz brings.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I've tried to educate myself in the world and what's beautiful and what has meaning and is lasting. Then I just follow my intuition and see how it fits.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I hope to be at the top of my game when I'm 65 or 70. I don't want to reach my peak at 29. Not that I'm holding back anything, but there's a bunch of junk I don't know.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I remember seeing Tony Bennett on television. He was the only guy in the orchestra who was wearing a white tux, and I thought, 'That would be good. To be the only man on stage in a white jacket.'
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
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.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
Karl Johnson, my first piano player at Milt Trenier's, he just swung really hard and gave me a sense of really belonging to the jazz scene.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I like the power and versatility of a big band and how an orchestra can vary the dynamics from very loud to very quiet, and SNJO covers those bases.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
People just want to dig; they want to dance. They don't want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting 'out there,' but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical.
Quote by -Kurt Elling
I consider myself very fortunate. I have a beautiful wife who supports my work and is raising our daughter when I'm out on the road.
Quote by -Kurt Elling