Herb Wong was an incredible man. We met when I was performing with Clark Terry at the Wichita Jazz Festival around 1974.

I love being with artists because I'm always open to getting into something.

I come from a family of storytellers. My grandmother was great at telling stories, and my mother was an amazing storyteller.

Jazz onstage is a very intimate exchange between everybody that's onstage.

I didn't learn the word 'genre' until way, way late - I mean, like, in the '80s.

When I sing a song, I want someone to recognize 'Now that's Dianne singing that song.'

The biggest thing is to just keep your voice in shape so that when the emotion hits, it's there to have the colors to paint those pictures with the lyrics as well as the sound.

One of the things that I love about Sarah Vaughan is that she was always very current.

I believe that music should really be without boundaries.

I'm a great cook. People have asked me to do a cookbook.

I always say that improvisation is the utterance of one's spirit, and it dictates your life experience, and that's how you find your concepts and your way for painting your musical picture.

Singers like Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar are very conscious of what's going on around them, and they're waking up lot of young people with that knowledge. They bring their enlightenment to the world; the world that is buying their records.

Too many people judge a singer like Beyonce by what they see on the surface. Knowing the musicians she's worked with and how she works, I have a lot of respect for her.

I've always liked a lot of different kinds of music.

I don't like a lot of monitors on stage. I like the real raw sound of the open piano.

I really enjoy going out with my jazz group. That's something that I don't ever want to stop doing.

The way I look at it, people pay me to travel. Once we get to the stage, that part is easy.

I like coming home and sharing things I've tasted or seen.

I knew what the story behind 'Dreams' was. It was about Stevie Knicks' relationship. But when I sing it, it's about sharing some sage advice with somebody.

The music industry is changing. You only hear a sprinkling of big names, but there are a lot of really wonderful young musicians with great voices and lyrical content who have refined their sound. They're up in here, so don't think they're not. There's this wealth of talent below the surface that's ready to explode.

Some people think that all you do is record, and it's not the case. You take on other projects as well, and you have to live a little bit because it inspires your work.

I had really great art classes. Really great art teachers. Arts played a very important role in having a place to express yourself uniquely.

Each project that you do is something you believe in for that moment in time.

I came up at a time in the late '60s, early '70s where music was without boundaries. You'd go into a music store, and the music was in alphabetical order. I hadn't heard of that word 'genre.'