Al Jarreau

“I can't imagine a more ideal life.”

“That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.”

“My mother and father come from that post-Depression, middle-of-World-War -I kind of thinking that says, 'Find a practical job. You know what I mean, Mr. Big Shot? So, you can sing a song ...'”

“I work 'cause I have to pay the bills. But I also work 'cause I love it. I don't know what I'd do with me if I didn't have this work. It's what I've done all my life. It's my motivation. It's my satisfaction. It's my joy to stand in front of an audience to sing, to come back home and write songs. Man, it's amazing for me.”

“The work must be its own reward. I got that early on. And I'm blessed by meeting my own standards of excellence.”

“The Metropole Orchestra is like Count Basie or Duke Ellington with strings... it's strings that swing. Strings that swing like Dizzy Gillespie... keep swinging, baby. And when you have all of that special excellence of the Metropole Orchestra, then your music just flies - it soars in a way that's really magical.”

“Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand that with my R&B roots, I am more than a jazz singer. So I get pigeonholed.”

“I'm really looking forward to it because it will give me the opportunity to do the whole other kind of approach to the music live that I haven't had a chance to do. and I think is important for me to do.”

“I don't know where we got the notion that God wants us to suffer. Every living thing tends toward the good or we would have been gone a long time ago.”

“I am a distance runner, a marathoner... literally and figuratively.”

“It is a very serious consideration for a lyricist to step in there and suggest the meaning to a song. The music is speaking for itself.”

“Before I get out of bed, I am saying thank you. I know how important it is to be thankful.”

“You pray for things and accept the blessings when they come, you know? And it is about how you talk to yourself and what you say morning, noon and night about what you want to happen in your life. Some folks call that creative visualization. Other people call it prayer. But it is about that message that you send out there to yourself.”

“More live recording. I have missed the boat over my career by not doing every second or third CD live because things happen onstage that don't happen in the studio.”

“I'm this strange kind of fusion of jazz, pop, and R&B.”

“When you do a lyric for 'April in Paris,' those who have heard it before can hear it in a different way now. It can add perspective to a great piece of music that does not have a lyric and may be inaccessible to lot of ears because people don't deal with complex music very well.”

“I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.”

“I tour Europe a lot. They still have a love and a fascination with the basic thing about music - how it feels and that being the focus. I've got people bringing their kids. And their kids bring their kids. The grandchildren are getting selfies with their Uncle Al.”

“Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.”

“I'm saved every day by the intrinsic value of the work I do, which I truly enjoy.”