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.”

“You don't know what bravery is until you overcome fear.”

“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.”

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

“The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up.”

“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.”

“A lot of the commercial world wants to bank in on the cachet that jazz brings.”

“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.”

“One doesn't have to scat to be a jazz singer.”

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

“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.”

“It's a lovely thing to have people in any circumstance appreciate your work.”