It's always been about making music. I've never gotten caught up with the trappings. You can't get caught up in the limousines and the chicks. The most important thing is the music.
I'm touched by rock n' roll. I'm touched by the Beatles. I want some of the music I do to reflect that.
I'm touched by Jon Hendricks. I want some of my music to reflect that. And when I write, you're going to hear it.
I'm this strange kind of fusion of jazz, pop, and R&B.
I'm saved every day by the intrinsic value of the work I do, which I truly enjoy.
I was really learning my craft as a jazz singer and working with some great players and all, really growing and feeling my wings.
There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.
I tour a lot and interview a lot. I'm on the Internet and doing stuff. I go out and promote. I've got a bass drum and a sandwich sign and a washboard. You just have to shout louder and louder that you're still alive.
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 am a distance runner, a marathoner... literally and figuratively.
I can't imagine a more ideal life.
It's a wonderful thing to have life and to look at all this creation and say thank you. I even say it on stage.
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.
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.
I am inspired by all kinds of players and singers.
I have this image in my head of me in the house I grew up in, and hearing this incredible music on the television show, going over to it, and there's Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert, and Annie Ross. It knocked me out of my socks, and I'm still in flight.
You know, I think in some kinds of ways, we are all born into stuff that gives us no choice.
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.
The band and I really enjoy working for people who enjoy the music. I haven't made a bazillion dollars doing this. I do it because I love it. I did it for free and will do it for free in the morning.
I want an audience that we might call a pop audience. Cross over to pop. Cross over to R&B. And bring those people to Brubeck and Chick Corea, you dig? A lot of people found Dave Brubeck and Chick Corea because they came to hear 'We're in This Love Together' and 'After All.'
