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.

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.

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

I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.

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

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.