Kurt Elling

“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.”

“I hope that I'm also maturing emotionally as a human being as things go on.”

“I think I make most of my decisions pretty organically.”

“Sometimes, with vocalese, I'm dealing with something, a great solo from the past, which is so iconic I can't presume to change it or mess with it.”

“Out in L.A., things relax even further than they do in Chicago. There's such a looseness to it, and there's a potentially refreshing advantage to that.”

“Music is a physical expression that has a physical impact upon the listener. Sound travels in waves through the air. This is not abstract. This is scientific fact. And it makes physical cont...”

“I'm a guy who has more slapstick than Joe Cool moments in his day, so I'm not taking myself so seriously.”

“You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment.”

“I spend upwards of 200 nights a year on the road.”