I sang do-wop on the street corner before it was called do-wop.

I came here with something in me that I inherited from my folks. So I'm going to do something called life and times.

I did a concert at five years old in the garden of one of the church members, and we raised some money to buy a new piano in our little church.

Once you discover that you can, then you must. And it's not easy. You have to take direct steps. You really have to count your blessings and you have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the blues.

Jazz brought this sense of democracy where four guys come together and your name may be on the marquee, but in this moment, when you're the soloist, it's you, and we follow you. We follow you.

I discovered is that I have a couple of valves that were leaky and had been giving, gave me a problem then. But I hadn't noticed anything up until then.A couple of incidents of shortness of breath and checked myself into a hospital, but that one in France really sat me down for a few minutes - a very few minutes, because seven days later I was in the studio, and eight days later, I was no the stage.

I kind of knew something was going on, and my older brothers and sisters were singing be-boppish kinds of stuff in the living room, and I was listening. I started singing, warmer than a summer night, at seven or eight years old.