Then I came up with this crazy idea just to walk out on the stage with no band at all and just start singing whatever came to mind. I actually fought the idea for a while because it seemed almost too radical, but it became obvious what I was supposed to be doing.

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.

My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.

Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.

Part of our responsibility as parents, as adults, is to set examples for children. But we have to like children in order to be really happy fulfilled adults

I prepared five songs, I sang them, and he hired me. I started working about a month later at the piano bar.

Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.