My name sounds French but that's just a stage name.

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That's how I see my voice.

I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I've done my whole life, without thought.

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.

If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.