My philosophy is that the people around us are there doing as much work if not more work behind the scenes and they're the last people you would ever be unkind to, so I hope I'm not a diva off stage.

My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.

When I sing, the sound is a totally different range, color, all of it. It's all about the breath. You take in a breath and you make a sound.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

I haven't really been able to transfer into that extraordinarily other worldly creature, other than I hope on stage.

Perfection often creates such a flawless surface that there's no place for the audience to enter into a piece, while the idiosyncrasies of individual style are like windows into the singer's heart.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.