I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.

I think you have to have a jazz pedigree to be on jazz radio.

I don't think I was considered to be a cabaret singer because I didn't have patter that was written.

I recorded my first jazz record in the '70s.

My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.

I was kind of known as a ballad singer. People would send ballads. Some of them would go over my shoulder and float off the top of my head, and I just didn't feel anything. Then I would hear a song that would absolutely shake me.

I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.