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've always loved jazz.

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

I say what's in my heart, and I do it in my concerts.

It seems that jazz is more cerebral and more mathematical in a sense.

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.