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I think I make most of my decisions pretty organically.
Kurt Elling -
Audiences have taught me how to sing better and entertain better.
Kurt Elling
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Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown.
Kurt Elling -
I hope to be at the top of my game when I'm 65 or 70. I don't want to reach my peak at 29. Not that I'm holding back anything, but there's a bunch of junk I don't know.
Kurt Elling -
You learn as much as you can from the people that you work with. That's why you want to surround yourself with the heaviest people that you can possibly get to.
Kurt Elling -
I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.
Kurt Elling -
I can't say New York's home, but I've made a lot of friends, and I'm developing a map of what cats are here and where they play, and as a singer, you're always looking for projects that tie things in emotionally and intuitively with your life.
Kurt Elling -
I remember seeing Tony Bennett on television. He was the only guy in the orchestra who was wearing a white tux, and I thought, 'That would be good. To be the only man on stage in a white jacket.'
Kurt Elling
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You don't show respect to Frank Sinatra and his great example by trying to sound exactly like him. You show it by sounding exactly like you, and that's the way jazz has always progressed as an art form.
Kurt Elling -
We all know that jazz demands a cultivation of the mind.
Kurt Elling -
I travel all the time. And as I go around the world, I try to learn a little something and not just take up all the available air.
Kurt Elling -
At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated.
Kurt Elling -
It's a lovely thing to have people in any circumstance appreciate your work.
Kurt Elling -
If you start to dwell on your pain, the amount of pain will increase.
Kurt Elling
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'Man in the Air' was an experience in exercise.
Kurt Elling -
With a smaller setting, you have a lot more freedom and flexibility within a given moment, but not necessarily the velocity you have with a big band.
Kurt Elling -
I really thought I was gonna have a straight gig. But these jazz musicians put their arms around me time and again and said, 'Hey, young fella, you're one of us. Come with us.' That's a big deal when you're young and looking for your way in the world.
Kurt Elling -
I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could.
Kurt Elling -
My intellect was quickened at divinity school, and my abilities to discern were strengthened, and that's always valuable.
Kurt Elling -
I don't really have a more intellectualized approach. After the fact, I can sure talk about stuff a lot - but when I make decisions, I really just follow what sounds good to me.
Kurt Elling
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That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think.
Kurt Elling -
It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect.
Kurt Elling -
People just want to dig; they want to dance. They don't want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting 'out there,' but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical.
Kurt Elling -
I'm a guy who has more slapstick than Joe Cool moments in his day, so I'm not taking myself so seriously.
Kurt Elling