Sometimes, with vocalese, I’m dealing with something, a great solo from the past, which is so iconic I can’t presume to change it or mess with it. Kurt Elling Read Quote
The great jazz and jazz-influenced singers carry themselves with a certain panache and a certain elegance and, for lack of a better word, self-confidence. Kurt Elling Read Quote
Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown. Kurt Elling Read Quote
Listening to something without being present is different from being there in the flesh. Kurt Elling Read Quote
You can never predict what the specific shape of your life is going to be, and you won’t really know its general shape until, God willing, you’re advanced in years and you have the time and opportunity to look back in a coherent way and see what your life was about. Kurt Elling Read Quote
I’ve got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way. Kurt Elling Read Quote
I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don’t quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close. Kurt Elling Read Quote
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 Read Quote
