Kurt Elling

Jazz singing is like pornography. You can’t say what it is, but you know it when you see it.

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

You only go around once and this ain’t no rehearsal.

They’re not particular about whether you’re playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

I try to teach by example and not force ideas on a young musician. We’re here to be part of a process of exchange.

I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: ‘Always on My Mind,’ the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.

As far back as I can remember, singing was in my blood. My parents loved music, and I loved to sing. I was scatting at an early age.

First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.

[moving to Las Vegas] It was sort of like a man getting married – you don’t have to go out looking for girls, you’ve got your girl with you. I could go to casinos any time I had money and wanted to, so I actually went less.

I regard singing pretty much like acting. Each song is like playing a different role. I get very involved with my material. I feel a responsibility for the emotion it brings out in the listener.

I’m believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a ‘universal musical mind.’

Music has to be accessible.

Jazz is America’s classical music.

I can’t sing it straight. I have no choice but to swing it.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

I was probably six years old when I first sang before an audience.