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Jazz and poetry both involve a structure that may be familiar and to some extent predictable. And then, you try to create as much surprise and spontaneity and feeling and variation while respecting that structure.

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.

This is what really makes real jazz musicians: people coming out with their own voice.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

What happens when an art form becomes ambiguous, I think, is that the standards are lowered. You can say anything is jazz. So I think it's important to reflect on what made jazz so special.

When somebody uses a word as a genre distinction, all it really does is trigger certain experiences, or music, that somebody's been exposed to. But that's an individual thing; there's no sort of universal understanding of what jazz is.

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

I feel like certain people think that certain styles of music will taint their jazz style.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.