I've been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I'm driving, I hear I'm a moron. I like being a moron.
Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon.
The total amount of money that Wall Street handed out in bonuses last year was double the total income of ALL full-time minimum wage workers. That's obscene.
I always leaned toward free jazz... experimental jazz and progressive jazz. I feel like jazz is just part of the flavor and palette that you have as a musician to experiment with.
To you, W. B. Yeats, good praiser, wholesome dispraiser, heavy-handed judge, open-handed helper of us all, I offer a play of my plays for every night of the week, because you like them, and because you have taught me my trade.
You know, the same percentage of people are gay and lesbian as are left-handed. Let's try to figure that out. How can it be that a left-handed person can get married to another left-handed person. Left-handed people can do anything they want. . . . I say, give homosexuals the same rights we give left-handed people.
To most people, jazz-fusion means this dreadful synthetic jazz-rock thing, this jazz-Muzak, which I detest. They also think of jazz as a specific form of music, while to me it's just the opposite.
I really like Barack Obama. I think that he's working very hard. He's trying to rebuild our reputation throughout the world. The previous administration was a total disaster, a total catastrophe. He was handed a pretty bad deck of cards. And I'm not saying I agree with everything he's doing. He's a champion. I mean, he won against all odds. When he first announced, people were giving him virtually no chance. And he's just done something that's amazing.
I don't really want to be known as just the puppet girl or just a singing ventriloquist. I want to be known as the performer, singer, ventriloquist, actress, Broadway star, all of it. I want do it all.
My Daddy was left-handed, and I was left-handed when I was little. In fact, I was left-handed all the way to high school. Then I switched over to right-handed cause I wanted to play shortstop.
I don't want to be just known for the way I dress. I want to be known for how I play, how I treat people, and how I am as a role model. I don't just want to be, 'He dresses cool' or 'He dresses crazy.' You're going to have lovers and haters. I want my golf game to be the main thing.
If I have to be considered any type of jazz artist, it would be New Orleans jazz because New Orleans jazz never forgot that jazz is dance music and jazz is fun. I'm more influenced by that style of jazz than anything else.
I just want to say we support the troops and we love every one of them. Even if they...I know a lot of my friends that are in the military that they don't agree with...Some of them are total, total liberals or this or that, whatever they are and I just want to say that we love all the troops. We don't care what they believe in, they're defending our country and we love them for that. And they're the biggest bad assses...in the world and we just want to thank you. We hope they enjoy the music and we'll keep pumping it out and just keep staying bad asses!
It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.
Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?
I want to expand jazz; I don't want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.