I have a bachelor's and a master's in jazz.

And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

I just lived it and did my own thing without looking over my shoulder. I think I'm very lucky, considering when I started everything, and the fact that I have a masters in music, and I've always worked in music, and that's what I wanted to do.

I'm a big believer in education, period.

With this new album, I prepared for it a long time, and I was happy with the songs and the production. I felt that I proved myself with the first album, and with this new album, I just want to share some of my music. And that was always my feeling and my intention.

It happened in Miami, in Coral Gables, a great big ol' Cuban wedding. It was pretty intense.

I grew up in a community that was bilingual. I've done it for a while, singing in both languages.

I started in high school to be interested in music and from there, I decided to study in college. Yeah, you're right, I did start late, but luckily, because of my schooling, I picked up a lot of ground pretty quick.

Well, I always wanted to be educated and be prepared.

If you write songs and if you write music that's very sincere and very honest, it's pop music, but it is pop music with a lot of honesty and a lot of heart.

I have a bachelor's and a master's in jazz.

So, when I got the contract for my album, even though it was an English record, my manager insisted on making sure we would record in Spanish as well, and it worked out really well for me.

A real active music set, based and really concentrated on what the music's all about. That's what I'm all about - singing and a really good strong music set.

Having a college degree gave me the opportunity to be... well-rounded. Also, the people I met at the university, most of them are still my colleagues now. People I've known for years are all in the industry together.

For me, I can only do that from my own experience with people I've known and things that I've lived and experienced. That's what good pop music is all about, pop music that does reach out to people. It's very personalized and very real, honest and sincere.

I might be a Cuban American, but I'm also an Afro-Cuban American.

Oh, yeah, I've always thought of covering some of my influences like Billy Joel, Elton John, Stevie Wonder.

My style is a very universal sound, which is very close to where I grew up.

For me, there's still a lot of room to grow; I'm just happy that I have so much more to give.

There's something about prime time television and the way the song is going to come off on the air. I'm very concerned, very self-conscious about that.

This record has a lot of influences that I'd love to cover, like Marvin Gaye and Earth, Wind and Fire. Maybe I'll do some covers of my major influences during my live show.

I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice, theory, humanities. And nowadays, music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more.

And for me, it's been, not only where I learned, but the people that I met there. Most of the people that I work with are guys that, one way or another, have been associated with the university.

If there was any other place I would live, other than Miami, it would be California. It's beautiful. The weather is just gorgeous, I love being here, too.

My intention when I came into this industry was to be a musician, not necessarily a recording artist, just a musician in general. And that's the reason I went to college and got my degree, which has been great for me. It's helped me a lot with my career.

There's always something about the Tonight Show that makes me a little bit anxious, nervous, excited. But it's good. It's good. It's been real good for me. It always has helped my career and Jay and all the people here have always been great.

I grew up speaking both languages, and for me that's really important.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.