Jazz is not the format where I want to stay, but it really is a starting point for me.

They look at what's more important, like subjects to help with the SAT's, etc. They miss that music is vital. It offers a break from a stressful day of science and math and it's different.

And it's not a finger-pointing issue to me; I take as much responsibility as I can. It was more just me not really knowing what I wanted to do and how to get it done.

Success is like a high-rise building I'm on the first floor. There are a lot of people in the basement or the parking lot but I was lucky enough to have made it to the first floor and I'm looking to make it to the penthouse.

Directly after the show people might have responded better to it, but who really knows. It did what it did and while it seems like a failure to most but it was a success for me and has given me so many opportunities.

For the second album I look forward to doing a lot of serious collaboration and taking the experiences I've had over this last year, good and bad, and working it into the album.

I'm very new to the industry. I'm not on the Billboard 200 and that is alarming to me. But when I sat down with my management they said it's not a big deal and that it happens all the time.

I am very conscious of what I say and do when I go out because the media is quick to make that a story.

Even though other people wrote my songs I put my stamp on them. I have a connection, but there is no truer connection than an artists and their own song.

I would love to be like a Brian McKnight. Shoot, I'd love to be Brian McKnight.

I'm not unknown, yet I'm not super famous where I can't go anywhere.

With Whitney she has such a unique sound and powerful instrument that she made those songs her own. She might as well have written them because she brought such a power and passion to them that were very unique. She has a great gift.

There are a million things I can think of that I would I want to do. Reporting like you, would be one. A talk show host maybe, also. I want to do a lot.

Jazz is not the format where I want to stay, but it really is a starting point for me.

I've been working on something, just some jazz, relaxed stuff. It will be standard, just piano and voice. It started out as a fun project for me though, I'm still not sure about releasing it.

The film I think was a good film for what it was designed for. It was for kids. Unfortunately the critics slashed it before it even started but that is just the way the cookie crumbles.

There is a fine line between assertiveness and being relaxed.

Either positive or negative comments are good because it shows I am still relevant.

When you have a very hot single there is no reason why it can't drive album sales. People fall off and come back on. I'm looking forward to coming back on with a vengeance.

The one thing I seek above all else is understanding. Sometimes I'm so frustrated and I don't get it. But I'm lucky to have a good management team and people around me who explain things and answer my questions.

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.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Here in England we live at a slower pace, have more time to enjoy things - like good jazz.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don't think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact.

I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends.