Al Jarreau Quotes

Every good gospel singer you can hear is a scat singer; they're just using different syllables. There are a lot of jazz singers out there, and more coming out of the churches.

Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.

I sat on the piano bench next to my mother in church. Something happened before I set foot on this planet. I was crawling around inside of her. She was a church pianist. My dad was a brilliant singer. I was hearing it.

I would still be singing, because it's part of my heart and my soul, and it lifts me up. Find something you would do for free.

Music is such a balm. Always has been. It's such a heartbeat, like blood thrumming through the womb. That's why music appeals to people.

I have this image in my head of me in the house I grew up in, and hearing this incredible music on the television show, going over to it, and there's Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert, and Annie Ross. It knocked me out of my socks, and I'm still in flight.

These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I'm washing the dishes, driving to the store and walking down the aisles. The ones that you sing when you're driving in the car and as a singer you always go back to them.

Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.

I slept fourteen feet from a polka tavern as a kid growing up. I heard polkas all night long, people singing and drinking beers and having a great time. I know more polkas than Frankie Yancovic!

More live recording. I have missed the boat over my career by not doing every second or third CD live because things happen onstage that don't happen in the studio.

Learn it well in your head, know it well, pick things you know and bring the old you and all the experience you have from singing these various kinds of feelings that are still related to what I have done in the rest of my career.

I am inspired by all kinds of players and singers.

I discovered is that I have a couple of valves that were leaky and had been giving, gave me a problem then. But I hadn't noticed anything up until then.A couple of incidents of shortness of breath and checked myself into a hospital, but that one in France really sat me down for a few minutes - a very few minutes, because seven days later I was in the studio, and eight days later, I was no the stage.

I'm touched by Jon Hendricks. I want some of my music to reflect that. And when I write, you're going to hear it.

I had five brothers and sisters. Four of them older, and some of them played instruments, and we would get together and have family recitals and raise money for the church. I belonged to a wonderful church community that encouraged me to sing.

Let that get you up in the morning and put the light in your eyes. I'm telling you, it makes you a better husband, mother, father, neighbor, citizen, when you have that light in your eye, that you feel so good, and you're a pleasant person to be around."Good morning, sir. Did you find everything that you need? Oh, that's over in aisle seven. I'll come help you as soon as," that's the stuff. Find something. It could be planting flowers, especially if you can watch it.

I sang do-wop on the street corner before it was called do-wop.

I know more polkas than Frankie Yankovic. I grew up next door to the Polka Tavern in Milwaukee. I can sing some polkas. And proud of that.

What I try to get beyond is playing music at people and, instead, to play music with people because audience members are constantly part of the experience. What they say in their body language, what they say in their eyes, what they sing with me ... it's an 'us,' and there's a communication that's like ... it's like church, man.

I am a distance runner, a marathoner ... literally and figuratively.

It's all background experience and listening and exposure. That's why it's so important for people today and during any time to expose your children to lots of different kinds of things.

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

Before I get out of bed, I am saying thank you. I know how important it is to be thankful.

My mother and father come from that post-Depression, middle-of-World-War -I kind of thinking that says, 'Find a practical job. You know what I mean, Mr. Big Shot? So, you can sing a song ... '

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

I really do see it as the start of the second half of my career.

I tour a lot and interview a lot. I'm on the Internet and doing stuff. I go out and promote. I've got a bass drum and a sandwich sign and a washboard. You just have to shout louder and louder that you're still alive.

I was age six or seven, and singing, "Jesus wants me for her son, beep, to shine for him," and people smiled and pinched my cheeks till the blood vessels broke, and I knew I was doing something right.

That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.

I love connecting with the audience, and there's more ways than one to do that.

I came here with something in me that I inherited from my folks. So I'm going to do something called life and times.

I'm this strange kind of fusion of jazz, pop, and R&B.

My dad graduated seminary there, and so did (sounds like) Mark Kimball's grandfather. They sang in a quartet together, my dad and Mark Kimball's grandfather.

We are just fanatics about using the technology to make it all wonderful. We laughed at the fact that we were having such a great time working this way.

I did a concert at five years old in the garden of one of the church members, and we raised some money to buy a new piano in our little church.

I don't know where we got the notion that God wants us to suffer. Every living thing tends toward the good or we would have been gone a long time ago.

I'm not sure it's a better music world of appreciation and performance. I think the listener is a different guy, and listening is something he does in passing, with other stuff going on. There's less care and understanding of the relationship between the song and the listener.

The work must be its own reward. I got that early on. And I'm blessed by meeting my own standards of excellence.

I'm touched by rock n' roll. I'm touched by the Beatles. I want some of the music I do to reflect that.

My eyes went blank, and I stared off, and the music started. It was raining, and the sun was shining at the same time, and there were these big bay windows, and there was the blue in the sky, and the sun on the trees, and it was drizzling.

I can't imagine a more ideal life.

I've thought about doing it as soon as it is possible with this new CD getting some wings and getting out there. I don't know how soon that will be.

Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand that with my R&B roots, I am more than a jazz singer. So I get pigeonholed.

There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.

Once you discover that you can, you must.

I'm saved every day by the intrinsic value of the work I do, which I truly enjoy.

I have serious hearing loss. I'm challenged if I don't have my hearing aids in.

I want to give the audience the whole package, and for me, the whole package is to give them something fresh as well. It's not as much fun resting on your laurels.

I've got an odometer on my voice that has out-odometered an odometer on an automobile.

I'm a Buckeye at heart. I spend more time giving concerts in Ohio than I do in any other state - perhaps more time than I spend performing anywhere else in the world. I have a great relationship with the people of Ohio, and it's great to be near the OSU when I come to Columbus.