Top 60 Kurt Elling Quotes

I think I make most of my decisions pretty organically.

The idea is to be unrestrained by categories.

I’m thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.

You don’t want to make records so you can win a Grammy. You make records because you want to be a musician.

Listening to something without being present is different from being there in the flesh.

I don’t want to take it easy.

In New York, the drummers rush for a reason – because there’s so much energy crackling through everything in that city and so many collisions at a highly accelerated rate.

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.

My intellect was quickened at divinity school, and my abilities to discern were strengthened, and that’s always valuable.

I’m a goof, man.

You learn as much as you can from the people that you work with. That’s why you want to surround yourself with the heaviest people that you can possibly get to.

I’ve got more low notes than I had when I started.

I’d been studying philosophy at the University of Chicago. I hadn’t been doing well, because I was sitting in with jazz musicians at night – it’s hard to read Heidegger, but it’s especially hard if you’re half asleep.

It’s a beautiful thing to have time in the world, as a singer and as a musician, to make friends with people of the musical caliber of a Tommy Smith, an Arturo Sandoval, a Richard Galliano, a Till Broenner.

You don’t know what bravery is until you overcome fear.

If I was going to sell out, I would do it for more than 10,000 records.

With a smaller setting, you have a lot more freedom and flexibility within a given moment, but not necessarily the velocity you have with a big band.

There are incredible musicians around the world.

I listened to a lot of King Crimson back in the day.

I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don’t quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close.

I think my intention was there, and my love for the music was apparent. And there are very few singers who get up and desire to take the kinds of risks that jazz musicians routinely need to be taking.

I hope that I’m also maturing emotionally as a human being as things go on.

At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn’t work out, and that meant I was liberated.

A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it’s something to be made fun of.

People want to have access to jazz because it has a vibe that’s very strong.

When improvisation is properly applied, it is compositional thinking, sped way up.

People just want to dig; they want to dance. They don’t want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting ‘out there,’ but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical.

Of course we all know when music’s too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves.

You can never predict what the specific shape of your life is going to be, and you won’t really know its general shape until, God willing, you’re advanced in years and you have the time and opportunity to look back in a coherent way and see what your life was about.

While I revel in the memories of my own Grammy moment, I also know how it feels to walk away empty-handed.

I’m lucky that I enjoy touring as much as I do. I’m not going to make a living just making records.

I’m one of the culprits who keeps turning stuff around, shaking up original tunes and trying to stand the canon on its ear. But sometimes, you just need to sing the song.

Grammy nominations are certainly pleasant, but you can forget about them and lead a perfectly happy life – provided you have the approval of the musicians you work with.

There’s a spiritual complement to any attempt at transposing a commitment to humanity through music or art.

Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study?

I’m a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.

I consider myself very fortunate. I have a beautiful wife who supports my work and is raising our daughter when I’m out on the road.

I haven’t been afraid of John Coltrane or Miles Davis or Bill Evans or Wayne Shorter or Herbie Hancock. Why would I be afraid of the Beatles?

Music is a physical expression that has a physical impact upon the listener. Sound travels in waves through the air. This is not abstract. This is scientific fact. And it makes physical contact with the eardrum… and with the heart… and with the rest of the body.

There’s a wide spectrum of possibilities in how to deliver a song.

You don’t show respect to Frank Sinatra and his great example by trying to sound exactly like him. You show it by sounding exactly like you, and that’s the way jazz has always progressed as an art form.

You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment.

There is an actor’s responsibility in presenting the emotional content of the lyrics to an audience. But whether you do that in a straightforward fashion or an ironic fashion or a blase fashion is all about opportunities, and singers are missing opportunities as artists if they don’t pay attention to the lyric.

I know how hard it’s been for me to get my thing out there.

I had everything to gain by giving it everything I could.

You work very hard on the lyrics. Getting them to fit the contours of improvised melodies.

I want to be the jazz singer.

Every record is a gate of a certain kind for me.

You want to be doing your best work whatever field of the arts you’re in because your life’s going to be over all too soon, and you have to make the most of it.

I didn’t arrive on the scene until after Jaco Pastorius had passed, but ‘Three Views of a Secret’ is a long-time favourite of mine.

Chicago is my home. And the way Chicago sounds will always be a part of who I am.

I don’t really have a more intellectualized approach. After the fact, I can sure talk about stuff a lot – but when I make decisions, I really just follow what sounds good to me.

Each of the CDs prior to ‘Flirting With Twilight’ were more like roller-coaster rides.

You don’t just let a guy drop off the earth and not come together with everybody who knew him and loved him and respected him. You try to do it the right way.

I try to sleep as much as I can. I drink a lot of water. I practice consistently and just try to be ready for the gig.

I try to stick with things that I can sing with honesty.

Part of my joy as a singer is to give gifts to people, and one way I try to connect to them is to add something in French or German or whatever.

I couldn’t do what I do without the encouragement and influence of the musicians I played with in Chicago.

We live in a society where it’s cool to be criminal.

I spend upwards of 200 nights a year on the road.