Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.
I am particular about the seating of the audience – also about how much money they pay – but most of all where they are seated. If I am going to sing something intimate, who am I going to sing it to?
I don’t like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
It’s time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.
I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
Once I understood Bach’s music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.
I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else’s. That’s always been my dream.
I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
I don’t like to go to strange places.
My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I’m trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.
Desegregation is a joke.
I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat – a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
I don’t like rap music at all. I don’t think it’s music. It’s just a beat and rapping.
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage. My mother is an Evangelist and I used to play the piano at her revival meetings.
I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.
I try to swim every damn day I can, and I’ve learned to scuba dive and snorkel.
It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution – real girl’s talk.