I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.
Ahmet Ertegun
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.
Al Jarreau
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.
I was really learning my craft as a jazz singer and working with some great players and all, really growing and feeling my wings.
I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era.
Bob Iger
I grew up a huge Roy Orbison fan. He had such a crazy range. And I grew up listening to old jazz, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone. I remember trying to imitate female jazz singers because I had a higher range.
Borns
My vocal influences are a lot of jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Julie London, they had this tenderness to their voice.
I am not a jazz singer. I wouldn't place myself on that footing. I wouldn't even enter that arena.
Boz Scaggs
I'm not a jazz singer.
I'm not a pop singer; I'm not a jazz singer. And I know I sing like not a whole lot of people do; I also know that a lot of other people act like I do. And better than I do. But what informs the singing is the acting. They're not separate from each other.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
I've often cringed when I heard myself described as a jazz singer. I've always thought of myself as a jazz vocalist.
Cassandra Wilson
I was brought up in a house with a lot of appreciation for music, all kinds of music, including jazz. But I never knew that it could really be a career. I didn't know any jazz singers. I never saw live jazz. I only heard these records.
Cecile McLorin Salvant
I'd like to be a jazz singer, but I couldn't possibly do it; nobody would want me, anyway.
Deborah Moggach
I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things.
Dianne Reeves
A lot of young people want to become jazz singers, but there are not more jam sessions like there used to be. I just want to have the opportunity to be able to bring that to some young people.
I've often felt I've been born out of my time, and when I started Fairground Attraction in the 1980s, I wanted to be a 1940s jazz singer.
Eddi Reader
I've been a massive obsessive about jazz singers all my life.
I studied the lives of jazz singers who would tour Europe, and... what I learned was life was big ride for them. They'd seen the dark side of humanity... but touring the world playing jazz, it was a truly carefree way of living. A great escapism, if you like.
Gary Carr
Sometimes I'll be in circles, and I'll say I'm a jazz singer, and they have no idea what that means.
Gregory Porter
I consider myself a jazz singer. I think I stick to the roots of improvisation, singing in front of the beat, behind the beat, playing with notes and harmonies.
I always used to say I'm definitely not a straight-ahead jazz singer, because then there's people who would hear what I do and say, 'Is it jazz? I don't know...' Whatever it is, it really comes down to creating music that makes people feel something.
My mother is a singer, still performs today; she's a jazz singer.
Every technology that comes into filmmaking is first a gimmick. Think about sound with 'The Jazz Singer' or the first colour or surround sound - it takes a while for filmmakers to understand how to use it.
I wouldn't really call myself a Jazz singer I think it's offending to real Jazz singers to call me a Jazz singer.
One doesn't have to scat to be a jazz singer.
I've tried to learn as much as I can about the great jazz singers to understand what makes them important, vital artists, but there is always something more to learn.
I want to be the jazz singer.
Dianne Reeves, a famous jazz singer, would be my biggest influence.
The old jazz singers or old blues singers, you always just saw them kind of sitting down and singing. They weren't worried as much about their voice sounding perfect. They would make the song kind of fit their voice.
I've always had a love for music, and it developed as I learned jazz, blues, and gospel. And I performed with jazz singers in New Orleans.
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 was nearing the end of childhood when I started to pay real attention to jazz singers. Women excelled as jazz singers; they surpassed most of the men. Black women excelled as jazz singers; they surpassed most of the whites.
Like dancers with choreography or actors with scripts, jazz singers could take material that was known, even loved, then risk interpreting and revising it. They could conceal even as they revealed themselves. Inflection, timing and tonality were their language, at least as much as words.
The most common misconception about me is that I'm basically a jazz singer.
I'm not a folk or jazz singer, more a hard-edged pop singer - with some rock, and song hooks.
Possibly, I should have been a jazz singer from the beginning.
I grew up listening to Beethoven and old jazz singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Anita O'Day. But those were, like, the only women I listened to - I hated women pop singers.
Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.
In Malaysia, we have a lot of divas, like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey singers. And they were all so so talented, just very talented. For example, there's this one jazz singer, her name is Sheila Majid, and I was always singing her songs.
