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!

I was really learning my craft as a jazz singer and working with some great players and all, really growing and feeling my wings.

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.

Al and Tommy and I sharing the biggest laugh because it was predicted by everything we did in the first three or four records in my career. It was predicted in the grooves that we would be here sometime later on down the road.

No period of my life has been one of such unmixed happiness as the four years which have been spent within college walls.

I said to my kids, 'Learn the business of America if you want to be an artist in America. The rest of that stuff, the art part, you could pick up in an hour and a half.'

I have turned away from the thought of writing fiction in the past through what I suppose is, actually, fear. The direct, raw invitation for the reader to come in and explore my imagination is fairly scary for me so I have busied myself with so much else.

Joy is something you can experience even when life is not pleasurable. Even in the midst of a long run, when your legs are burning, you can still feel joy.