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The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Kurt Elling Quotes

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

– Kurt Elling

It’s easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They’re such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It’s a drag, man.

– Kurt Elling

One doesn’t have to scat to be a jazz singer.

– Kurt Elling

I really thought I was gonna have a straight gig. But these jazz musicians put their arms around me time and again and said, ‘Hey, young fella, you’re one of us. Come with us.’ That’s a big deal when you’re young and looking for your way in the world.

– Kurt Elling

It’s true that I’m not known as a crooner or balladeer. I’m known for a more crusading or quixotic temperament.

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study?

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

I’ve worked with a number of big bands, but there’s nothing in life like the Basie band.

– Kurt Elling

Romance is one of the things that most countries share, and I’ve noticed how different communities have their own ways of singing about love and heartbreak.

– Kurt Elling

It must be a hellish thing to know what’s possible in music, to be hearing things all the time and not have an appropriate outlet for them.

– Kurt Elling

I hope to be at the top of my game when I’m 65 or 70. I don’t want to reach my peak at 29. Not that I’m holding back anything, but there’s a bunch of junk I don’t know.

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

It’s a lovely thing to have people in any circumstance appreciate your work.

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

As improvisers, we’re acting as composers in front of people.

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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.

– Kurt Elling

Chicago has a burly, action-oriented but still self-assured and relaxed confidence to its stride. The city has a lot of wide-open space and all the possibilities that suggests. There’s a lot of horizontal grandeur here.

– Kurt Elling

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

– Kurt Elling

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