"I actually started the whole project some years ago with a live debut at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. The focus was mainly on my favorite period of Billie Holiday, which was the late-50s Verve recordings, with essentially a small version of the Count Basie band."
"Chico Hamilton told me, "The first take is important in jazz because that's where the real emotion is." That's your true response to what's happening, and everything else after that, your brain is involved because you have something to reference."
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Source: Source: revive-music.com
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"All my stuff is pretty seamless - like now, while I'm touring [Yesterday I Sang The Blues], today I'm going to go in the studio, I'm writing my next one. For me it's continual."
"I feel like, in many ways, Billie Holiday's still very under-appreciated as an artist. People focus on her voice, and all of the very recognizable vocal things that she does, which are great. But I wanted to, with this project, start the conversation again about her as a radical feminist, as a civil rights activist - taking a stance. And also just [her] being a non-conformist."
"When I sort of step in my jazz world, it's somewhere between instrumental jazz and vocal jazz."
"For better or for worse, I think my approach to jazz is very traditional, in one sense, but is [also] very out of fashion today. It's about the musicians, and it's about that magic that happens in the moment."
"For me jazz is kind of an extension of hip-hop. Kind of the sad thing is that a lot of jazz people just listen to jazz, and a lot of hip-hop people just listen to hip-hop, and there's not a lot of crossover, unfortunately."