No one told me I had to make something that would sell, but I personally want everyone to like my music.
I like what it is to sing, or to be with the others singing, to make music, but the fuss and all the things that are the exterior part of a career, has never interested me.
I would find myself, not necessarily always assigning these little bits of music for here or there, but all of a sudden something would fall into place and it would be exactly that.
Our music may sound big emotionally, but that's more to do with the playing, the level of musicianship and the full-on energy. Often, the lyrics are often quite small and focused.
Plus, we spend most of our time writing music. Most of the time is spent in the studio in my house.
I go out, but not too much. When I'm on tour, I just write a lot of music and sleep.
In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not.
All I do is play music and golf - which one do you want me to give up?
Too much emphasis is put on American roots music when people try and place me. You know, I grew up listening to punk.
There is a sound that comes from gospel music that doesn't come from anything else. It is a sound of peace. It is a sound of, 'I'm going to make it through all of this.'
I guess now music is so saturated and so microwaved. It's, like, 15 minutes in the microwave and boom, you've got something. Nobody's putting passion or any thought behind it anymore.
When it comes down to music, I have no balance. I am 100 percent. It is like full throttle. Five hundred miles an hour.
My music is based on melody and when I play the piano, it's as if I'm singing with them. When you try to transform that into a vocal, there was very little adjustment.
There is no gender to my music. There's no male or female voice, no trite lyrics or poetry. It's much more abstract, so it lives with you longer.
I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.
Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips music of what makes it exciting.
Opera is the original marriage of words and music, and there's a theatre element, a dramatic element. It's right up my alley.
I've always been a follower of silent movies. I see film as a visual medium with a musical accompaniment, and dialogue is a raft that goes on with it.
I'm very particular about the kind of music that I record and sing, and it would be the same way about the kind of movies that I would do.
I'll look at the script and I'll try to find as many books, movies, and pieces of music that I think are going to feed each scene or the character as a whole.
[Screaming out to Mr. Memory at the Music Hall] Richard Hannay: What are The 39 Steps?
