My feelings about my mortality are less selfish than they used to be. I used to affect a cavalier attitude to death; now I see it from my son's perspective.
At an age when most youngsters are preparing for their GCSEs, I was suddenly a jet-setter, briefly the toast of Hollywood and London's West End. My immature wishes and naive opinions were treated with respect.
There are a lot of female artists my age around at the moment, but they're all American and blonde and blue-eyed and smiley. I'm totally the opposite of that. I want to show a bit more attitude and I have an opinion.
There's beauty everywhere. There are amazing things happening everywhere, you just have to be able to open your eyes and witness it. Some days, that's harder than others.
I think a valid approach to being a musician is to take all of the experience of your life and filter it through your personality and send it back out there, and that's what art is.
It was very hard for all of us. It's still very hard. The anniversary of his death just passed, and every single one of his friends, still, after all these years... it's unbelievable.
With the possible exception of clothes, beauty salons and Frank Sinatra, there are few subjects all women agree upon.
New Jersey is a great place to live. And we have given some of the best talent to the world, from Jack Nicholson, John Travolta, to Jerry Lewis to Bon Jovi to Frank Sinatra.
If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.
The fountain of youth with the youthful young musician is one meaning, and the fountain of youth with the youthful energy of the leader is another meaning.
My dark sound could be heard across a room clearer than somebody with a reedy sound. It had more projection. My sound always seemed to fill a room.
The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.
I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.
Through the years I've found that I prefer live playing to recording. I still do lots of recording - but I treasure the live shows.
I can pay my rent now. I guess I could always do that, but now I can get an apartment with heat.
I consider myself a serious musician. Doing a comedy show does not take away from that in any way.
I like pastels and lighter shades on darker skins. I feel like it lifts everything and accentuates being chocolate.
I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.
My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.
Then I started listenin' a lot to classical composers. Piano works. Just to see what they were doin'. That sort of put me in a different groove to try to blend all that in.
There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.
