Al Jarreau Quotes

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Al Jarreau

Profession : Musician

Birth : March 12, 1940

I still have a pretty lively audience in German and across Europe. And I continue to say, 'Thank you, God,' for making me smart enough to avoid getting hit by trucks and going out and finding myself an audience abroad. Which includes Asia - from Jakarta to Japan. Working hard at finding an audience abroad.

Al Jarreau

I came along with that crowd of singer-songwriters who were able to make their own statements in such a personal way that it changed the industry: Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Sly and the Family Stone.

Al Jarreau

My mother and father come from that post-Depression, middle-of-World-War -I kind of thinking that says, 'Find a practical job. You know what I mean, Mr. Big Shot? So, you can sing a song ...'

Al Jarreau

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

Al Jarreau

I love connecting with the audience, and there's more ways than one to do that.

Al Jarreau

Music is such a balm. Always has been. It's such a heartbeat, like blood thrumming through the womb. That's why music appeals to people.

Al Jarreau

Every good gospel singer you can hear is a scat singer; they're just using different syllables. There are a lot of jazz singers out there, and more coming out of the churches.

Al Jarreau

Learn it well in your head, know it well, pick things you know and bring the old you and all the experience you have from singing these various kinds of feelings that are still related to what I have done in the rest of my career.

Al Jarreau

There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.

Al Jarreau

Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.

Al Jarreau

I really do see it as the start of the second half of my career.

Al Jarreau

I tour a lot and interview a lot. I'm on the Internet and doing stuff. I go out and promote. I've got a bass drum and a sandwich sign and a washboard. You just have to shout louder and louder that you're still alive.

Al Jarreau

I have been with the record company and Tommy was there doing records with other people.

Al Jarreau

I can't imagine a more ideal life.

Al Jarreau

I don't know where we got the notion that God wants us to suffer. Every living thing tends toward the good or we would have been gone a long time ago.

Al Jarreau

You know, I think in some kinds of ways, we are all born into stuff that gives us no choice.

Al Jarreau

I want an audience that we might call a pop audience. Cross over to pop. Cross over to R&B. And bring those people to Brubeck and Chick Corea, you dig? A lot of people found Dave Brubeck and Chick Corea because they came to hear 'We're in This Love Together' and 'After All.'

Al Jarreau

When you do a lyric for 'April in Paris,' those who have heard it before can hear it in a different way now. It can add perspective to a great piece of music that does not have a lyric and may be inaccessible to lot of ears because people don't deal with complex music very well.

Al Jarreau

It is a very serious consideration for a lyricist to step in there and suggest the meaning to a song. The music is speaking for itself.

Al Jarreau

That's the way I try to live. I think it's the only way for human beings at this point in our evolution as souls, where everyone in their lifetime is going through stuff.

Al Jarreau