I've always wanted to record a jazz record. I did one in the '70s with Barbara Carroll. It's been a journey.

I'm not stopping. My dream has come true, and I'm staying.

I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.

I think you have to have a jazz pedigree to be on jazz radio.

I think the challenges for me was to go into the studio with these incredible jazz players and come up to their level of excellence. That's always a challenge.

I say what's in my heart, and I do it in my concerts.

I recorded my first jazz record in the '70s.

I choose things by how they resonate in my heart.

I've always loved jazz.

I've got my whole life. There's a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of experiencing the road and the music and different players. It makes me a richer human being. I have a greater source of information to tap into, a wealth of life.

There was a subtlety about Peggy Lee. It was powerful. There was a valuable use of space. Everything was not cluttered. Her voice was out front and was the key instrument.

If I'm driving to L.A. and have anxiety about making the drive, if I've got Peggy with me, we're cool.

I was kind of known as a ballad singer. People would send ballads. Some of them would go over my shoulder and float off the top of my head, and I just didn't feel anything. Then I would hear a song that would absolutely shake me.

You know, I'm pretty much an open book.

When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else.