Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.

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

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.

I choose things by how they resonate in my heart.

I don't think I was considered to be a cabaret singer because I didn't have patter that was written.

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

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

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

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

I've always loved jazz.

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

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

It seems that jazz is more cerebral and more mathematical in a sense.

My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.

Possibly, I should have been a jazz singer from the beginning.

The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.

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

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 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.

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.