jazz-singers

"The article about me in Sister Namibia (4 years ago) gave me the exposure that I needed. It made people aware of me and my music. And it gave me a platform from where to reach out to women through my music"

"Namibian artists need to pull up their socks and become professional. They should carry themselves better and avoid becoming drug or alcohol addicts as no one will take them seriously if they do. It is these things that give us the reputation that we as artists are unreliable”"

"Growing up, I had never imagined a music career. It had never crossed my mind until I started getting inspired by life around me--the things I see, the people I meet, the situations they are in and what I could do to change their circumstances."

"The people really love our music. It was an awesome experience and we were basically treated like royalty the entire time that we were there,”"

"It was famously observed that, though Duke Ellington played piano, his real instrument was his orchestra. Similarly, while Eddie Condon was a useful rhythm guitarist, he was a virtuoso of the spirit of Chicago jazz. Organiser, promoter, impresario, publican and publicist, he symbolised its carefree pleasures until his death in 1973. [...] If Chicago jazz epitomised the devil-may-care mood of the 1920s, it also looked forward to the ’30s: Chicago stars such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa spearheaded the age of the big bands. But Condon kept faith with his original passion, espousing both small-group spontaneity and the fun-loving, hard-drinking ethos that went with it. Leading groups in clubs, arranging record dates and concerts, he became a one-man mission for Chicago jazz and was rewarded in the ’40s when public interest revived in Dixieland. Condon was the music’s embodiment. A dapper figure with slicked-back hair, he was a celebrated wit, typically addressing a sparse audience as ‘Lady and gentleman’. The music itself was first class, as you can hear in Eddie Condon: Windy City Jazz.[...] In later years, the Condon style was often barbarised by amateurs, giving Dixieland a bad name. But he would be pleased with a record that so appealingly distils the best of his life’s work."

"Angel, devil or both, Chet Baker is the stuff of jazz legend. By his mid-20s, the Oklahoma country boy was famous, leaping to stardom in 1953 with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan’s trend-setting West Coast quartet and winning polls on trumpet. His reputation was no mere publicity bubble. After playing with Baker in his pre-Mulligan days, bebop pioneer Charlie Parker told his trumpet protégé Miles Davis, ‘There’s a little white cat out on the coast who’s going to eat you up.’"

"Dizzy Gillespie’s old friend, bassist Milt Hinton, used to say, ‘Chords are our love, but rhythm is our business,’ and that might have been Diz’s lifelong motto as well. Whether the group was large or small, the groove headlong swing or sizzling Afro-Cuban, a Gillespie band lifted you out of your seat with its sheer musical energy. And the crest of that wave was the leader’s fiery trumpet, which had revolutionised jazz brass in the ’40s. The young Gillespie could play higher and faster for longer than anybody before him, and his passionate, coruscating solos define the brave new world of bebop. Just as radical were his harmonies and rhythms – fusillades of notes tumbling over bar-lines, defying conventional chord structures. And this was not mere ‘subversion’, but a well-conceived creative strategy. Despite his madcap reputation, Dizzy Gillespie was one of the prime theoreticians of bop and a tireless teacher, demonstrating, encouraging, inspiring."

"She was the living library of music and an iconic legend with vast experience."

"Her music will leave on, and we will never forget her meticulous fashion sense. Because clothing is armour and makes important statements too."

"I didn’t plan to be a singer, singing planned to be in me."

"Her music uplifted the spirit of millions across the world."

"The way of my singing is message. You send a message: It’s love, it’s sadness, it’s everything."

"She belonged to a generation of artists who transcended boundaries in art and politics long before we coined the concept of globalisation."

"Home is a myth and, at some point, I had to accept that. I have lived in so many places and I have just learned to accept that you belong where you are."

"I also believe strongly that when I look good, I feel good, and this allows me to deliver to the best of my ability."

"I’m a child of every part of this continent."

"I didn’t understand why I should be barred from that restaurant or being with that person."

"A response to the daily experience of being harassed, grabbed and catcalled at in public."

"Performing at home is the best part of my job, and being paired with international artists of Bebe Winans’ stature and all the other global household names that I have performed with is an absolute honour."

"I wasn’t meant to live this long,I was a sickly baby but look at me, living and beautiful. That’s a blessing."

"I’ve been fighting not for a particular area — I’ve been fighting for South Africa, I’ve been fighting for Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Congo and all these places. So I feel I don’t belong to one place."

"They want to know how someone like me, who hasn’t studied music, can understand it so well."

"People in music want you to play small so you can make them feel better. That’s why you see so many bands break up no matter how talented they are."

"Thank you to my family and all who have supported, cheered, inspired, and loved me through my journey. Thank you to the Recording Academy for this honor ….and to the glorious Frankfurt Radio Big Band for making this project a reality. I am so, so, so grateful! Indeed, the journey is a Holy Room (oh, and I cut off my locs!)."

"What we have to realise is that those questions and occasional resistance to our heart’s pursuits are usually coming from a place of love. Once I realised that, it gave me more room to cultivate and channel positive energy towards accomplishing my goals as a professional musician."

"Today I was nominated for my very first Grammy Award in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category. I am so overwhelmed with gratitude (and can’t stop crying!)"

"I don’t have a particular favourite musician. There are so many that have inspired, taught, guided, and grounded me."

"I was born in Champaign, Illinois. My father, the late Dr. Ibalaimu Kakoma was completing a post doctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois. He was a Rwandan although he grew up in Uganda. My mother, Elizabeth Nyarubona Kakoma, is a Ugandan."

"In recent years I am trying to be more conscientious about work/life balance. It’s a work-in-progress."

"I also enjoy vegetarian cooking, writing/reading prose, and spending time with family and friends. Honestly, like anyone who works for themselves, it gets difficult to find balance - especially with my international travel schedule."

"Know yourself, listen to your heart, and take risks. Individuality is the best thing anyone has to offer."

"And since there were no professional artistes in my immediate or extended family, I didn’t know what the path would be. That said, I’m thankful for New York City and the courageous community of dreamers who have helped me understand that my dreams can be lived out loud."

"One of the greatest blessings of my journey as a professional artiste has been the unconditional love and support of family."

"My mother has a beautiful singing voice that she shares generously around the house and in church! (I always consider her my first voice teacher.) And my brother Itonde has a lovely voice and plays a bit of piano and violin."

"Of course I had to answer a lot of questions when I announced I wanted to be a professional singer, changed my graduate school focus, and initially struggled as a waitress to pay my bills."

"The best word I can use to describe how I feel when performing for an audience is FREE."

"I will, however, say that one of the main lessons I’ve learned from such artistes who inspire me is this: Know yourself, listen to your heart, and take risks. Individuality is the best thing anyone has to offer."

"My childhood dream was definitely to be a singer, but as a little girl I thought it was just that, a dream. In the African culture, as you know, it’s very rare to encourage a child to become an artiste. Since I was always involved in the arts, I simply looked at it as a way to be better rounded."

"I completed my undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies also at the University of Illinois. After college, I spent a year and a half doing research in Kenya and Tanzania with plans of becoming a Medical Anthropologist."

"In many ways, Illinois is just as much my home as Africa because I spent the majority of my formative years there."

"I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember, but didn’t consider making it a career choice until my early twenties. I studied the cello from the time I was eight years old through college and I write my songs on the piano. My primary instrument is my voice."

"No one in my immediate family is a professional musician, although the love of music is definitely prevalent."

"I am the sixth of seven children. We moved to Zambia when I was three years old and when my father began working for World Health Organisation, we returned to Champaign where he worked as a professor of Veterinary Medicine and Immunology and my mother worked as an oncology nurse."

"There is something about performance that both humbles and strengthens you simultaneously. It is where I am happiest and most liberated. My first performance was terrifying but totally thrilling."

"If you become stressed out on stage, your audience becomes stressed with you. It’s important for us to remember that our energy as performers dictates the energy of the room. That said, we can’t take ourselves so seriously."

"Mistakes might happen, but honest music supersedes all of that."

"I would rather, I would rather go blind boy Than to see you walk away from me child, and all. So you see, I love you so much That I don't want to watch you leave me baby. Most of all, I just don't, I just don't want to be free no."

"I got a feeling, I feel so strange, Everything about me seems to have changed. Step by step, I got a brand new walk, I even sound sweeter when I talk."

"It feels so good to be happy."

"I was just sitting here thinkin’ of your kiss and your warm embrace, when the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now revealed the tears that was on my face."