How did being a poet lead to being a jazz singer?
I do not totally come out of the singer/songwriter tradition, which may not be apparent when you hear my record. Standing up and doing poetry reading is great training as a performer. You’re all alone in a bookstore, performance space or another venue, and my work was very musical. It really became clear that it is a form of singing, and I just discovered the performer in me, or rediscovered it. And I tricked myself into becoming a singer by starting some singing classes and saying, “Oh, this will help my performance as a poet.” But then the drive took over. How long ago did you start taking singing lessons? I started singing about 13 years ago and I started gigging about 10 years ago. I was a jazz singer, so I kind of leaped right in and started doing standards and bebop and trying to improvise intelligently. I have a tremendous respect for what it takes to improvise and expressing the harmony as well as being dramatic and telling a story. It just became clear to me that that almost m
