Stephen Colbert Quotes

Needless to say, anybody who can stumble through a C-major scale knows that Art Tatum always gave his audiences 10 times their money's worth.

We're entertainers, not just singers!

To stand out, I just use my talents. I rap, and I sing as well. With that being said, people kind of know me for bringing that emotion in music.

I am a wholesale entertainer.

I make my living writing songs and, you know, I'm not a show biz kind of guy.

Music is something that I've been passionate about. I play the piano and sing, but I always knew that it was never going to be my bread and butter. I was very interested in acting.

You could almost write an opera about the selection of music directors for orchestras. The intrigues are really interesting, and then, at the end, the results are completely unexpected.

The most ironic thing is my grandfather has his masters in music composition; he was a jazz composer. My dad was a musician, too. He played more, like, soul music.

I was writing songs by 12 and had a band by 14.

My dad would take me downtown, and I'd stand backstage and watch him in the vaudeville pit band. I was 6 or 7. He was a musician, a band leader, a wonderful clarinetist and saxophone player.

I'm just a human whose skill is making music.

I did 'I'd Do Anything,' and then a play and then 'A Little Light Music.' I played jazz in a night club where nobody listened to me for two years. I sold cereal in a market for a while. I worked in a clothes shop in Brixton. But that's the life of an actor. You never really know when your next job is coming.

I've always been funny, but I never considered it as a particular career path until my early 30s, when I realized that hip-hop wasn't going to be the long term.

I remember seeing Tony Bennett on television. He was the only guy in the orchestra who was wearing a white tux, and I thought, 'That would be good. To be the only man on stage in a white jacket.'

For someone like me, music is all I've ever thought about - playing big shows, and then, when you take something that is based around your music and put it in a completely different medium, it's a really interesting and cool emotion to watch.

I've been obsessed with David Letterman forever, and I'd love to be the drag version of David Letterman.

No one works with an actor or a director for friendship.

My father was an entertainer. This is, of course, one of the most marked and enduring manifestations.

I can play multiple instruments. I love a cappella. I love barbershop. I love magic.

I'm a show girl at heart.

I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can't be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.

Jazz onstage is a very intimate exchange between everybody that's onstage.

I've been making music since age five.

There are no calculations in the records I make. I record as many songs as I can. Songs that I think are my best.

The X Factor' - I watch it because I'm always searching for talent to use in my musicals, so they do all the groundwork for me.