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I love jazz because it breathes. It bends. It tells the truth even when the truth trembles. Jazz never asks for perfection, only for presence. I was first exposed to jazz long before I understood what I was hearing. It arrived in fragments, in passing melodies, in voices that carried both pain and beauty. But it truly entered my life when I traveled to New Orleans. There, someone planted a small seed by telling me I was a musician, without even knowing me. That sentence stayed with me, quietly waiting. I met Billie Holiday much later, in the most unlikely place: a theater bar in Amsterdam. I was searching, separated, trying to rebuild my life. I started talking with the bartender. He handed me a Billie Holiday CD and said, “Listen to this. You might find your voice.” That simple gesture opened a door. When I heard Billie, it felt like a conversation had begun. Not just with her music, but with myself. The first jazz record I truly listened to was that Billie Holiday album. Her voice carried stories I had never dared to speak, yet somehow always knew. In her phrasing, I recognized fragility, strength, longing, resistance. Through her, I began to understand my own voice. The best show I ever attended was not about spectacle, but intimacy: musicians close enough to breathe together, sharing space, silence, risk. That is where jazz lives for me. In the closeness. In the courage to be seen. My advice to new listeners: listen with your whole body. Let the music meet you where you are. Jazz is not something you understand. It is something you enter. A conversation. A journey. A way home. And that is how my conversation with Billie Holiday started: through chance, through listening, through longing. And it is still unfolding.

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