Boy, I'm just quietly doing my thing, and I hope they'll look around and get my record out.

I'm trying to get the record that I made at my birthday party last year, trying to get that out, and the lawyers are diddling around with it and it probably won't be out until next year. I don't know.

So if I think of something in my head I don't have to do it. If I can't do I don't do it, I do something else.

Nowadays it seems to me nobody takes trouble about anything, especially writing songs.

That's something Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you're not feeling right about what you're doing and you play a minor tune it all comes back, falls into place. I don't know if that's true, but I do it.

Duke Ellington is my choice for many reasons. Nobody has written so many great pieces of music, which are everlasting, and he has made them available to the world through his orchestrations of his work in a unique way. Lastly, he was himself a fine pianist. He covers the entire musical spectrum with his genius.

I'd just as soon be on a good Steinway or Yamaha just as well.