My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.

I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was a different person. I met a lot of good jazz players in the army.

My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.

I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.