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.

And Lennie Tristano I like a lot, I still like him.

I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me.

I don't sit down to write a song; they just come to me from something that somebody says, or something in the news. The punchline comes to me, and I go over it in my head and get the song form. I hadn't been doing that a lot.

I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.

I just have a lot off different influences.

I'm happy whenever anybody does my material. I don't care what they do with it. I do what I want to with other people's songs.