Then I started listenin' a lot to classical composers. Piano works. Just to see what they were doin'. That sort of put me in a different groove to try to blend all that in.

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

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

There's a lot of terrible things goin' on all the time, but you gotta try and have some fun in the end.

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.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.