I'm Playin' The Music I Like.

I Started Going To A Piano Teacher At 5 Years Old, But Pretty Soon I Started Picking Things Out On My Own And Stopped Taking Music Lessons. I Never Could Read Music Very Well, But I've Still Been Doing It.

My Main Influences Have Always Been The Classic Jazz Players Who Sang, Like Louis Armstrong And Nat King Cole And Jack Teagarden.

I'm Improvising All The Time. Everything I Do Is Improvised. On The Piano, At Least.

I Remember The First Check I Got From The Who's Recording [of "young Man Blues"]. I'd Been Getting Checks For $10 And $15 And So Forth, And This One Was For A Much Larger Amount Than That. I Thought It Was A Mistake.

The Jazz Boom Was Goin' On Then So There Was A Lot Happenin' In New York At That Time.