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.
I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.
The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.
So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.
My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.
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.
