Mose Allison

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 do very few standards. Hardly any. Other people's tunes that I do are usually obscure tunes, for the most part, although I do a couple of Duke Ellington tunes that are well known.

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

If you have a block of ballistics gelatin and a high-speed camera, pretty soon somebody gets a gun!

Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them.

It is good to be in front of the lens to appreciate more being behind the lens.