Earl 'Fatha' Hines discusses his wardrobe and dress sense.

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Earl 'Fatha' Hines on playing piano as a young man.

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Earl 'Fatha' Hines discusses his reknowned piano playing career.

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Q: “You’re just entirely too modest! I mean, you are the single-most important piano player in the history of jazz. The whole ‘stride’ thing; a whole bunch of people made it. There were people who were better – I mean Fats Waller and James P. Johnson and Donald Lambert and you know, there were people who could do it and everything but you and probably Art Tatum are the two most important piano players. You two – it’s directly traceable to you…”

A: “Well, Art was like myself. Art played from here, see. And he'd sit down at the piano and a lot of times he didn't know what he was going to go into it. And then when he started playing the thing very beautifully and all of the sudden, he tears out and he'll just go for himself and he used to look up with that one eye looking up, you know, "What are you going to play?" see. Now, there's a guy who would take one hand and play as much with one hand that one guy … that another man would play with two hands, see. I heard him play a whole number with his left hand. Terrific and ... But he really didn't know how much piano he could play, really.”