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with the Claudettes drummer. That's my band; the drummer is a great drummer and
a good friend. We started my band the Claudettes as a piano/drums duo, in fact. We

do kind of barrel house versions of original compositions, plus Little Brother
Montgomery, Otis Spann, Jay McShann and also Neil Young, AC/DC, Grandmaster
Flash, Stevie Wonder, Link Wray, Santo and Johnny, all kinds of different things that
we do. Old Tin Pan Alley songs. It's a lot of fun. So I'm going to do about half and half,

solo piano and
house rock and

stuff. The Claudettes

BiTS: Is the
drummer the

person who goes by
initials only on your
material, CJ or

something?

JI: Oh, JQ?

BiTS: I'm not sure.

I haven't got any
notes with me at the
moment, but I saw

something that was
just a person with
initials, that's all.

JI: Yeah. So there's a quite successful TV show here, a big hit called The Bear, and it's
set in a restaurant, and I composed for that show and my writing and producing
partner for that is a guy I’ve played music with for years who goes by JQ. We make a

lot of music together and he's more of like a producer, and he does like beats and
works on a computer. I'm more the chords and notes guy. That’s kind of our
arrangement. Yeah, he wasn't involved with this thing in any way, and he doesn't play

drums. Michael Caskey is the drummer who plays on all the Claudettes stuff and also
he played on my first Delmark record along with Kenny Smith on drums.

JI: Was there any particular standout tracks you enjoyed on the album?

BiTS: I can't think of the titles at the moment because I don't have it with me, but
there's a couple of straight piano pieces with a fabulous left hand, I mean absolutely
terrific left hand that you play.

JI: Yeah, a lot of people actually think I'm lefty, but it's like I said, it was just kind of
sink or swim. I became the bass player in a band when I was a teenager, so that's
something that I am lucky that I can just forget all about it. It just knows what it's

doing [chuckles]. And it does come though, and it's not just like innate. I mean, I really
drilled it. I mean, I spent a summer playing kind of Otis Spann in particular, left-hand