I always challenge myself. I get out in deep water and I always try to get back. But I get hung up. The audience never knows, but that's when I smile the most, when I show the most ivory.

It unfolds in orchestral layers and it demands intense listening. Hines himself said of his early style when at 21 he first met Louis Armstrong "Louis looked at me so peculiar. So when they gave me a solo playing single fingers like I was doing in those great big halls they could hardly hear me.

Earl Kenneth Hines universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28 1903 – April 22 1983) was an American jazz pianist and bandleader.