My parents were kind of over protective people. Me and my sister had to play in the backyard all the time. They bought us bikes for Christmas but wouldn't let us ride in the street we had to ride in the backyard. Another Christmas my dad got me a basketball hoop and put it in the middle of the lawn! You can't dribble on grass.
I got a poster from Columbia Records and there's Miles Davis Charlie Mingus Ellington Count Basie - everybody in that poster has died I'm the only one left. And great players like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan it's hard to believe they're gone because we were all so close. But I believe in the future and the tradition will go on.
So I'm a young boy in the 1940s growing up seeing Ralph Bunche on a regular basis seeing Duke Ellington on a regular basis. We know that these people are famous. They're living in the same community as we live in. They go to the same stores and shops.
Duke Ellington was famous for hs very original harmonic patterns.