Every Man Prays In His Own Language.

I Merely Took The Energy It Takes To Pout And Wrote Some Blues.

In Music, As You Develop A Theme Or Musical Idea, There Are Many Points At Which Directions Must Be Decided, And At Any Time I Was In The Throes Of Debate With Myself, Harmonically Or Melodically, I Would Turn To Billy Strayhorn. We Would Talk, And Then The Whole World Would Come Into Focus. The Steady Hand Of His Good Judgment Pointed To The Clear Way That Was Fitting For Us. He Was Not, As He Was Often Referred To By Many, My Alter Ego. Billy Strayhorn Was My Right Arm, My Left Arm, All The Eyes In The Back Of My Head, My Brainwaves In His Head, And His In Mine.

I Began By Tinkering Around With Some Old Tunes I Knew. Then, Just To Try Something Different, I Set To Putting Some Music To The Rhythm That I Used In Jerking Ice-cream Sodas At The Poodle Dog. I Fooled Around With The Tune More And More Until At Last, Lo And Behold, I Had Completed My First Piece Of Finished Music.

Be A Number One Yourself. And Not A Number Two Somebody Else.

It Is Becoming Increasingly Difficult To Decide Where Jazz Starts Or Where It Stops, Where Tin Pan Alley Begins And Jazz Ends, Or Even Where The Borderline Lies Between Between Classical Music And Jazz. I Feel There Is No Boundary Line