CONTENTS

 

1 “My Mother Didn’t Want Me to Grow Up in North Carolina”

2 “What Is Jazz? New York, Man!”

3 “I Always Did Want to Play Piano”

4 “We Played and She Healed”

5 “Why Can’t You Play Music Like the Ink Spots?”

6 “They Weren’t Giving Any Lectures”

7 “Since You Went Away I Missed You”

8 “I’m Trying to See If It’s a Hit”

9 “Dizzy and Bird Did Nothing for Me Musically”

10 “The George Washington of Bebop”

11 “It’s a Drag to Be in Jail”

12 “The ‘Un’ Years”

13 “France Libre!”

14 “Sometimes I Play Things I Never Heard Myself”

15 “The Greta Garbo of Jazz”

16 “As Long as I Can Make a Living”

17 “People Have Tried to Put Me Off as Being Crazy”

18 “My Time for Fame Will Come”

19 “The Police Just Mess with You . . . for Nothing”

20 “Make Sure Them Tempos Are Right”

21 “Hell, I Did That Twenty-Five Years Ago”

22 “Bebopens Oversteprast”

23 “Maybe I’m a Major Influence”

24 “Everything Begins Here and Everything Ends Here”

25 “That’s a Drag Picture They’re Paintin’ of Me”

26 “Sometimes I Don’t Feel Like Talking”

27 “Let Someone Else Create Something New!”

28 “What Do I Have to Do? Play Myself to Death?”

29 “I Am Very Seriously Ill”