“My grades weren't what they should have been, so they sent me back to the ninth grade. I was glad, because I wanted to study music, and Cass Tech was second only to Juilliard. We studied all kinds of music, harmony and orchestration.”
“But Lunceford was playing great music, and he was just a wonderful human being. We didn't even curse in front of him. We would play seven different shows a day at the Paramount Theater in New York, and we had seven different uniforms. People were lined around the block from Broadway to Seventh Avenue.”
“It should be fun performing with the Roger Humphries Big Band. Some of the toughest people in the music come from Pittsburgh. Do you know who Roy Eldridge is? He was the king of the trumpet. He took over from Louis Armstrong.”
