Ever since I was a kid reading Terry and the Pirates I’ve always dug uniforms. I dug football uniforms, the clash of team colors against each other, and the heavy German uniforms in World War II movies; I dug braid and insignia, Ike jackets were very cool and air force blues. Whenever I drew a picture in school it was of an air force pilot in smart blues with wings and ribbons.

By the late 1940s I knew the blacks had something I was in dire need of, and I was young and intrepid and naive enough to no looking for it.

From 52nd to 140th Street the winds of change were blowing strong. The convulsions of black-rebellion music exploding out of the theaters and cafes of Harlem bad startled white musicians, turned us around; the music was angry, blazing, ferocious—yet always under a tight edge of control.