📍Sugar Hill, Harlem, New York, NY, USA
1930 – 1950“I grew up in Harlem, in central Harlem and then up on Sugar Hill, in a musical family: my father played clarinet, my sister piano, my older brother violin. Sugar Hill in the 1930s and 40s was something — W.E.B. Du Bois lived a few doors from us on Edgecombe Avenue, and so did much of the leadership of the NAACP. And my heroes lived right there: Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Bud Powell. As a boy I waited outside Hawkins's building to get his autograph, and in 1946, because of him, I switched to the tenor saxophone. I was largely self-taught. In high school I played in a neighbourhood band with Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, and Thelonious Monk, a few blocks away, let us teenagers come to his apartment to rehearse; he became my mentor. Before long I was recording with Bud Powell and Miles Davis. Harlem gave me everything — the music on the streets, the people, the idea that you could make your own sound. Years later I practised for hours on the Williamsburg Bridge so I wouldn't disturb the neighbours.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today