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At the church recitals. And Dean Dixon was clearly the outstanding violinist. You know, he went on to Juilliard and became a conductor and all that. And Mrs. Dixon, who just died, by the way, -- she was always ahead of my mother, in terms of the musical ability of Dean, being vastly superior to mine.

Nonetheless my mother still insisted that I would have to continue taking violin lessons, when it was very clear to everyone, including my teacher, that I was never going to be a violain player.

Did you have the feeling of being chained to the violin?

That I really felt. Of all the things that my mother required of me, the violin lessons were, to me, the most onerous. I just -- I couldn't understand how they could stand my practicing. I couldn't.

And it seemed to me very clear, within a year or two, what the ceiling of anybody's musical ability was going to be. Whether it's violin or piano or anything else -- with all the damn practice in the world, I don't think it's going to make much difference.

Now, that may not be true of anything else, but it certainly seemed to me to be very true of music.

End at the same time, I don't think it hurt me too much to -- because, you know, at least it gave me some sense of music, and appreciation of what's really good and what's mediocre, because I was such a x wonderful example of the mediocre.

During your early years in Harlem, isn't this the time of the Marcus Garvey movement, or at least its aftermath? Do you remember when you first became aware of Marcus Garvey and the movement?