Music

When I got off the train at Grand Central in the spring of 1920, New York hit me like a bass drum—loud, fast, and impossible to ignore. I’d just come back from Paris, and my French was still sharper than my English. But the moment I set foot in Harlem, I felt it deep in my chest: I was home.

I was 16 when I found the saxophone—well, more like it found me. My brother had joined the Navy and left behind a battered case in our attic in New Orleans. I opened it one humid afternoon in July. Inside was a curved brass horn, dulled but still proud, like something from another world.

The winter wind had barely let up as I stepped off the trolley on West 82nd Street, collar turned up, gloves thin from wear. The streetlamps glowed like halos in the mist. It was 1910, and I was 17, restless, and certain that music could change the world—or at least change me.