The anticipation of our tour of Russia in 1971 is so great that there is a risk of being consumed by it. Russian music in all its endlessness is too much to contemplate, so I simply try to relax, and wait to see and hear. But all those famous names are in my mind: Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov (the master of orchestration), Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Glazunov, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Shostakovich, not forgetting, of course, Stravinsky... I am going to breathe the same kind of air all those great composers breathed. And then there was Vladimir Dukelsky who, as Vernon Duke, wrote two songs that were great favorites of Billy Strayhorn's and mine: "April in Paris," which I first heard in 1933, when Mabel Mercer sang it in Bricktop's club on the Place Pigalle; and "I Can't Get Started," which Harold Ashby has played since he joined us. << less