In the sumer of 1918, my folks moved from Memphis to Chicago, and I made it my business to go out for a daily stroll and look this 'heaven' over.

[… Lil Armstrong then got a job at Mrs Jones' Music Store, where musicians gathered to play. Armstrong played piano and was referred to as 'The Jazz Wonder Child' ...]

[O]ne day the great Jelly Roll Morton from New Orleans came in and I was in for a little trouble. I had never heard such music before, they were all his original tunes. Jelly Roll sat down, the piano rocked, the floor shivered, the people swayed while he ferociously attacked the keyboard with his long skinny fingers, beating out a double rhythm with his feet on the loud peddle. I was thrilled, amazed and scared. Well, he finally got up from the piano, grinned, and looked at me as if to say, "Let this be a lesson to you".

It was indeed a lesson because from then on when I played, all eighty-five pounds of me played.