Issues in Applied Linguistics

Coltrane would say, "Hey, Curtis, try to play this on the trombone," and I would try to run something down. I'd struggle with it and he'd say, "You're getting it" — and so on and so on. Paul Chambers lived all the way in Brooklyn, and he would get in the subway and, gig or no gig, he would come over to practice. He got this thing from Koussevitsky—the Polonaise in D minor—and he'd say "Hey Curtis, Let's play this one." It wasn't written as a duet, but we would run that down together for three offour hours. A couple of days later, we'd come back and play it again. The whole thing was just so beautiful.