Compelling from cover to cover, this is the story of one of the most recorded and beloved jazz trumpeters of all time. With unsparing honesty and a superb eye for detail, Clark Terry, born in 1920, takes us from his impoverished childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where jazz could be heard everywhere, to the smoke-filled small clubs and carnivals across the Jim Crow South where he got his start, and on to worldwide acclaim. Terry takes us behind the scenes of jazz history as he introduces scores of legendary greats-Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Doc Severinsen, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, and Dianne Reeves, among many others. Terry also reveals much about his own personal life, his experiences with racism, how he helped break the color barrier in 1960 when he joined the Tonight Show band on NBC, and why-at ninety years old-his students from around the world still call and visit him for lessons.

Preface by Quincy Jones Foreword by Bill Cosby
Introduction by David Demsey

1. Big Dreams
2. First Instruments
3. Kicked Out
4. The Vashon High Swingsters
5. First Road Gig
6. Nigga
7. Ida Cox
8. Stranded
9. Lincoln Inn
10. On the Road Again
11. Tennis Shoe Pimp
12. Jailed
13. Len Bowden
14. Navy Days
15. Gray Clouds
16. The Big Apple
17. George Hudson
18. The Club Plantation
19. Galloping Dominoes
20. Tempting Offers
21. Lionel Hampton
22. Road Lessons
23. Pauline
24. Charlie Barnet
25. Count Basie
26. Big Debt
27. Duke Ellington
28. Leaving Basie
29. The University of Ellingtonia
30. Working with Duke
31. Duke's Team
32. Duke's Management Arts
33. Miles and Bird
34. Billy Strayhorn
35. Endurances
36. Flugelhorn
37. Europe
38. Norman Granz
39. Norman's Battles
40. Q
41. NBC
42. Jim and Andy's
43. Johnny and Ed
44. Mumbles
45. First House
46. Big Bad Band
47. Carnegie Hall
48. Etoile
49. Jazz Education Arena
50. Those NBC Years
51. Storms
52. Black Clouds
53. Keep on Keepin' On
54. New Love
55. Whirlwinds
56. Through the Storm
57. Second Chance
58. The Biggest Surprise

Acknowledgments
Honors and Awards
Original Compositions
Selected Discography
Index

Photographs follow page 186