"I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now … - Ralph Ellison

"I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound."