New Orleans (1947)

Richard Hageman: Henry Ferber

Quotes 

• Henry Ferber : That note isn't even in the diatonic scale.

  Louis Armstrong : Diatonic? Did I do something wrong?

  Henry Ferber : Something extraordinary. You are playing notes between flat and natural. It's like discovering - a secret scale just made for this type of music.

  Louis Armstrong : Horn, did you hear what the gentleman said?

• Nick Duquesne : While Dr. Jekyll conducts the classics in the concerts, Mr. Hyde comes down to Basin Street to play ragtime. Is it to get away from something?

  Henry Ferber : Maybe it's to - come back to something.

• Nick Duquesne : I suppose you think ragtime is all right as long as its locked up down here.

  Henry Ferber : No, that's the trouble. You can't lock it up. It leaks through everywhere. It's as though I caught some virus. Except that a virus makes one ill and this music doesn't make me ill. It makes me feel very well!

• Henry Ferber : Satchmo, play me something loud and mean as possible.

• Louis Armstrong : What kind of music's in there?

  Henry Ferber : Uptown music.

  Louis Armstrong : Uptown music?

  Henry Ferber : Want to see it?

  Louis Armstrong : Yeah.

  [looks and points at the sheet music] 

  Louis Armstrong : Don't these little fags on the fences get in the way of your feelings sometimes?

  [Ferber laughs]