It was about ten years ago that I met Jester Hairston. I was in the Community Choir in our little town in Minnesota and we had been working on an array of works by Jester Hairston.

It seems like an eternity had gone by before we got to meet the man we had been waiting for. The whole experience still seems magical. He is a magical man; He can bring understanding where no one can. Musical master of all.

It is very hard to describe the feelings that you experience when working with a person that has such a multitude of talent. That a man no taller than I (at 5'2"), that seems so fragile yet so strong can illustrate through music the pictures of what so many of African-Amercan ancestors experienced is nothing short of miraculous.