Imagine waking up one day as a young man knowing, if perhaps not appreciating consciously, that you’re an artist of unique genius, that people love the new art form you’re in the process of inventing and will pay you large amounts of money, by ordinary standards, for your efforts at same.

In the 20th Century, only Charlie Chaplin and Louis Armstrong had a morning illuminated by that kind of revelation.

It’s not the sort of thing that guarantees you personal happiness, and people pay for such gifts in terrible ways sometimes — but, my God, what a high it must be, a jolt of pure joy, beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, yet somehow accessible, still, through the art that Chaplin and Armstrong made..

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