When Charlie speaks of LesterYou know someone great has goneThe sweetest swinging music manHad a Porkie Pig hat onA bright starIn a dark ageWhen the bandstands had a thousand waysOf refusing a black man admissionBlack musicianIn those days they put him in anUnderdog positionCellars and chittlins'

When Lester took him a wifeArm and arm went black and whiteAnd some saw redAnd drove them from their hotel bedLove is never easyIt's short of the hope we have for happinessBright and sweetLove is never easy street!Now we are black and whiteEmbracing out in the lunatic New York nightIt's very unlikely we'll be driven out of townOr be hung in a treeThat's unlikely!

Tonight these crowdsAre happy and loudChildren are up dancing in the streetsIn the sticky middle of the nightSummer serenadeOf taxi horns and fun arcadesWhere right or wrongUnder neonEvery feeling goes on!For you and meThe sidewalk is a history bookAnd a circusDangerous clownsBalancing dreadful and wonderful perceptionsThey have been handedDay by dayGenerations on down

We came up from the subwayOn the music midnight makesTo Charlie's bass and Lester's saxophoneIn taxi horns and brakesNow Charlie's down in Mexico

With the healersSo the sidewalk leads us with musicTo two little dancersDancing outside a black barThere's a sign up on the awningIt says "Pork Pie Hat Bar"And there's black babies dancing...Tonight!