When I came Page 22 back, nothing had changed I hadn't changed I was just-older."
This is another line that really goes into how the character feels about Harlem and the things they went through saying that when they came back to Harlem, even though he was older everything was pretty much the same. Sometimes we go through things in our past that if we go back to the original place, it can bring feelings of sorrow rather than just nostalgia which is an important message in this story.
I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything.
This passage was by far my favorite. I love how Baldwin is saying that even though he may be feeling sad or have faced may things in life, he can play beautiful music. His life and him breathing is so important as a musician because he can use those feelings or emotions to his advantage to help spread to message to anyone who hears it and as a musician, he would have the control to make it do what he wanted it to.
"I've been something I didn't recognize, didn't know I could be. Didn't know anybody could be."
This really stuck out to me. In a way I thought it was powerful because he feels he is changing in his character or personality which results from the trauma he has faced and the sadness that the character feels.