I travel up and down the country and I've been all around the middle of America for many years. Middle America is not one big mass of people with a proverbial beer in its hand, keeping the country down. That is not my experience of it and I don't labor under that misconception. And we have a long tradition of coming together through music in our country.

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'

When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play but I couldn't.

In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

No particular music makes me feel nostalgic. If it's great, it just keeps me in the present moment. That level of music is like a classic story, like the Iliad-something so perfect it can never be old.

There's so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.

It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory.