We don't have the leadership or the understanding of the value of this, and when your political systems and your economic systems start to fail, it's only a cultural understanding that allows you to reconstruct them and to get back to who you are. For some reason, it hasn't dawned on us yet.

We fight for territory. We see it in our Congress, we see it in our political systems, we see it in our ways of life, how separated we are. When we moved out of the cities and we lost all of the memory that was in cities, and we - one of the highest achievements in our culture is to be able to segregate yourself from everyone else, and the deep thing is the deepest punishment is solitary confinement.

My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.

We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don't understand what is already melted.

If you looked around, you'd be glad you couldn't see.

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?'

I always like to play very contemporary concepts of swing right next to New Orleans music because it highlights continuum.