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?'

Our culture is what we did together. What did Walt Whitman represent for all of us? What was his message to us? That is an inheritance, and when we squander that inheritance we act outside. We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play.

My thing is, once you start to put a backbeat on your music or something that has a machine in it, you have popularity, but you lose the flexibility. And you lose a richness.

Louis Armstrong is jazz. He represents what the music is all about.

It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another.

This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.