Blues Is Like The Roux In A

I Have Absolutely No Idea What My Generation Did To Enrich Our Democracy. We Dropped The Ball. We Entered A Period Of Complacency And Closed Our Eyes To The Public Corruption Of Our Democracy.

Having Heard Clifford Brown Play All Those Fast Runs, I Used To Really Practice Clarke Trumpet Exercises All Day Long So That I Could Play Fast. That's All I Wanted To Do. I Was Like A Child With A Toy.

When I Did The Abyssinian Mass, I Went Through The Whole History Of The Church Music And The Gospel Music, Even With The Anglo American Hymns, The Afro American Hymns, The Spirituals And How It Developed, Up To Thomas Dorsey And The Dixie Hummingbirds, Going Through The History Of The Music, Jazz Musicians.

I Feel That For Years Of Teaching In The Country And Reading Criticism In Books, I Feel Like The Things Most Needed In Our Culture Are The Understanding Of The Meanings Of Our Music. We Haven't Done That Good Of Job Teaching Our Kids What Our Music Means Or How We Developed Our Taste In Music That Reminds Us And Teaches Us Who We Are.

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?'