But nothing seems more disagreeable to Marsalis or his sons than the suggestion that his family was fated to artistic greatness. To hear him speak, the family's evolution sounds no more remarkable than any family whose children did well for themselves. Nothing extraordinary about it, nothing planned. Marsalis now directs the Jazz Studies Program at the University of New Orleans and he plays with his quartet every Friday night at Snug Harbor, on the outskirts of the Quarter. His view of the New Orleans jazz scene is as unromantic as his take on his own family's rise.
People talk about the jazz community.
There is no jazz community. That night in the French Quarter, listening to Jason Marsalis, the drummer, and his band play a 70-minute set, we hear purity, lots of joy, and the dignity of modesty, which jazz clubs foster and concert halls don't. But with the younger Ellis' exception, we were an all-white audience, a replica of most audiences listening to most bands in the French Quarter. The first place Ellis took me to was Camellia Grill, a restaurant on Carrolton Avenue, not far from his parents' house. The manager was a young white man wearing a white shirt and a yellow paisley tie, in fashion 10 years ago.