Ellis Marsalis

This year’s Duke Ellington Jazz Festival celebrated the musical heritage of New Orleans. Fittingly, the festival’s fifth iteration came to an end with the first family of New Orleans jazz convening at the Kennedy Center to honor its patriarch, the great pianist and educator, Ellis Marsalis.

Joining Ellis were his sons, each of whom bring a different quality to the music. Saxophonist Branford has the wit and the largest breadth of experience, having played with Sting, his own top flight quartet, and most recently becoming a prominent featured soloist with classical ensembles. Trumpeter Wynton is more or less the jazz community’s chief spokesman, and is the most visible jazz musician of his generation. Delfeayo Marsalis spent much of the 1980s and ’90s behind the scenes as a producer and engineer, but has since established a fine career as a trombonist. The youngest of the musical Marsalises is drummer/percussionist Jason. His brothers tout him as the most naturally gifted player, who also has perfect pitch and an encyclopedic knowledge of music. There is also a younger Ellis, who does not play music, but the poet/photographer’s moving spoken word tribute to his father, titled “Man and the Ocean,” raised goosebumps nonetheless.