not just duke ellington-- walt whitman, the list goes on and on.so much the better for it and we would make such better decisions if we understood what brings us together. >> safer: jazz at lincoln center does its part to keep the heritage alive, bringing high school bands to new york for classes with the pros, and for a chance to strut their stuff, beneath the sophisticated eye of ellington himself. but these are the lucky ones. across most of the country, cultural programs in the schools range from spotty to nonexistent. >> marsalis: the arts are our collective human heritage. you're a better person if you know what shakespeare was talking about, if you know what beethoven struggled with, if you know about matisse. if you know what louis armstrong actually sang through his horn, you're better. because it's just, like, you get to speak with the wisest people who ever lived. >> safer: maestro marsalis speaks his universal language with his band, swinging in the rain with marsalis sounding for all the world like louis armstrong, new orleans' other f

. >> rose: but also played with duke ellington. >> duke, they will loanus monk, who he loved. and he was totally dedicated to his music and i didn't apprecte the discipline and engagement of my father as a musical professional as a four-year-d. what i appreciated was that he was distant and my parents had a strained relationship and one day, as i write about in the book, he came home, my mother was very tense, they had a huge argument over what turned out to be an affair that my father... and another child my father had fathered and he stormed out and i chased him down thelock and while he was telling know go home and go home and finally he lostis patience and turned around and let me have one and went sprawling out on the sidewalk and that's the view fr which i watched him walk away. and i didn't see him for a few years after. that. >> ros what brout you two back together. >> well, my mother, bletsz her heart, she really was determined that we have a relationship. my sister and i. r havellergiesship with my father. so she would write to him and have us write to him when he mo

but that's all happening too, people like billie holiday, count basie, duke ellington, they were all playing in the fillmore district, bop city, plantation club, jack's tavern. that's another world that i was intrigued by and the fact that there were neisei jazz musicians. also the no no boys, which i'm not sure if you are aware of, but one of the story lines in the play is about the character called chet monkawa and he was what was known as a no no boy. at some point everyone in the internment camp was asked to do this questionnaire and there were two questions, question 27 and 28, which basically said you were foreswear allegiance to japan and the emperor and will swear allegiance to america and that you will serve in the armed forces. and for young neisei men in their late teens and 20's, if you signed that, by and large the sense was you could be drafted. and what came about was a certain amount of controversy over those two questions because a lot of things were floating around. one of the arguments, and that's my character, we're locked up. we're in prison and then i'm asked to

they also appreciate basie, duke ellington, miles, coltrane.t just jazz; it's about music as a whole. >> reporter: and that is exactly what wynton marsalis is after, and more. because for all the uplift and sheer exuberance of this festival, it stems from a deeply felt concern for american culture. marsalis' recent book, titled "moving to higher ground," was a mix of music lesson, self-help, and a lament about the loss of knowledge of the arts in the nation and the black community in particular. in it, he wrote: >> if you are serious about american culture and you are serious about afro-american culture, you are in a lot of pain. you are not smiling about it. ( laughs ) i'm laughing, but it's that kind of laugh like "okay." >> reporter: you're laughing, but you re in pain about it. >> it's painful. yeah, it's painful. that's a painful thing for a black american who is really engaged with our culture. let's take the afro-american out of it, because the afro-american is a culture inside of a culture. so a lack of interest in our culture, period,