It was 1987 (pre-OffBeat), and I was really just getting into the New Orleans music scene, not really as a fan, but from a business standpoint. I had always been blown away by the wealth of talent here, and I was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together: What makes New Orleans music and musicians so great, anyway?

In the spring of that year, I’d enlisted the Mayor’s Office to get involved with a new event, the Mayor’s Conference on Music and Economic Development, and after that was over, then-Mayor Sidney Barthelemy had me on his list of “economic development” peeps. So I was asked to join an overseas junket to explore and develop music connections between New Orleans and Paris.

It was my first trip to Europe, and I was pretty much on my own nickel, so I stayed in a friend’s fifth-floor walkup in Montparnasse and joined the rest of the party at their hotel, Le Meridien Etoile. I walk into the bar there, and sit myself next to some distinguished-looking Americans and introduce myself. They turn out to be Greg O’Brien—the Chancellor of the University of New Orleans—and Ellis Marsalis. Ellis was known to me, of course, but I didn’t have a clue that this man was one of the most important musicians I’d ever met.

He had been teaching at NOCCA, but at the time we met in Paris, Ellis was living and teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, coordinating their Jazz Studies Program. Back then, New Orleans didn’t have an established Jazz Studies program. But that’s what O’Brien and Marsalis were discussing. Ellis returned to teach at UNO in 1989 and lured back Harold Batiste from Los Angeles as well.

Not only has Ellis influenced generations of musicians (Harry Connick, Jr., Terence Blanchard, Trombone Shorty, Nicholas Payton—and of course, his musical sons—Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason), but he’s left an indelible mark on jazz in this city, and has been honored by the naming of the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in the Musicians’ Village, a community center that contains a 170-seat performance area, a recording studio and teaching facilities. Ellis Marsalis clearly exemplifies why and how New Orleans music gets better and better, and continues to influence music worldwide.

November 14 marks Ellis Marsalis’ 80th birthday. Ellis still plays most Friday nights at Snug Harbor, and continues to make music on his own and in collaboration with his sons and so many others. Here’s a sincere birthday greeting and a salute to Ellis Marsalis: Long may you bring the gift of your music to us all!