During his tenure as Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis has presented programs covering the entire scope of jazz history. On his current tour with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Marsalis is digging all the way back to the roots of the music.

The Rochester International Jazz Festival is the first stop on a tour featuring Marsalis and Ghanaian master percussionist Yacub Addy's composition, "Congo Square." In the 18th and 19th centuriesCongo Square, in New Orleans, was the only location where African slaves were allowed to perform their music and dances. The Orchestra will be joined at the Eastman Theatre by Addy's nine-member ensemble, Odadaa!.

City recently spoke to Marsalis about the new composition; the following is an edited version of the conversation.

City: What did having a place like Congo Square mean to African slave?

Wynton Marsalis: It meant that they were able to create community, they were able to have group recreation, and it meant they were able to retain a lot of their traditions and Africanisms and feelings.

What motivated you to write this piece about Congo Square?

Yacub and I talked about it in 1996 because both of us are about using our imaginations to re-imagine the tradition that we come from. We believe it's always important to reinvigorate that tradition with new ideas. We weren't trying to recreate Congo Square, we just wanted to get a suite of pieces that would cover a sweep of different kinds of rhythms and styles, and something that would be festive and communal.

How did you go about researching and creating the music?

I always research, but I put all of my research material obliquely into my music. So, I studied [Louis Moreau] Gottschalk's music, "Bamboula" - a piece that he wrote. I used his main theme in one of my themes.

Yacub brought a whole world of information. Their way of playing is so different than ours; we had to learn so much. We believe this collaboration is the very first of its kind. It's an innovative piece because jazz musicians have never really played on the inside of African bell rhythms. We achieve that on some of these songs.

In Congo Square African slaves must have encountered cultures already there. Is there a parallel between that and your mostly African-American orchestra playing with African musicians?

We're mainly just American now. In those days they would take French, Creole, and Caribbean songs, which are simple songs, and put simple drum patterns to them. There's a book of what they think people played in Congo Square; no one actually knows. When the African musicians get into the deepest, thickest heart of what they play - man, if you're not African, you're going to have a hard time. (Marsalis demonstrates the complexity of the rhythms with tapping and vocals.)

Did the musicians in your band have a renewed respect for the African musicians?

They always had respect for them. Whenever you have to play with people you respect them because you realize how little you know about what they're playing. If you can get past the kind of cliché, glasnost feeling - the kind of we-are-the-world version of universality - and actually address the seriousness of what someone else has figured out in their culture, and have to fit into it, and they try to fit in with yours, you get a very healthy respect for it.

Were you aware of the importance of Congo Square when you were growing up in New Orleans?

No, we didn't know anything about Congo Square. I knew it existed because my father was a teacher. And the Cabildo - where they kept all the slaves - was still around. There is an area now with a plaque, but it's gated off and landscaped in such a way that nobody would want to go in it. I would rather see it be an area that's accessible to the public.

What was it like performing Congo Square in New Orleans last year?

It was good. But a lot of the people were not back.

Do you see New Orleans coming back after Katrina?

I'm a New Orleanian; I've got to see it coming back. We will come back.

How much of jazz and other contemporary music had it roots in Congo Square?

Every kind of music with a rhythm section has roots in Congo Square. If it has a bass and drum together, the roots are in Congo Square.

On your latest Blue Note album you comment on the negative direction of contemporary music, particularly rap and hip-hop. How do you get young people interested in quality music?

Young people need to be educated like you and I needed to be, and it's incumbent upon us to educate them. There was one generation of young people who had the moral high ground over the older people. That's the generation that was against the Vietnam War, against the "Ozzie and Harriet" view of the world, that embraced the Civil Rights Movement.

There have been two generations since then. None of them have had that. I'm 45. We definitely didn't have it over our parents. We're not known for doing anything, so I don't know why we continue to be fascinated with young people. For some reason the taste of younger people, when it comes to music and culture, is [considered] more developed than that of older people.

We need to teach younger people. And younger people are amenable to being taught. If we choose to sell thing to them and exploit their sexuality when they're 11and 12 years old, hey, what can they do? They can't defend themselves against that. So I never talk down to young people or blame them. They're just victims of a game. The question for adults is: why do we not find anything in our culture worth teaching to younger people?

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Yacub Addy play at the Eastman Theatre, 26 Gibbs Street, on Thursday, June 14, at 8 p.m., as part of the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Tickets cost $37.50-$65. For more information visit http://www.rochesterjazz.com/.