Marching saints

In endless rounds, with air-trombones, parading away, my sister and I learned to sing, "When the saints go marching in." Only later did I learn to associate the song with New Orleans jazz. The first class I ever taught - English as a second language to high school age refugees from Vietnam – I used a Louis Armstrong recording to illustrate the sound and swing of American jazz. Here in Washington, D.C., the home of Duke Ellington, I heard it again recently – played at a local festival to honor New Orleans. The Marshall Keyes band played it slowly, elegiac, a remembrance of all the saints who have gone marching in, and our longing to be – someday – one of their number.