Traditional New Orleans Jazz : Conversations with the Men Who Make the Music

About a century after its beginnings, traditional jazz remains the definitive music of New Orleans and an international hallmark of the city. Producing a long list of jazz legends from Lionel Ferbos -- the city's oldest working jazz musician -- to Grammy winner Irvin Mayfield, the musical heritage of traditional jazz lives on through each player's passion. In Traditional New Orleans Jazz, veteran jazz journalist Thomas Jacobsen discusses that legacy with Ferbos, Mayfield, and a who's who of the present-day scene's "trad jazz" players.

Through intimate conversations with jazz veterans and up-and-coming talent, Jacobsen elicits honest, witty, and sometimes comedic discussions that reveal a strong mutual devotion to do one thing--compose and play music inspired by the Crescent City's earliest jazz musicians.