Not unlike many New Orleanians, 75-year-old drummer Lawrence Batiste had pre-birth experiences with the music of the Crescent City.

Sitting in a coffee shop on Oak Street in the heat of this summer, he recalls, “There’s a story that my mom was carrying me before I was born. She liked second lines. She used to make umbrellas, baskets, fans for second-line parades. When they came by, she would get out in the streets and march down the street with the bands. My grandmother told her, ‘You’re m...