A trip through OffBeat’s back pages, or as Louis Armstrong once sang: “All that meat and no potatoes!” For those readers with scant knowledge of New Orleans music and Louisiana culture, these excerpts will provide a comprehensive crash course. For those readers already converted to the faith, memories of the musical quick and the dead will be joyfully evoked.

1988

“Human nature is the reason why I play piano the way I do. But not jus...