For many years a debate percolated among writers and historians about the origins of jazz: Did America’s “native art form” truly arise from New Orleans? The late Leonard Feather, and influential critic, stirred the pot with a sweeping pronouncement, “Jazz was not born in New Orleans.”

Feather, who in his later years wrote a syndicated column on jazz for the Los Angeles Times, considered the ragtime syncopation made famous by Scott Joplin, variations of the blues as advanced by WC....