Not even a hurricane can stop music in New Orleans, though it took some work to bring it back.

Music is the food of life in New Orleans, as ubiquitous as the summer sun, Spanish moss and palmetto bugs. As inevitable as death, which is at once welcomed and overcome by the unique New Orleans institution of the jazz funeral. But after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the city and breached levees, leaving most of New Orleans underwater, the city’s mystic voice was silenced.

But the music ha...