Check through the arts columns of the New York Times these days and there is scarcely a mention of traditional jazz. Yes, there is jazz coverage: bebop, free form, jazz-rock fusion. Perfunctory perhaps, but it’s there at least, in what has become our national newspaper. But trad jazz? It’s a curiosity out of the past for most of America, if you can find it at all.

Then there’s New Orleans, where more traditional bands may play regularly today ...