Podcast Episodes

Twelfth Street Station

Episode 4

The music didn’t ride north on riverboats. It rode the Illinois Central Railroad — out of New Orleans, up through Memphis and the Mississippi Delta i…

5 hours ago

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The Drain: New Orleans Music From Professor Longhair to Katrina

Episode 3

Professor Longhair kicked the bass of his piano to keep time. The Meters stripped the second line down to funk. Then the levees broke. New Orleans mu…

2 weeks ago

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Little Louis: Louis Armstrong and the Birth of Jazz

Episode 2

The first jazz musician is a ghost — no recording of Buddy Bolden survives. This is the story of the music from Bolden through Storyville to the kid …

1 month ago

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Below Sea Level: How New Orleans Built American Music

Episode 1

New Orleans should not exist — a city in a swamp, below sea level, at the mouth of a continent. It became the place that built American music: jazz, …

1 month ago

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