George Buck oversees the world's largest traditional jazz catalog from his Decatur Street sanctuary.

New Orleans -- the birthplace of jazz. Webster tells us it is “a kind of music, improvised of arranged, and marked by its rhythmic emphasis, syncopation, and harmonic and melodic variations.” A fairly narrow definition -- we know it’s a bit more subjective than that and it comes in as many manifestations as there are flavors of snow balls.

But the fact remains that whate...