Norman Batiste, a heartbeat of the Treme community, died on Thursday, August 10, 2021. He was 92.

When he was born on May 4, 1929, at 1215 St. Philip Street, the neighborhood where he grew up and lived his life, which is now popularly called the Treme, was known as the 6th Ward. Batiste, a self-taught musician was raised in a large family where everyone played an instrument or whatever was around to make a sound—washtub, glass bottle, kazoo—and sang and danced. It's been said that his moth...