Last week, I visited the outstanding 1811/Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace, Louisiana. I could not give a review of this book without also reviewing the museum because they are both entwined in my mind. I was slightly disappointed in myself for not having read John McCusker’s Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) before the trip. Yet, after that magical day at the museum, I was delighted to have my mind travel back to the experience as I read the book. McCusker has written the definitive biography on Edward “Kid” Ory. Even Ory’s autobiography (passages do appear throughout McCusker’s book) is not as reliable due to it being dictated by Ory to his second wife, who exercised her unwarranted omissions. McCusker’s tenacious research has brought much light to an early jazz pioneer. The 1811/Kid Ory Historic House is the site of the largest slave rebellion in the U.S. and the plantation where Ory was born. McCu...