PRJC Zoom Jazz Talk: Cradles of Jazz with John McCusker

Cradles of Jazz is a photographic project that documents the places where early jazz took shape. Combining photography with evocative narrative, it explores surviving sites associated with pioneering musicians, including Buddy Bolden, Kid Ory, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and Louis Armstrong.

John McCusker’s photographs are accompanied with essays by Lolis Eric Elie. Both attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts in the late 1970s. In the 1990s and early 2000’s the pair were colleagues at The Times-Picayune where Elie was a columnist and McCusker a news photographer. In 1998, they traveled together to West Africa to cover President Bill Clinton’s visit.

During this period, both reported on the disappearance of jazz landmarks and the threats facing those that remained. And so, Cradles of Jazz is grounded in three decades of observation, and is informed by the perspectives of these two New Orleans natives with deep connections to the city and its musical heritage.

Cradles of Jazz asks the question of the role of place in shaping artistic movements. The goal is to inspire appreciation and protection of the physical spaces where America’s original art form was born. The project is funded in part by a Community Partnership Grant from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.

Our speaker, John McCusker, has been a photojournalist in New Orleans since 1983, working at the Times-Picayune and the New Orleans Advocate. McCusker was part of the team awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and he was named a fellow with the DART Society in 2009. He is the author of “Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz” (2012) and co-author of “Jockomo: The Native Roots of Mardi Gras Indians,” (2019) both published by the University Press of Mississippi. McCusker founded the Cradle of Jazz Tour in 1994 with a goal of protecting and marking structures associated with the birth of jazz in New Orleans. After leaving newspaper work in 2016, he worked as a volunteer for ToolBank USA, aiding in the recovery from Hurricanes Harvey and Michael. In 2019, John founded the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House, a museum telling the story of the 1811 slave rebellion and the early life of jazz pioneer Kid Ory. In 2026 McCusker became the public information officer for the Jefferson Protection and Animal Services department in Jefferson Parish, LA.

Lolis Eric Elie is a New Orleans born, Los Angeles based writer and filmmaker. His television credits include work on “Bosch,” “The Chi,” "The Man in the High Castle," "Greenleaf" and the HBO series "Treme." Working with the award-winning director Dawn Logsdon, he co- produced and wrote the PBS documentary, Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. He is the co-author or “Rodney Scott’s World of Barbecue: Every Day’s a Good Day,” from Clarkson-Potter. His essay, “America’s Greatest Hits,” is included in Best African American Essays: 2009.

A former columnist for The Times-Picayune, he is the author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country and co-producer and writer of Smokestack Lightning: A Day in the Life of Barbecue, the documentary based on that book. He is editor of Cornbread Nation 2: The Best of Southern Food Writing.

A contributing writer to The Oxford American, his work has appeared in Gourmet, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Downbeat and The San Francisco Chronicle.

This session is FREE to the public, although we appreciate any donations toward the program to help offset costs. Registration required by 5:00p.m. the day of the talk to receive the Zoom link.