In the ‘20s, New Orleans trumpeter King Oliver invented a new way of combining ragtime, blues and march music into a syncopated sound soon called “jass,” then jazz. And that city’s pianist ...

Tickets: $20 in advance. Dec. 5 The Preservation Hall Jazz Band: “A Creole Christmas” at Variety Playhouse. New Orleans classics and holiday selections with a twist. Tickets: $35-$65.

Touted by the DSO as “a triumphant symphonic ode to the power of the blues,” the piece weaves in elements of marches, ragtime, spirituals and Marsalis’ best-known idiom, jazz music.

Vocal virtuoso Marlena Shaw found personal and critical success in jazz, R&B, soul and disco. She died this year at 84.

The blues anchored its place in American culture by the 1930s—America’s other unique music, jazz, borrowed from the blues. By ...