There are moments when a particular piece of music seems to have the power to reach out through your stereo and take hold of your soul. Depending on the circumstances and memories attached to the first moment you might have listened to it, music, of any genre, will always have that power.

For instance, though I've tried, there is simply no way for me to shake the lovely maudlin tapestry of memory that finds me ten years old and sitting in the back of my parents' car as my father drives us back home after visiting my grandparents, whenever Ronnie Milsap's "Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World" plays. That was the day that my first dog, a young mutt named Pepper, passed away unexpectedly, and I'd been fighting back the tears all night only to have them burst out of me as this song came over the radio. Though it may have been written with other emotions in mind, it seemed to find a home in my young heart, as I used it to cry and sing to myself over the loss of my beloved puppy.

As I listen to Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste, thoughts of how music can just float you away on gusts of sheer emotion threaten to blow each and every word from away before I can write it. It is the wonderful music of the late Jazz great, Alvin Batiste, that has me thinking such heavy thoughts.

Alvin's music, you see, is that of my home state, Louisiana. More to the point, Alvin's ethereal clarinet playing and the way it seductively swirls around in my eardrums, serves as a reminder that Jazz music is the rhythm that directs every pulsation of the city that is truly the heart of Louisiana: the city of New Orleans.

I cannot tell you how heartbroken I was when I heard the news that Mr. Batiste had passed away on May 6 of this year. Only a week earlier I'd asked for permission to receive a copy of his latest album, Alvin Batiste, which was being released by Branford Marsalis's newly founded label, Marsalis Music. It arrived in the mail the day after his death.