Song for My Fathers is the story of a young white boy driven by a consuming passion to learn the music and ways of a group of aging black jazzmen in the twilight years of the segregation era. Contemporaries of Louis Armstrong, most of them had played in local obscurity until Preservation Hall launched a nationwide revival of interest in traditional jazz. They called themselves "the mens." And they welcomed the young apprentice into their ranks.

The boy was introduced into this remarkable fellowship by his father, an eccentric Southern liberal and failed novelist whose powerful...