In 1915 the Victor Talking Machine Company offered cornetist Freddie Keppard the chance to make the world's first jazz record. He turned it down, reportedly for a $25 fee he called his daily gin budget. This episode traces the life of the man known as the lost king of New Orleans jazz, a figure who stood halfway between the mythic Buddy Bolden and the modern genius of Louis Armstrong. Born in 1890 into the Creole of color community, Keppard learned music on the streets of Basin Street, sneaking into the red light district with a shoeshine kit to get close to working musicians, and switched from violin to cornet at 16 because volume meant visibility and visibility meant cash.

We follow Keppard from leading the Olympia Orchestra as a teenager to taking Bolden's chair in the Eagle Band and being crowned King Keppard, then touring the vaudevill ...