Early in my reporting on the Katrina aftermath for The New Yorker I met David Freedman of New Orleans’s amazing listener-supported roots-music radio station, WWOZ. Among his many projects, Freedman was mounting an effort to find and return to New Orleans all of the high schools’ band directors. “High school band is where jazz begins,” he said. “High school band is where kids first learn to play the horn.”

Most of the nine poeple in Nine Lives I stumbled upon in my reporting. But when we were choosing people to build the book around, Margaret and I decided to include a high-school band director. I called Freedman for a recommendation. He sent me to Wilbert Rawlins Jr.

The amazing thing about New Orleans, for me, is how willing -- yea, eager -- everybody is to spend hours and hours telling their life stories. Wilbert agreed immediately on the phone, and invited me over to O. Perry Walker High School that afternoon. “We’re marching in a Mardi Gras parade tonight,” he said. “You can come.”

That was a pretty stressed school in early 2007. As many as a quarter of its students were living on their own -- in trailers, abandoned buildings, etc., because their parents, if they had them, either wouldn’t or couldn’t come back to New Orleans after the evacuation. These kids, though, were driven. Got to get back to Mr. Rawlins. Got to get back to band.

The band room was cacaphonous. Wilbert sat at his desk, fixing a trombone with baling wire. Students milled around in every direction, tuning instruments, struggling into their orange-and-blue marching uniforms, playing grab-ass, being kids.

“See that girl?” Wilbert said, pointing to a young lady clutching a clarinet. “She started playing on Monday.” This was Thursday.

“You’re letting a girl who’s only been playing the clarinet four days march in a Mardi Gras parade?”

Wilbert flapped a big hand. “Getting a kid to play the horn is the easy part,” he said. “These kids have been hearing this music their whole lives; you just have to let it out. The hard part is teaching these kids what it means to be part of something bigger than they are, to show up on time, to listen, to be responsible. What I’m really doing here is not just music education. It’s creating productive citizens.”

I asked how many were marching that day, and Wilbert lit up. “I have a quarter of the school in band or the auxiliary” -- twirlers, dancers, flag team and so on. “A quarter of the school! That’s a quarter of the school that has to maintain a B average. A quarter of the school that can’t be doing drugs, can’t be getting in trouble with the police, can’t be a discapline problem in school. A kid does band all afternoon, holding that horn up” -- Wilbert sat erect, with his arms up in playing position -- “he’s tired. And you ask these kids. Band is their life. Nobody wants to get put out of band. I got a quarter of the school living this life. And next year, I aim to have half the school.”

He stood, towering over me, flashing a big fat gold incisor. “You watch,” he said. “Band is powerful.”

If I were casting the movie of Nine Lives, I’d have Denzel Washington play Wilbert, for that combination of moral depth and great humor.

Here’s a video I shot en route to that first parade: