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Deacon John haunts the lobby, barely cramming his aura and toothy grin into a royal blue caballero. A few minutes later, Alvin Batiste and Edward "Kid" Jordan both stroll in from the heat as casually as someone moving from the living room to the kitchen. Michael Foster and John Gray are there, too, representing the next generation.

This swirling vortex of fate, on Sept. 11 of all days, has transformed WBRH-FM, the bunker-esque radio station on the Baton Rouge High School campus, into a mini-museum of living Louisiana music legends. Flashes and electronic beeps of digital cameras are popping off, and a French film crew – content for the moment eschewing the floating bodies and rotting muck Hurricane Katrina left behind in New Orleans – is recording this for postérité, the importance of which not even they quite grasp.

Zia "The Cat" Tamami emerges from the shoe box of a studio, and the hugs and greetings start all over again. The Cat huddles the musicians two or three at a time around black Sennheiser mics in a cramped but cozy space. Gray, a trumpeter with his own recording label, and Foster, a tuba player and leader of local all-brass jazz quintet The Michael Foster Project, speak mournfully of Katrina and the destruction it dealt to New Orleans's music scene.

Empathetic, interested and enrapt, Zia coaxes their emotions. The mood gets lighter when Batiste, the legendary clarinetist and jazz instructor, shares stories of his early career and gigging in New York. He's joined by Jordan, patriarch of the Jordan jazz family and dubbed the John Coltrane of New Orleans, where he teaches music. Deacon John, the longtime New Orleans guitarist and band leader, comes on later and plays a little on the air.

The jazz and conversation flows all afternoon, a welcome--albeit brief--distraction from Katrina.

For such a gem of a moment, it's a shame no one heard it outside the Baton Rouge area. It wasn't just the musical talent that made this edition of "Jazz on the Half Shell" special – it was Zia himself, deftly plying musical knowledge acquired over a lifetime of worshipping jazz and the artists who make it.

His audience may get larger soon.

After 30 years of spinning jazz in Baton Rouge, all on his own time, Zia Tamami is edging closer toward syndicating his show to as many radio stations that will air it. If all goes his way, college and public signals throughout the country would become affiliates of a weekly jazz show produced and recorded here in Baton Rouge.

The plan is to record a weekly show, probably two hours, of The Cat's special blend of straight jazz, Latin jazz, rhythm and blues, Louisiana artists and world music.

"All we need is one or two stations to sign on, and who knows where this will go," Tamami says, with gesticulating hands and sparkling brown, Iranian-born eyes.

Yes, he should have done it sooner, he admits over coffee at La Madeleine a few days after that historic show on WBRH. His wife, Charlotte, has pleaded with him for years to send some tapes to Voice of America. He speaks four languages, for God's sake. Think of how VOA could use that.

But it's not easy. Like any other business venture, syndication takes money and time, both of which are in short supply. An environmental engineering consultant by trade, Tamami's eight hours spent on two stations each Sunday – mornings on KLSU-FM, afternoons on WBRH – are his gift to local jazz aficionados. His records, his prep time, his expertise, all pro bono.

His show has tasted a morsel of syndication. KSLU, Southeastern's campus station in Hammond, airs taped recordings of Zia's "Dinner Jazz" – the final hour of his WBRH show. The past few months, however, there's been real momentum building toward syndication on a grand scale.

Tamami has begun tapping into decades of contacts acquired in the music and entertainment industry, Louisiana native Randy Jackson of "American Idol" fame among them. Carol Bloodworth, an independent producer in Baton Rouge, is helping build a packet of photos, sample CDs and marketing material to tempt station managers.

Tamami also is trying to assemble sponsors. Imagine a nationwide show, especially post-Katrina, he says, underwritten by Tabasco or Community Coffee: Louisiana products and Louisiana artists.

But it's not just about Louisiana, he cautions. It's bigger. It's the sound of musical conversation. It's the metaphysical of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Buckwheat Zydeco, Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim, all occupying the same supernatural frequency for a couple hours at a time.

"I don't want people to classify me. I hate that," The Cat declares.