Celestin's novel was a fictionalized account of a real life series of murders in New Orleans after the First World War. For almost a year a mysterious killer murdered the residents of New Orleans and surrounding boroughs with an axe, usually belonging to the victim. Jazz music came into the story when the killer wrote a letter stating that he would spare the homes that played jazz music at a certain time on a certain night.
I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.
The most recent fictionalization of the Axeman was in American Horror Story Coven. In Celestin's crime thriller novel three individual's set out to unmask the serial killer.