[Dixielandjazz] Mardi Gras in New Orleans

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

 We have come a long way but apparently still not far enough.
Perhaps it's time to reinstate Reform Schools, or better yet FORM schools 
with heavier influences on teaching music.

Tom Wiggins



This year's Carnival season was marred by the murder of a young mother, an 
innocent bystander watching the Muses parade on St. Charles Avenue, shot by a 
quartet of feuding teenagers. So instead of New Orleans reaping the benefits of 
worldwide publicity concerning the festive wonders of Mardi Gras, what the 
planet heard was that New Orleans was a place where violence and murder are 
commonplace, rampant and random. This is not a new development. Louis Armstrong, 
perhaps the most beloved entertainer in American history, was once a New Orleans 
teenager arrested for firing a gun in public. Young Louis was sent to reform 
school, where he learned to play the trumpet. Among today's New Orleans 
teenagers, raised on a diet of violent video games and violent hip-hop music, there 
is perhaps another Louis Armstrong, waiting to enchant humanity with his 
music. If only we could melt down all the guns in New Orleans and transform the 
weapons into musical instruments! Or, what a wonderful world it would be if guns 
could be traded in for musical instruments. And if only people could get past 
the notion that neighborhoods and wards are worth dying for-they're simply 
temporary addresses of human beings who, as fate and biology would have it, are 
only temporarily in existence. 

We love New Orleans, we love music and musicians and think the world would be 
a better place if we could substitute music for guns. 


I have said it before and I still believe it, I would rather shoot gunshots 
on the rim of my drum than fire my Shotgun especially in times like these.  Now 
someone write a song called Live and Let Live.