[Dixielandjazz] Storm spread New Orleans musicians

[David Richoux]

Storm spread New Orleans musicians

Hi all,

this was in the travel section of the San Jose Mercury on Sunday 10/16

Dave R

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Storm spread New Orleans musicians

By Cindy Loose
Washington Post
The day Hurricane Katrina hit, pianos sank, woodwinds floated away and 
thousands of New Orleans musicians scattered around the country.

But the music didn't die.

Instead, it has gone on the road, enriching the musical scene in cities 
and towns far and wide. The diaspora of New Orleans musicians is 
bringing blues and Cajun tunes to Colorado, jazz and brass bands to 
Nashville. You'll find R&B in country-western towns, swamp rock along 
the Northeast coast. Funk and punk in Portland, Ore.

In fact, Portland has issued an open invitation, including free 
transportation, housing and rehearsal space, to any musician from the 
Big Easy, plus guaranteed performances in the city's February jazz 
festival. In Houston, musicians have convinced several clubs and 
restaurants to regularly play host to their New Orleans counterparts. 
The annual New Orleans Voodoo Festival, set for Oct. 29-30, has moved 
to Memphis this year.

It's not just charity.

``New Orleans musicians are also great entertainers. They bring 
excitement, and their music is definitely loosening up our town,'' says 
Houston pianist Paul English, founder of a recently formed non-profit 
to benefit New Orleans musicians.

For the traveler, the diaspora might very well mean finding great and 
totally authentic New Orleans music in unexpected places. If you need a 
fix and have been feeling bad that you can't fly to New Orleans to get 
one just yet, don't despair. The music is alive and well. You just need 
to know where to look.

Where are the musicians in exile? New Orleans Times-Picayune music 
writer Keith Spera begins rolling names off the top of his head.

``Aaron Neville and Art are in Nashville, and their brother Cyril has 
set up shop in Austin, as have the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indians, 
sax player Tim Green and four-fifths of the Iguanas,'' he says.

``Guitarist Jimmy Robinson is in Memphis. Anders Osborne is playing 
around at singer-songwriter nights in Nashville. Kermit Ruffins and a 
lot of people are in Houston. There's also lots of different people 
playing Baton Rouge, but I don't know how long they'll stay there. 
Pappa Goes Funk was in St. Charles, but that got creamed by Rita, so I 
expect he's not there anymore.''

You also get a sense of the breadth of the split in the musicians' 
community at the Web site for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which 
for many around the world has long defined the New Orleans sound. The 
site was recently updated to note: ``We are elated to announce that we 
have now had contact with all musicians associated with Preservation 
Hall.''

The last surviving member of the original band -- 96-year-old banjo 
player Narvin Kimball -- initially refused to leave New Orleans during 
the city's evacuation, but the band manager forced him into a car just 
before the storm hit.

The band hopes soon to get back to Preservation Hall, which wasn't 
badly damaged, but in the meantime it is scheduled to play gigs from 
London to Idaho to North Carolina between now and the end of the year.

Major headliners of international stature generally hit the road and 
post their tour schedules at their Web sites. Finding the thousands and 
thousands of great musicians who don't sit at the top of the charts is 
a tougher job.

Musicians in exile

``I've been bounding around,'' is how Washboard Chaz Leary puts it. 
Among other appearances, Leary had a regular gig at the Spotted Cat, a 
little jazz club on Frenchmen Street. In the last few weeks, he has 
done gigs from Baton Rouge to small-town Massachusetts.

``Down in New Orleans, everyone plays at least three or four different 
bands, which is how you make a living,'' said Leary. That fact has made 
the dispersal of musicians around the country particularly difficult: 
Not only do you have to find new gigs, but you have to find your old 
playing buddies.

Leary is getting by but he can't wait to get back to New Orleans. 
``It's America's foremost musical town. I miss hearing music all the 
time, even if it's 4 o'clock in the morning. And all different, 
interesting styles. There's no other city like it in the U.S., and I 
doubt in the world.''

Now the hurricane that blew musicians far from home is also spreading 
the culture even farther, says Jan Ramsey, publisher of OffBeat, a 
Louisiana music magazine. ``It's both a blessing and a curse,'' she 
says, adding that she hopes the musicians ``will come back home and be 
centered in the creative environment New Orleans provides.'' In the 
meantime, her magazine is focused on helping musicians find each other 
and helping potential audiences find the musicians.

Christian Kuffner, Webmaster at New Orleans' jazz radio station WWOZ, 
is using the station's site, www.wwoz.org, to list benefit concerts, 
including one in the Netherlands arranged by the U.S. Embassy there.

Bill Taylor, director of the Tipitina's Foundation -- a non-profit 
associated with the New Orleans club of the same name -- says the 
foundation, which initially focused on immediate needs such as food and 
instruments, has begun networking with music clubs around the nation to 
line up shows for musicians in exile.

Taylor is also working on a nationwide tour that will include musicians 
representing the myriad styles of New Orleans music. He adds that 
musicians will gather back home at Tipitina's on New Year's Eve for a 
show that will be broadcast nationwide.

A free ticket to Oregon

Newly relocated to Portland, Devon Phillips escaped New Orleans with 
little more than one tenor saxophone. His regular gigs had been 
entertaining tourists on New Orleans gondolas -- a job he wasn't likely 
to find anywhere else. He was extremely skeptical when he heard about 
the offer from Portland to New Orleans musicians. The description made 
it sound like the city was basically offering to adopt him.

``But everything they said is true,'' he says. Not only did he get a 
free airline ticket, free housing and food and local transport, 
``they're helping me get gigs, providing rehearsal space and helping me 
put together my own band.''

Sarah Smith, managing director of the Portland Jazz Festival, said 
restaurants that never had live music are opening their doors to New 
Orleans musicians. Recently the city put on a benefit for New Orleans 
relief, and Phillips' new band, New Orleans Straight Ahead, was an 
opening act.

So far, only six musicians have taken Portland up on its offer. But 
more are on their way, at least for a short time. A group is set to 
arrive this week for a Mardi Gras in October festival, and more are 
invited to participate in Portland's Jazzfest in February.

The party's in town

The joy and exuberance that New Orleans musicians bring to the stage 
have been like a jolt of caffeine to the music scene in Houston, says 
English, founder of the new organization NOAH, an acronym for New 
Orleans and Houston.

Houston, he says, is a business town with high-quality fine arts. New 
Orleans musicians -- he figures there are probably close to 500 of 
varying abilities in Houston -- are pumping in a new party atmosphere. 
His group has been working to convince restaurants without live music 
to add it and has been asking clubs to open on nights they normally 
keep dark.

Tommy's Seafood Steakhouse, for example, used to be closed on Sundays. 
English convinced him to open Sunday nights and feature New Orleans 
bands. The experiment was so successful that Tommy's is now also open 
for Sunday brunch, with New Orleans musicians providing the 
entertainment to go with the New Orleans-style food.

English says his group's initial idea was simply to help fellow 
musicians get on their feet. Soon, he realized the essential underlying 
mission: keeping the tradition of New Orleans music alive.

Even if they all straggle home eventually, he adds, ``their influence 
will live on.''