[Dixielandjazz] Jazz & Heritage Festival News + Preservation Hall Reopens

[Steve barbone]

Advance sales top 100,000 tickets. But last year's gate was 400,000. Still,
not bad for the ravaged city of New Orleans. Hype from USA Today.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

SEE SUNSPOTS AND DR. JOHN - By Edna Gundersen - USA TODAY
Since 1970, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival always delivered a
spirited Cajun waltz and sublime crawfish étouffée. Expectations are far
higher this year: Organizers, city fathers, residents and musicians hope the
roots-music celebration will seed a cultural rebound.

"There's a fever in the air, and everyone is really jazzed," says Quint
Davis, producer/director of the 37th Jazz Fest, set for Friday through
Sunday and May 5-7 at the rehabilitated Fair Grounds. Jazz Fest signals the
literal and symbolic comeback of music and culture in the wounded city.

Whereas Mardi Gras was a warm-up, this is the first true test of New
Orleans' pulling power as a tourist attraction in the recovery from Katrina.
It also poses a broader question: Did floodwaters sweep away the indefinable
funk that made this music scene so colorful and rich? Or can the region ‹
the birthplace of jazz, a spawning ground for R&B and rock, a new hotbed for
hip-hop ‹ thrive again with homegrown sounds and styles?

The first challenge has been met, and Davis promises the bon temps will
roulez. Advance ticket sales exceed 100,000. Though that's only a quarter of
last year's gate, late buys and walk-ups could inflate the take. Fans are
arriving from 50 states and Australia, Japan and Europe, and displaced
musicians are pouring in.

"It's the homecoming dance," Davis says. "The concept of normalcy has not
been applied here since Katrina, and the festival is trying to plant that
flag, to say that the city's culture, tourism industry and way of life are
back. We're always waiting to exhale. Can you find a quart of milk? Can you
find gas? Jazz Fest will be the ultimate exhale."

The music fair seemed implausible last fall and wasn't a go until Jan. 15
after sponsors signed on.

"It's amazing to pull this off since Jazz Fest employees lost their houses,
too," says Glenn Gaines, manager of the Wild Magnolias and Marva Wright.
"Jazz Fest has been especially accommodating to musicians, making sure they
all get in and paying them a fair wage. It's going to unite and heal
people."

A couple of joyous, jamming weekends can't ensure a sound future for the
city's music culture. Nor can the recharged club circuit.

Davis ponders, "Will there be a renaissance? I don't know. You can have a
fancy restaurant cook a traditional Creole dish, but if you don't have the
authentic neighborhood restaurants, you're in danger of losing the culture.
Kids in the neighborhoods have to feel the brass bands and Mardi Gras
Indians going into their bones. Those are links in the chain to the next
Louis Armstrong. People are the culture."

The solution to the city's musical future lies in one word: "Housing," says
Monk Boudreaux, 64, chief of the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians.
"Musicians are used to the road, but they're also used to coming back to New
Orleans. They're homesick, and they got no home to come home to."

Preservation Jazz Hall will reopen Thursday, and hotels, clubs and the
French Quarter are vibrating with live music again. But beyond the business
and tourist districts are ruined and empty streets. Among storm evacuees
were Fats Domino and Charmaine Neville, both stranded for days in the Ninth
Ward. Irma Thomas' club was lost. Eddie Bo's home was destroyed. Allen
Toussaint is rebuilding his. The Dixie Cups relocated to Florida. Marva
Wright moved to Maryland. The Iguanas fled to Austin.

Boudreaux moved to Mesquite, Texas, when his home flooded. He returned to
start repairs. "I couldn't wait, and I know the Indians will come back," he
says. "There's no place else we can exist. This is a music town. When I was
a kid, older people used to walk down the street singing every day. It's a
place where you can be happy and have a good time even if you're sad."

R&B singer Clarence "Frogman" Henry, 69 and eyeing retirement in May,
escaped to Memphis, returning weeks later to find five trees uprooted, a
mold infestation and a battered roof that left a vintage piano and prized
photos destroyed. 

With aid from a local preacher and the MusiCares charity, "I'm getting
control of it now," Henry says. "A lot of entertainers say they won't be
back, but they will. I've traveled all over the world. There's no place like
New Orleans. You can feel the rock, the Dixieland, the swamp pop. The music
tells a story and brings a joy to your life."

Trombone player Stephen Walker, 26, drove to Atlanta and flew to Oregon
after "watching the weather act a fool." He doubts the city's business side
will fully recover but is confident musicians will flock home and tourism
will boomerang.

Others are pessimistic. Drummer Gene Black turned 24 the day Katrina forced
him out and drove many musicians to better jobs elsewhere. "It's going to be
a blessing for a lot of people," he says. "New Orleans has a lot to offer.
At the same time, it can be a trap."

Likewise, singer Aaron Neville sees little hope for his shattered hometown.
The Neville Brothers, off Jazz Fest's marquee for the first time in 37
years, are scattered, with Cyril in Austin, Charles in Massachusetts and
Aaron in Nashville. Only Art remains in New Orleans.

"The New Orleans I knew will never bounce back," Aaron says. "I hope they
can build something safe for people who stay, but it's Hurricane Alley, and
the levees are a disaster waiting to happen. Again.

"The places I used to hang out at, they're gone. The heart and soul is gone.
People are displaced. It's sad, and nobody's doing nothing about it. It's
like they want New Orleans to go away."

The city's musical ranks did shrink, says writer and musician Ben Sandmel,
who managed the Hackberry Ramblers before the death of co-founder Edwin
Duhon.

"The funk is still here," he says. "All styles of music are very much alive.
There's been a surge of creativity and a certain defiance, as if to say, 'It
takes more than a hurricane to get rid of us.' The spirit of the music is
indomitable, and there's a determination to preserve it, but so many people
are in such terrible shape."

The music community is getting boosts from charities, outside musicians and
such "bittersweet serendipities" as benefit concerts and albums, Sandmel
says.

"There's talent here, but not much infrastructure," he says. "The public
school system is in bad shape. Until the levees are truly rebuilt, a lot of
people are reluctant to return. And residents can't support entertainment if
they're not on their feet financially."

Jan Ramsey, publisher of OffBeat magazine, says the music scene was limping
before Katrina dealt her crippling blow.

"The business community, the government and tourism people always
acknowledged that music is an important part of the culture and the economy,
but it's mostly been lip service," she says, decrying a lack of support and
promotion. 

The city's music development office was abolished after Katrina. Licenses
for music clubs are tough to come by. Efforts to establish a music row on
run-down South Rampart Street have been thwarted.

The culture needs capital, "but the city is just broke," Ramsey says. "And
nobody is here. Musicians have nowhere to live. We have 20,000-plus blighted
houses that could be renovated, and they sit there rotting."

Pre-Katrina troubles swelled in the flood, says Mark Samuels, president of
Basin Street Records, home to trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, clarinetist Dr.
Michael White and pianist Henry Butler.

To sustain the strong musical traditions, "we need instruments for
elementary school children," he says. "We need high school band directors.
We need solid neighborhoods to produce people like (trombonists) Corey Henry
or Troy Andrews, who started playing when they were 6 or 7. If we don't
solve these problems in the next year or two, we'll have at least one
generation gap and lose the mentoring that's so crucial."

He's encouraged that the city is flexing its musical muscles.

"Every music venue I went to in the last two years is open again, except The
Funky Butt," he says. "The House of Blues recently had seven nights of
sellouts."

Funk legend Dr. John says musicians will bounce back with help from the
usual source: each other.

"It's the people that always pull each other up," he says. "It's going to be
a slow process, because the Lower Ninth Ward looks like Hiroshima. ... The
hurricane was a tremendous blow to our culture. It's dead-end city."

Restoring those neighborhoods is vital to music's posterity.

"There's no part of New Orleans that you can cut out, although certain
people would love to turn the city into a Disneyland. I'm very proud to come
from Louis Armstrong's neighborhood. I was raised four blocks from where he
was born in the Third Ward. This music is all about ancestors and passing
music down to the next generation. That's what happened to me.

"I point a lot of fingers at the government. My godson still doesn't have
his FEMA trailer. It's insulting, considering what this city gave to the
world. I do believe in the spirit of New Orleans people. They lost
everything else, but they got spirit."

The spirit has a hold on trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, who took his Barbecue
Swingers to Houston after all the homes of his relatives and band were
swamped in the Ninth Ward. His father's house was split in half.

Ruffins' outlook? Utopian.

"They'll rebuild the levees to withstand a Category 6," he declares. "When
we cut the ribbon on the new New Orleans, it will be the biggest party in
history. We will swing again, you can believe that."