[Dixielandjazz] The Odyssey of Davell Crawford - New Orleans to NYC

[Steve Barbone]

A Displaced Jazz Musician Rebuilds in New York

NY TIMES - By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI - November 22, 2007

The musical Prince of New Orleans has been touring New York in vagabond
shoes.

³I¹ve been walking around at night looking at all the clubs and the
restaurants, just trying to figure out a new beginning for myself,² said
Davell Crawford, 32, sitting on a piano bench recently at Roth¹s Westside
Steakhouse on the Upper West Side, where he practices. ³I¹m just thankful to
be given another chance in a great city like this, a chance to fit in
somewhere and entertain the people.²

Mr. Crawford, a jazz artist who is as well known in New Orleans as Mardi
Gras, lost everything but his melodious soul in 2005 to Hurricane Katrina,
which caused many musicians to leave and try to find work in other cities.

His career ruined by the storm, the man who once opened for Etta James,
jammed with Lionel Hampton and thrilled audiences on four continents lives
in a tiny Manhattan apartment provided by the Jazz Foundation of America,
which has aided in more than 3,000 emergency cases involving musicians and
their families affected by Katrina.

³Davell is a cross between Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, a male Billie
Holiday,² said Wendy Oxenhorn, the executive director of the Jazz
Foundation. ³He is way too talented to be going through hard times.²

Mr. Crawford, called the Prince of New Orleans by a former mayor, Marc H.
Morial, said that Katrina wiped out his apartment and his Lower Ninth Ward
recording studio, where he kept his grand piano, recordings, compositions,
jewelry, even money.

The studio doubled as a music school for hundreds of aspiring young artists
whom Mr. Crawford, whose energetic music embraces jazz, gospel, funk and
rhythm and blues, taught to sing and play the piano. The catastrophe forced
him to live for a while in his grandmother¹s beauty salon, which Katrina
left partly standing, with no running water and no heat.

As the rest of New Orleans struggled to recover, Mr. Crawford used his
life¹s savings to support himself while performing at funerals and benefits
around the city.

For those performances, he took no pay, but great pleasure in repaying those
who had showered him in better days with thunderous applause at places
including the House of Blues, Charly B¹s and the Maple Leaf.

³Down in New Orleans, we¹re a very tribal community,² Mr. Crawford said.
³We¹re like family ‹ we help one another.²

By February 2006, six months of volunteering had taken a financial toll on
Mr. Crawford. He had drifted to Atlanta and was sleeping on the floors of
friends¹ apartments.

One afternoon, he found himself in a Burger King there, with $12 left in his
pocket. 

³A preacher friend of mine from Atlanta called me that very day, just by
coincidence,² Mr. Crawford said. ³He rushed over to the Burger King and gave
me a hundred dollars ‹ and I just broke down and started to cry.²

The next day, he received a phone call from Ms. Oxenhorn, whose foundation
began helping him with bills and finding him work. In August this year, the
foundation brought him to New York and placed him in his apartment, gave him
a donated grand piano worth $12,000 and had his grandmother¹s beauty salon
in New Orleans repaired.

The foundation also provided Mr. Crawford with recording equipment to make
CDs to get bookings for festival work and helped him land an audition for
Blue Note Records in New York and numerous gigs around the city.

Those gigs included the foundation¹s annual benefit concert, ³A Great Night
in Harlem,² held at the Apollo Theater in May, which raised $750,000.

³We have to keep in mind that this is just one story out of hundreds of
musicians that have needed us,² Ms. Oxenhorn said of Mr. Crawford¹s plight.
³Many of the other musicians we have been helping are elderly, without any
resources.²

For now, the foundation arranges for Mr. Crawford to play at private
parties, which pay just enough to cover rent and basic expenses. But he
dreams of playing in bigger venues, honing his piano skills in his apartment
on the donated piano and practicing at the steakhouse.

Mr. Crawford, who has been performing since he was 7, won a 1998 Big Easy
Entertainment Award for Best Gospel Artist. He is the grandson of James
Sugar Boy Crawford, a pioneer of New Orleans rock ¹n¹ roll and composer of
³Iko Iko,² a popular song written in 1954 under the original title
³Jock-A-Mo.² 

In the early 1960s, Sugar Boy was caught in a different kind of storm. While
on tour in the still-segregated South, his entourage was stopped by the
local police, and he was taken from his car and beaten so badly that he
decided never to return to music.

³He had his Katrina,² Mr. Crawford said softly, ³and I had mine.²

While mentioning the places he would love to play in New York ‹ the
Algonquin Hotel, the Blue Note and Birdland ‹ Mr. Crawford noticed a tip jar
on top of the piano with several bills stuffed inside.

He left his piano bench, picked up the jar and gave it to a waiter.

³This is not my money,² he said. ³When I earn it, I¹ll keep it.²