The images are unforgettable. Ruined homes barely poking out of
murky water. The living wading among the dead. Thousands fleeing
over flooded freeway overpasses, hoping to be rescued. News
reporters shaking their heads in disbelief, some moved to tears by
the unimaginable human drama unfolding in a unique American
city.
“At every level ““ individual, corporate,
philanthropic and governmental ““ we failed to meet the
challenge that was Katrina,” reads a recently released
congressional report investigating what went wrong in the aftermath
of the hurricane. “In this cautionary tale, all the little
pigs built houses of straw.”
Yet while government officials may have built houses of straw
easily blown down by Katrina’s natural force, New Orleans and
its rich musical traditions will not be so easily destroyed.
“New Orleans will always have a club scene … but
it’s a dysfunctional city right now and so many things
don’t work and they need more money,” said Henry
Butler, a celebrated jazz pianist and icon of the New Orleans jazz
scene. Butler will be visiting UCLA to lecture and perform from
Feb. 21 to March 3, dates which coincide with New Orleans’
Mardi Gras celebrations.
It is through the music of artists such as Henry Butler that New
Orleans is able to continue the healing process begun by relief
efforts.
“Music is the best medicine for the kind of spiritual
malaise that is forced on everyone (in a disaster like
Katrina),” said Bruce Raeburn, curator of the Hogan Jazz
Archive at Tulane University in New Orleans. “Disasters are
built into this city, like yellow fever and cholera outbreaks
““ not to mention hurricanes. This is a city that knows danger
and uses music to insulate itself from it as much as
possible.”
The Hogan Jazz Archive was set up in 1958 and contains over
50,000 different musical recordings ““ not just jazz, but any
and all music involved in some way with New Orleans. The archive
also contains vintage items such as old phonographs and printed
music, as well as rare taped interviews with early jazz musicians.
Fortunately, this rich pocket of musical history was spared from
Katrina’s wrath.
“We were extremely fortunate,” said Raeburn, who was
not in New Orleans when Katrina struck. “The archive used to
be in the main library, but was moved nine years ago to the third
floor of the Jones Building. The basement of this building flooded,
but the collection was safe on the upper floors.”
While the Hogan Archive emerged from the disaster intact, it
remains to be seen how effectively other elements of New
Orleans’ musical scene will bounce back.
According to Cheryl Keyes, a professor in the UCLA Department of
Ethnomusicology, a large part of the youth culture in areas of the
Deep South such as New Orleans is the marching band or brass band
tradition.
This tradition involves bands marching in streets through
neighborhoods, usually accompanying social-aid workers and pleasure
clubs that march on Sundays, as well as marching at somber
gatherings like funerals.
Keyes, who grew up in nearby Baton Rouge, La., and attended New
Orleans’ Xavier University, played in marching bands in her
youth and took part in many marches, including the famous Mardi
Gras celebration.
“Mardi Gras is very participatory, in terms of the African
American tradition of marching and brass bands,” Keyes said.
“For instance, when you’re marching down the street,
(everyone watching) joins in and marches in something called the
“˜second line.’ It’s something you’re
expected to take part in, even if you don’t know the specific
steps.”
However, Raeburn notes that the destruction of neighborhoods
such as the 9th Ward due to Katrina and its aftermath makes it
difficult for marching and brass bands to pick up where they left
off.
Specifically, he said that musicians in such bands typically
march where they live. With many neighborhoods having been wiped
out, a lot of these musicians now have nowhere to march. Some have
resorted to setting up new marching and brass band traditions in
cities such as Houston, to which they have been forced to
relocate.
Yet relocation has not been all bad for New Orleans
musicians.
“Some musicians have discovered that they may actually
find more work in Houston, for instance, because New Orleans
musicians have such unique talents,” Raeburn said.
He was quick to point out, however, that he doesn’t expect
these musicians to stay away for very long, if the experience of
past musicians leaving New Orleans is any indication.
“Many (musicians) don’t fit in and they end up
coming back, simply because music interfaces with the New Orleans
lifestyle ““ a lifestyle which is not easy to put together in
other places,” Raeburn said.
Contrary to popular belief and perception, the New Orleans music
scene is not exclusive to Mardi Gras and the city’s famous
French Quarter. In fact, according to Raeburn, the famous area is
just the opposite.
“The French Quarter is not where people go in New Orleans
to see live music,” Raeburn said. “People are going
down below the quarter to areas like the Faubourg Marigny District
in the 7th Ward, which is where most of the city’s Creole
population was located. (It) is hallowed ground for New Orleans
musicians.”
The French Quarter, Raeburn says, is mostly a place where
tourists go. For this reason, he adds, many locals avoid the area
and the true musical and cultural uniqueness of New Orleans ends up
being manifested in areas such as Faubourg Marigny.
It is in these venues outside of the highly visible French
Quarter where emerging New Orleans musicians mold and shape the
music of their forebears.
In the past few decades, younger musicians in New Orleans have
fused forms of hip-hop and brass band aesthetics into a new style
of music, known simply as “bounce.” Bounce, which was
born in the 1980s through efforts of artists such as DJ Jubilee and
the Take Fo’ record label, utilizes call-and-response lyrics
with party shouts and calls. Keyes said many people mistake this
flavor of southern rap as having originated in Atlanta, when in
fact it was created in New Orleans. Bounce’s influence can be
seen in artists like Outkast, Lil’ Jon and the Ying Yang
Twins, despite the fact that most people listening to these artists
on a mainstream scale outside of New Orleans are unaware that
bounce even exists as a style.
Raeburn added that fusions of hip-hop and brass bands are not
uncommon, and that such amalgamations are typically the result of
evolving musical skills and appreciations.
“Musicians playing professionally (in New Orleans)
isn’t uncommon at age 13 or 14,” Raeburn said.
“But by the time they’re 18, 19 or 20, they’ve
(already) done the rebellion thing and they start gravitating more
toward tradition.”
Raeburn cited Kermit Ruffins of the Barbeque Swingers as a
musician who experimented with free-form jazz before discovering
Louis Armstrong and starting to play more traditional music.
Of course, sometimes things go in the opposite direction.
Another musician, Trombone Shorty, played strictly jazz until
rocker Lenny Kravitz offered him a spot in his horn section on a
tour. Once the tour was over, Shorty felt more inclined to
experiment with rock ‘n’ roll.
Still, despite an ever-present jazz culture, Butler feels it
couldn’t hurt to lend young musicians a helping hand.
“It would be nice if New Orleans offered more art in
public schools so kids could get more musical enlightenment,”
he said. “It’ll all be history at some point, and
hopefully as more and more young adults get to study and practice
laws and principles of music, it’ll turn into a different
level of art.”
These deep musical traditions, in addition to the immense and
visible suffering endured by the city, has made the rest of the
U.S. and the world eager to help with the recovery and rebuilding
efforts in New Orleans.
Raeburn spoke of a group of jazz students from New York who are
coming to visit Tulane to work for Habitat for Humanity. While the
students are there, Raeburn will give them a lecture on jazz. In
essence, the students will not only help to rebuild a cornerstone
of their own artistic pursuits, they will also learn a good deal
more about it in the process.
Ultimately, it is too early to tell whether New Orleans will
ever be able to fully return to its pre-Katrina status, but even if
the city itself were to fade away, its rich traditions and creative
musical minds will surely keep its spirit alive for generations to
come.
“It’s all about going out, finding gigs and giving
people what they want,” Raeburn said. “New Orleans
musicians have traditionally been able to do that.”