Marcellus Shepard, Program/Music Director and host of "In the Groove," recommends a few reading materials about the role of jazz in the recovery of New Orleans.
Branford Marsalis on MSNBC
On August 24, Al Sharpton interviewed Grammy-award winning jazz musician Branford Marsalis on MSNBC about the importance of music in New Orleans as the city struggled to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
In response to the devastation of the city, in 2005 Marasalis and fellow jazz musician and NOLA native Harry Connick Jr. had the idea of creating a “Musicians’ Village” in the Upper Ninth Ward. The project became a collaboration between the two musicians and the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. The development was very successful, providing affordable housing to local musicians of modest means, as well as a music center for the neighborhood.
“We have a style of music in New Orleans that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the country, or the world,” Marsalis tells Sharpton. “For people to hear songs that are characteristic of the culture there was very important to psychological return to the city. The way we play is so unique, they would have been unable to thrive anywhere else.”
Watch the interview at MSNBC
“It’s not just a party, it’s our life”: Jazz musicians led the way back to the city after Katrina — but what is this “new” New Orleans
In a recent article in Salon, Larry Blumenfeld investigates the revitalization of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and the way new development has also served to alienate long time residents.
Blumenfeld asks, "Was New Orleans jazz culture welcomed back?" And answers — "Not Exactly."
He describes how rebuilding in New Orleans also meant redefining the city. As the character city re-emerged after the Hurricane, gentricifaction occurred in certain neighborhoods, and laws controlling the music and culture were more stricly enforced. Brass bands had to stop playing on certain street corners, music clubs struggled with lawsuits, and noise and zoning laws restricted where musicians could play.
"'We rose out of water and debris to lead the way back to the life that we love,' said Bennie Pete, sousaphonist and leader of the Hot 8 Brass Band, a local favorite, at a public forum on such matters in 2008. 'It’s not just a party, it’s our life. We can sugarcoat it all kinds of ways, but the city looks at us as uncivilized. And that’s why they try to confine us.'”
Read the rest of the article at salon.com
