NYT: All Quiet Since the Hurricane, Preservation Hall Reopens [View All]

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All Quiet Since the Hurricane, Preservation Hall Reopens
By NATE CHINEN
Published: May 3, 2006


(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band performed last weekend at its hall in New Orleans. The hall was spared the flooding caused by the hurricane.

NEW ORLEANS, May 2 — In a city haunted by history, a singular function is fulfilled by Preservation Hall. Housed in a French Quarter edifice built in 1750, the space has been a mecca and sanctuary of traditional New Orleans jazz since the early 1960's. So while the more lavish production this past weekend was the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, some local musicians and visitors were just as focused on Preservation Hall's reopening, eight months after Hurricane Katrina.

The occasion, which doubled as a 45th anniversary celebration, was largely true to form: the hall's austere furnishings and poor ventilation were just as everyone remembered, as was the antique but effervescent sound of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Less familiar to some returning patrons (and perhaps a touch less reassuring) was an infusion of rock 'n' roll, the clearest signal of a rebranding effort that began a few years ago.

This might have registered as a minor scandal in another era, sometime before the cataclysm that turned preservation into a common civic cause. Preservation Hall was spared the flooding that followed Katrina, but not its resident musicians; five of the band's seven members lost their homes.

Their stories added an unspoken poignancy to last week's events at the hall, beginning with a press conference on Thursday for Music Rising, a campaign led by U2's guitarist the Edge with the purpose of replacing the instruments of Gulf Coast musicians. But of course no amount of pathos could tarnish the lighthearted spectacle of U2's "Vertigo" as performed by the Edge with the Preservation Hall band; the Edge himself had doubled over when he first heard the band's arrangement, in a rehearsal that afternoon.

"I think it was hugely significant because of what Preservation Hall stands for in New Orleans's musical history," he said a few days later, referring to the symbolic backdrop for his public message. "The guy that set the place up, Allan Jaffe, was a visionary in that he recognized that jazz needed to be preserved. Not kept in formaldehyde, but given the opportunity for a stable home."...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/music/03hall.html?hp&ex=1146628800&en=1bd4a204ee708b29&ei=5094&partner=homepage