By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
After Katrina struck in 2005, trombonist Glen David Andrews fled to Houston, where he landed gigs in every major club.
Jim Brock Photography
Shamarr Allen's latest album, Box Who In?, is a fitting title for a musician who fuses jazz, big band, funk, hip-hop and Latin influences.
Jim Brock Photography
Shamarr Allen's latest album, Box Who In?, is a fitting title for a musician who fuses jazz, big band, funk, hip-hop and Latin influences.
"When you get displaced like that, it's important to strike up the band and play where you are," he says. As a well-paid ambassador of historic neighborhood Trem�, "it wasn't a bad situation."
Still, the Texas honeymoon was brief.
"I was back in New Orleans within six months," says Andrews, 30. "The city was empty, so I played for the contractors. I lived in a FEMA trailer for two years. The majority of musicians are home now. And it's amazing. Nothing can hold the soul and spirit of New Orleans down. The culture lives and thrives.
"This place is back!"
That may sound like a tourist shop bumper sticker, but it's no hollow sentiment. The cheer echoes throughout the city's music network of artists, label heads, club owners and entertainment media. Musicians, painfully aware that no cultural cavalry would ride in to rescue their careers, recognized the need to return, rally and rebuild.
Nowhere is the strength of local musical muscle more evident than at this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, unfolding on 12 stages Friday through Sunday and May 5-8.
"Local music at the festival is stronger than ever," says producer/director Quint Davis, who sees Louisiana culture, and by extension the festival, entering a golden era. "New Orleans has more highly accomplished, nationally known talent than maybe ever, and it's continuing to grow in all areas. It used to be you'd come to Jazz Fest and not know who was on stage. In 2011, people know."
Much of the region's talent lies in the fest's 50 gospel groups, 35 traditional jazz acts and scores of Cajun and zydeco bands.
The bill is topped by such visiting headliners as Arcade Fire, Kid Rock, Willie Nelson, Bon Jovi, Sonny Rollins and Lauryn Hill, plus a showcase of Haiti's top acts. To demonstrate local clout, Davis meticulously booked each stage to pit favorite sons against national hitmakers, for instance by having The Strokes follow Trombone Shorty, known for his rocking showmanship, crack musicianship and an energetic brass-fueled jazz/funk party vibe.
Like its performers, Jazz Fest was hurt by the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. With the exception of festivals staged after 9/11 and Katrina, attendance had steadily grown since Jazz Fest's 1970 debut, averaging roughly 400,000 in the years leading up to the storm. The 2006 event, salvaged by the sponsorship of Shell Oil, drew only 60,000, still a triumph considering that the city's population was at 50,000.
The festival's launch "pressed coal into a diamond and put all this indigenous music and culture into one place and time," Davis says. "It still has that function. The amazing depth and breadth and quality had a startling effect on locals and eventually the outside world. It still has that effect."
Back to 'the funky wah-diddy'
Attendance has returned to pre-K levels. So has the musician headcount.
"These bands that landed in places like Austin, Denver, Seattle and San Francisco were well received and got gigs," Davis says. "It would be a very different scene if they hadn't come home to the funky wah-diddy where there's less money. You'd think a lot of musicians would never come back. But they came home. They tour, but they still live and work in New Orleans."
As a result, the city teems with the live sounds of jazz, R&B, funk, blues, zydeco and hip-hop.
"You can walk off the street and, for practically no cover charge, see someone who headlines a festival in Europe: Germaine Bazzle or James Andrews or Delfeayo Marsalis," Davis says. "The club scene is full-bore every night with acts that are top attractions. Artists in demand internationally choose to make New Orleans their base camp."
Though the city still struggles with a decimated Ninth Ward, a shrunken population (344,000 today vs. 455,000 just before the storm) and a sagging economy, the music scene has fully rebounded since Katrina turned New Orleans into a ghost town.
"The music community has fared amazingly well," says journalist/musician Ben Sandmel, author of Ernie K-Doe biography The Emperor of New Orleans, to be published in 2012. "Right after Katrina, there were a lot of glum pronouncements, almost all by self-appointed pundits from out of town, that New Orleans' music and culture had been completely washed away and that the only thing left would be a Disney-esque facsimile for tourists.
"This analysis really underestimated the resiliency and passion of both the musicians and support organizations such as the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic. The city's music scene came back full strength, thanks to a grassroots, street-level effort. Katrina's scars are still obvious, and local musicians are still scuffling financially, but in terms of spirit and creativity, the New Orleans music community is thriving."
Work is plentiful, if not lucrative, an aggravation that predates Katrina. "In New Orleans, musicians don't get paid nowhere near what they're worth," Andrews says. "But this is where I want to be. When I swing out a good tune, I'm playing in memory of Louis Armstrong and all the people who played before me. The music can't die. This is not the first time we rebuilt, and it won't be the last."
Music journalist John Swenson addresses that periodic restoration in New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans, just published by Oxford University Press. The book looks at how the city has been repeatedly destroyed, then led back to health by a different economic power.
"This time around, the culture is the driving force behind New Orleans' recovery," Swenson says. "Musicians made sacrifices, commuting to perform before they found new homes. They're taking a hand in making the city work again. Irvin Mayfield has been very involved politically and is trying to rehabilitate the brand of Bourbon Street to be more about music and less about girls gone wild."
Many players who found higher pay in Houston or Atlanta "felt a need to come back. The culture nurtures the music and vice versa," he says. Trombone Shorty, whose Backatown topped Billboard's jazz chart, "built himself into a major talent and easily could have moved to L.A. or New York, but he resolutely stuck it out in New Orleans."
Citizens and city fathers paid heed, boosting support for homegrown talent.
"Because there's no music industry here per se, the city had a tendency to take its music for granted," Swenson says. "In the wake of the flood, it seems the city has recognized the crucial importance that music plays in its identity and future."
Katrina also tweaked attitudes. Even musicians casting the past aside in a rush to modernize the city's cultural image have a renewed appreciation for tradition.
"A lot of elders have perished since the flood," Swenson says. "Many of the young firebrands who were changing the old ways and adapting them to contemporary hip-hop and R&B styles were forced into being teachers while they were still students. Songs they considered entertainment vehicles for conventions were invested with new meaning. They discovered the emotional depth of St. James Infirmary, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? and other songs in the New Orleans musical canon."
Katrina's wrath is the common thread stitched into every resident's biography, says Keith Spera, music writer at The Times-Picayune and author of Groove Interrupted: Loss, Renewal and the Music of New Orleans, out Aug. 2 from St. Martin's Press. The book explores New Orleans' music through the post-Katrina tales of 13 musicians, from Fats Domino to rapper Mystikal.
"Scratch the surface of any musician, and you'll find a Katrina story," Spera says.
Few were left unscathed by the flood, but "the average Jazz Fest visitor will be hard-pressed to find any evidence of the storm," he says. "The music culture is as healthy, if not more so, as it was before the storm."
He credits the resourcefulness of musicians, plus national promotional vehicles that grew out of the public's desire to follow the healing of New Orleans culture. Musicians were prominently spotlighted on the Grammy Awards and HBO's Treme series, now in its second season. Big pop and rock stars swooped in to collaborate with regional talent. A partnership with Elvis Costello on 2006's The River in Reverse "catapulted Allen Toussaint to a whole new level," Spera says. "It's not like Toussaint is going to outsell Lady Gaga anytime soon, but he's been touring more widely than at any time in his career."
Jackpots are rare
A "rally around the flagpole" spirit also motivated musicians to tackle hardships and regain their footing.
"It was already a close-knit community with a lot of cross-pollination and not a lot of competition," he says.
And while jackpots in New Orleans' music realm are rare, the players have been adjusting to the absence of an industry infrastructure and adopting the do-it-yourself mantra of the digital age.
"So much of the music here falls under that 'roots' heading, and there's a limited market for those kinds of artists," Spera says. Fabled manager "Irving Azoff is not going to come down and manage the Soul Rebels Brass Band. Resiliency and hustle are as valuable as talent around here. People have had to struggle to find work and put out albums on their own. Now it's less necessary to have the industry here when the industry can be your laptop."
Come what may, Andrews won't abandon his hometown or drift from his musical roots.
"Unfortunately, this is a city that sits 25 feet below sea level," he says. "That's not what I dwell on. We're rocking 'n' rolling out here. This is my home. This is the air I breathe. I stopped today and got a catfish po' boy. I can sit on a riverbank by my house. The crawfish is good!"
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