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H and-clapping, foot-stomping New Orleans jazz
has had many goodwill ambassadors over the
years. Few, though, have become as synony
mous with spreading the Crescent City sound
far and wide as has the Preservation Hall Jazz
Band. Named for longtime French Quarter community perfor
mance venue Preservation Hall, the membership of the group,
founded in the early 1960s by Allan and Sandra Jaffe, has
undergone many changes over the years.
However, its aim of expanding the cultural and creative
boundaries of traditional, good-time Louisiana jazz remains
intact.
T oday's Preservation Hall Jazz Band is an amalgam of
its past, present and future. The group is now led by
band creative director/ tuba player Ben Jaffe, son of
the band's and venue's founders, while trumpet player
John Brunious, a 20-year Preservation Hall veteran, is the
group's official bandleader.'
"To me, Preservation Hall does represent the past, present
and future of a culture that's steeped in tradition," says Jaffe.
"My father also played tuba in the band for several years and
began touring with them regularly during the early '70s. Our
trombone player, Frank Demond, has been a member, gosh,
since shortly after my father joined, so that's going on thirty
something years."
The membership of the group is rounded out by pianist
Rickie Monie, bassist Walter Payton, trombonists Frederick
Lonzo, Lucien Barbarin and Frank Demond, drummer Joseph
Lastie Jr., banjo man Carl Le Blanc, sax players Darryl Adams
and Clint Maedgen, percussionist Shannon Powell and clarinet
player Ralph Johnson.
Though the native sounds of New Orleans are the ensem
ble's bread and butter, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more
diverse and eclectic group of players in any city. Monie has
accompanied Louisiana legends like Dave Bartholomew and
Clarence "Frogman" Henry; Johnson has shared the stage with
soul legends like Jerry Butler and The Impressions; Le Blanc's
resume includes Sun Ra, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Bo Diddley,
while Lastie has kept time for several area legends, including
Professor Longhair and the eternally suave Antoine "Fats"
Domino.
T he impact felt by many New Orleans musicians in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina struck the Preservation
Hall crew to its core. Several members of the band,
including Lastie and Brunious, lost everything but
the clothes on their backs and the shoes on their feet to the
storm's rising waters.
However, none of them abandoned their wreckage-strewn
stomping grounds, while friends and colleagues from around
the city chipped in by providing new or loaned equipment.
Brunious even got back his favorite horn, which predates
his joining the group by many years, courtesy of Jaffe, who
tracked down the trumpet and arranged for repairs after the
floodwaters receded.
"I was the first member of the band back into the city after
the hurricane," remembers Jaffe. "One of my missions after I
came home was to go to John's house, because he was one of
the guys who stayed during Katrina instead of evacuating. His
house was overwhelmed with water and he did not have an
opportunity to protect his instrument. So, the first thing I did
after checking to make sure my house was still standing, was
to find John's trumpet, which had been completely submerged
in salt water. Since then, our trombone player has had it fixed
and refurbished and John now has that trumpet back in his
possession. It's one of the few items we were able to actually
recover from his home."
T oday, the Preservation Hall cottage industry that began
with the Hall itself and the house band that's kept
its spirit alive also includes a Preservation Hall record
label. The latest entry into the label's catalog contin
ues in the Preservation tradition of bridging the gap between
past and present. Made In New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions
is a CD/DVD set spearheaded by Jaffe that features vintage
seminal recordings from Preservation Hall Jazz Bands of decades
past accompanied by several of the group's present members.
"The whole thing benind this project is that we all realized,
after the hurricane, what a delicate ecosystem we have here,"
says Jaffe. "Within hours, a lot of our physical history was
completely destroyed. I wanted to do a project that reflected
the depth of Preservation Hall's history, as well as some of the
little things that make up a life in New Orleans. Whether it's a
souvenir gold doubloon from a Mardi Gras parade or a flier from
a business that's no longer around, each of those little things
played a part in the project coming together."
The DVD features a documentary of the band's history and
rare footage of live performances. It also includes the video
for the group's full-on rendition of The Kink's brass-augmented
Muswell Hillbillies-era romp "Complicated Life," in which sax
man Maedgen takes a lush scenic tour via bicycle through a
pre-Katrina French Quarter.
"I'd already been a Kinks fan, but I'd never listened to that
record with the intent of turning it into a Preservation Hall
song," says Jaffe. "The more I listened to its lyrics, though,
I started visualizing, pretty much, a lot of the visuals that
turn up in the video. For me, it was a good way to come full
circle. 1 look at the Kinks and Ray Davies as being musicians
heavily influenced by New Orleans music and I know that's
something that Ray listened to even as a young man growing
up in England. Ray Davies actually lived in New Orleans for a
time, and, when he heard us play, his comment to me was 'I
haven't heard those songs since I was a little kid.' With that
background and with him being such a fantastic melodic song
writer, the whole thing just made a lot of sense to us."
For this seated show in Athens, the Melting Point is limit
ing the number of tickets to only 250 for the entire night.
The band intends to play two full sets, w.ui the first starting
promptly at 8:30 p.m.
Michael Andrews
WHO: Preservation Hall Jazz Band
WHERE: Mettini Point
WHEN: Friday, January 18; 8:38 pjn.
HOW MUCH: $32.50 (advance), $35 (doors) .
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