Ellis Marsalis
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPROWELL: Music is everything for New Orleans. In fact, I don't even imagine New Orleans existing without particular indigenous music and its musical traditions—an extraordinary music culture. Hurricane Katrina disrupted that. How do you assess the impact, in a general way, of Hurricane Katrina on the musical traditions and musical performance in the City of New Orleans.
MARSALIS: In reality, it didn't do anything to the musical tradition. I think what happened is that Katrina disrupted the New Orleans support system—that is, people's houses, their occupations. Katrina disrupted the lives of those people who had what we call day jobs. The hurricane disrupted the things associated with the infrastructure in people's lives, those things which allowed a lot of them to function comfortably. It varies from individual to individual. There are a lot of musicians who have relocated—some of them might have moved permanently while others might be temporary. I know the bass player, with whom I played with for years, his house flooded. He gutted it, sold it, and relocated to Arkansas. The saxophone player that was in my group relocated. That was an inevitability anyway, because he's young. He now lives to New York. The other groups, such as the members of The Preservation Hall Band, are on the road. I don't know if they got back into their New Orleans home or not.
There is a certain kind of tradition among New Orleans musicians: long before Katrina, they always came and went. Louis Armstrong probably would have done the same thing, but when he hired Jack Teagarden and his band, the Louisiana segregation laws wouldn't let him come back and perform with Jack Teagarden and his band or with anybody who was European American. So, he never came back after that one time. But for the most part, musicians always come and go, and it's very difficult to accumulate any kind of statistics to describe the situation with musicians.
One of the busier areas of the city in terms of employment, which is near the French Quarter (down in and near the French Quarter) is in pretty good shape, as far as I know. There are still a lot of bands playing in that area. How many of them are either from New Orleans, new to New Orleans, or just came after the hurricane I don't know. I do a one night a week at a club called Snug Harbor, which is on Frenchmen Street. There's several spaces on that street that have bands that are playing. If you came to New Orleans and just walked down that street, you would never know that there had been a hurricane as devastating as Katrina, because there's no physical evidence of it in that area. [End Page 1281]
ROWELL: That is just one area of the city. What seems to be the impact of Hurricane Katrina on musical performances across the city? I am still thinking about what you said about music and Frenchmen Street. There is still music there?
MARSALIS: Yes indeed. I don't think that there's been neighborhood performance spaces. There was (and maybe still is) one place called Joe's Cozy Corner, located in the Tremé, which is not that far from the French Quarter. Joe's Cozy Corner reminded me of what neighborhoods used to have years and years ago: a place where there would be a barroom/nightclub, with a neighborhood band playing for people in the neighborhood. That kind of place went out fashion long ago—most of the owners/managers had neighborhood bars with live music. Today, most neighborhood bars play recorded music with or without a disc jockey. Everything is changed in terms of the way the city used to be, especially the various black neighborhoods. Today, most of the bands that you hear are going to be located in the tourist areas, which is usually in or near the French Quarter...
