Backpacker Buzz Issue 84– New Orleans: Music and Life after the Storm

USA Louisiana New Orleans French Quarter, courtesy of Cosmo Condina & NewOrleansOnline.com

In New Orleans, they simply refer to it as ‘the storm.’ They don’t have to call it Hurricane Katrina. There’s no need to get so specific. People know there’s only one ‘storm’ you could be referring to. When the storm hit in the summer of 2005, it ravaged a great American city—laying bare some of the massive class and race divides that exist in the United States.

It also made people realize what they love about New Orleans—a city unlike any other in the U.S. that is a dizzying mix of French, Spanish, English and African culture, with plenty of jazz and a dollop of voodoo thrown in for good measure.

It’s taken years for a sense of normalcy to return to New Orleans. That’s not to say that the city is the same as it ever was. Results from the 2010 census show that New Orleans’ population has gotten smaller, with 100,000 fewer residents than it had in 2000. Fortunately, travellers have definitely not abandoned the city.

With its casinos and infamous Bourbon Street, New Orleans is still considered a prime spot for revellers to “laissez les bon temps roulez”—let the good times roll.

Many visitors take Katrina tours–buses that travel to wards that were hardest hit by the storm. Depending on your point of view, these tours are either a sincere exploration of a terrible disaster, or morbid rubbernecking.

The Aftermath, image courtesy of Flickr User: Infrogmation

No matter how you feel about the Katrina tours, it’s safe to say New Orleans is the type of city that shouldn’t be explored by bus—but by walking around and talking to its people.

If the United States were a family, then New Orleans would be the fun-loving, eccentric uncle who is more than willing to chat.

And there’s nothing New Orleanians love to talk more about than New Orleans itself: its history filled with voodoo, magic, and booze-fuelled debauchery; its corrupt politicians and cops; and its beloved football team, the New Orleans Saints.

Another endless topic of debate: just what is it that makes New Orleans so unique? No one disputes that the city is special, but you’ll have a hard time finding two people who can agree on why.

While the city’s ineffable charms can’t quite be captured in words, some of it can be captured in music. As the HBO series Treme illustrates, New Orleans is a city that has music embedded in its DNA. It prides itself on being the cradle of American music, and locals rattle off names of musicians like Kid Ory, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Eddie Bo, Allen Toussaint and Louis Armstrong as easily as they can list the names of past presidents.

Image courtesy of NewOrleansOnline.com

If you’re looking for a sense of New Orleans’ eccentricity and its passion for music, look no further than the Palm Court Jazz Cafe. For the last two decades, the French Quarter bar has hosted trumpeter Lionel Ferbos, who recently turned 100. Ferbos leads a band filled with veteran musicians who have a long-standing Saturday night gig at the Palm Court. During our night there, Ferbos’ performance was delayed as his bass player suffered a heart attack. Chaos ensued as ambulance workers came to the musician’s aid, and staff scrambled to find a replacement.

In a piece of serendipity, a bass player happened to be walking along Decatur Street with upright bass in tow. Within minutes, the replacement had his coat off and was on stage backing up America’s oldest working musician.

Once the show started, Palm Court owner Nina Buck flitted about the room, dancing in between tables as people dined. The only time she stopped moving was to tell the audience that the felled bass player was at the hospital, and doctors expected him to make a full recovery. Other music venues offer more modern updates of classic New Orleans jazz.

New Orleans Music Scene, image courtesy of NewOrleansOnline.com

At the Spotted Cat on Frenchman Street, a younger generation of musicians play their versions of jazz classics as a shabby-chic crowd sips red wine out of plastic cups. Located in the Carrollton district, the Maple Leaf Bar is one of the city’s best-known live-music venues. As a DJ blasts classic soul tunes by Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway, hip-hop kids in oversized basketball jerseys and crusty old guys sporting denim shorts and white beards wait for the main attraction: The Rebirth Brass Band.

There are countless working musicians in NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana), but Rebirth captures the city’s music scene as well as anyone—making the walls shake with insanely powerful brass-filled mix of jazz, funk and hip-hop that draws in young people without alienating the old-timers.

Days before their regular set at the Maple Leaf, The Rebirth Brass Band had performed at the Voodoo Music Experience, a three-day festival that hosts some of the biggest names in rock and hip-hop.

One of the largest crowds at the Voodoo festival was for New Orleans’ favourite son, Dr. John. In between his renditions of NOLA classics like “Mama Roux” and “My Indian Red,” the 70-something legend ranted about how the U.S. government left the city high and dry after the storm.

The lively, rolling rhythm of Dr. John’s band, and his profanity-laced tirades, served as a reminder that music is the lifeblood of New Orleans—and no storm could ever drown out the city’s sounds.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Features, Hostelling International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.