Preservation Hall PDF
Preview Preservation Hall
PPRREESSEERRVVVAAATTTIIIOOONNN HHHAAALLLLLL ii PPRREESSEERRRVVVVAAATTTIIIOOONNN HHHAAALLLLLL Photographs by SHANNON BRINKMAN Interviews with Preservation Hall Band Members by EVE ABRAMS Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge Published by Louisiana State University Press Copyright © 2011 by Louisiana State University Press Photographs copyright © 2011 by Shannon Brinkman All rights reserved Manufactured in China LSU Press Paperback Original FIRSTPRINTING Designer: AMS Typeface: Helvetica Neue Printer and binder: Everbest Printing Co., through Four Colour Imports, Ltd., Louisville, Kentucky Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brinkman, Shannon, 1965– Preservation Hall / photographs by Shannon Brinkman ; interviews with Preservation Hall Band members by Eve Abrams. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-8071-3726-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Jazz musicians—Louisiana—New Orleans—Interviews. 2. Jazz musicians—Louisiana—New Orleans—Portraits. 3. Jazz—Louisiana—New Orleans—Pictorial works. 4. Preservation Hall Jazz Band—Pictorial works. I. Abrams, Eve, 1971– II. Title. ML3508.8.N48B75 2011 781.6509763’35—dc22 2010037994 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. (cid:146) To John Brunious, Walter Payton, Ralph Johnson, Ernest “Doc” Watson, and Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, For His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. —gospel hymn by Civilla D. Martin and Charles H. Gabriel Looking forward to meeting you all again one day . . . Contents Foreword, by Tom Sancton ix Acknowledgments xi Preservation Hall 1 Introduction, by Ben Jaffe 3 The Players 111 Foreword All of us who were present in the early days knew that Preserva- tion Hall was a special place. We had a sense that the Hall was more than a musical venue; it was an important force for reviving traditional jazz—not just the music as an art form, but the lives and culture of the musicians themselves. A lot of the older musi- cians had quit playing. Allan Jaffe went around town on his Vespa, and every time he would hear about a musician who wasn’t play- ing anymore, he would try to get them on their feet and working at the Hall. It was almost like a religious revival—a phoenix-like resurrection from the ashes. It was a sense that we are blowing on the embers of something that was dying and now may no longer be dying. We can help it live again. Apart from that revival aspect, there was the infectious joy and warmth and humanity of the musicians that really communi- cated at a time when whites and blacks could not socialize legally. The Hall was a place where we did share something. First of all, the music. But we would also talk and laugh together and get to know each other. We would visit the musicians in their homes, and they would visit us. We felt a great sense of curiosity about these people, the way they lived, their neighborhoods, the way they talked, the way they made a living, the way they dressed. It wasn’t a completely foreign culture, but it was very different from what I had grown up with in my white middle-class world. We were reaching out over all these age barriers and race and economic barriers and class barriers, and just coming together on the basis of our common humanity. Those experiences made the Hall something very special, and everybody who came down there regularly, I think, felt that we belonged to a big family—almost a movement, a cause. That was very important to us, even if we didn’t articulate it in those terms. I think everybody sensed that this was not just a club where you went to hear music. It was much, much more than that. Tom Sancton ix
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