New Frontiers in Music:
Challenge and Change in New Orleans: Jazz Culture Since the Flood

Monday, November 17, 2008
The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage
1608 Walnut Street, 18th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Moderated by
Larry Blumenfeld
Journalist and Katrina Media Fellow for the Open Society Institute

Featuring
Donald Harrison
Jazz saxophonist and Mardi Gras Indian Chief

Dr. Michael White
Jazz clarinetist, Xavier University professor, 2008 NEA National Heritage Fellow

Jordan Hirsch
Executive Director, Sweet Home New Orleans

Mark Samuels
President and Owner, Basin Street Records

The 2005 floods that resulted from levee failures following Hurricane Katrina devastated the community of musicians and artists in New Orleans, a seminal city for American culture. Three years later, the city’s cultural community—jazz musicians, brass band players, Social Aid & Pleasure Club members (who sponsor weekly second-line parades), Mardi Gras Indians, music presenters, and arts advocates—still face enormous challenges in maintaining and perpetuating their art forms. The neighborhoods that have historically given rise to this culture are now transformed, and often not for the better. The tourist economy that helps support live entertainment is in question. Meanwhile, jazz culture, which has always been a functional part of New Orleans life, has proven an essential vehicle for social activism in dealing with post-Katrina problems.

What is the future of New Orleans music? How will jazz culture affect the course of recovery? What can we do to promote and preserve these art forms? What can other arts communities in other cities learn from the post-Katrina New Orleans experience?

This symposium took a hard look at these questions, and offered insight into the jazz culture of New Orleans and its current state. In a morning session, Larry Blumenfeld shared findings and impressions gathered while working as a Katrina Media Fellow for the Open Society Institute, researching cultural recovery. An afternoon panel discussion brought together leading musicians and arts advocates Donald Harrison, Dr. Michael White, Jordan Hirsch, and Mark Samuels.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

LARRY BLUMENFELD’s writing about music and culture has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, The New York Times, and Salon, among other publications. He was a 2006–2007 Katrina Media Fellow for the Open Society Institute, researching cultural recovery in New Orleans, and a 2001–2002 Fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. His piece “Band on the Run in New Orleans” appears in Best Music Writing, 2008 (Da Capo Press), and his essay, “Exploding Myths in Morocco and Senegal,” appeared in Music in the Post-9/11 World (Routledge). He is editor-at-large of Jazziz magazine (he was the magazine’s editor-in-chief from 1995–2000). He has hosted panel discussions and public presentations for a variety of venues, including Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, Columbia University, Merkin Concert Hall, and the Public Theater, and contributed liner notes to some four-dozen albums of jazz and Latin music, including two Grammy winners. As a volunteer, he is founding producer of the annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival in Stonington, Maine, now in its eighth year (the 2008 edition was dedicated to New Orleans music).

DR. MICHAEL WHITE, a 2008 NEA National Heritage Fellow, was born and raised in New Orleans, and is related to such pioneering jazz musicians as bassist Papa John Joseph (who was an associate of Buddy Bolden), and clarinetists Willie Joseph and Earl Fouché (who recorded with Sam Morgan in 1927). A major performer whose clarinet style is inspired by the Creole and blues playing of Johnny Dodds, Jim¬mie Noone, Edmond Hall, George Lewis, Barney Bigard and Omer Simeon, Dr. White has appeared on more than three dozen recordings, including 11 CDs of his own. He has traveled the world, performing in over two dozen countries. His was the first traditional New Orleans jazz band to play at Manhattan’s legendary Village Vanguard, where he has been a regular for 16 years. After teaching Spanish for over 20 years, White currently holds the Keller Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Xavier University. He is also featured in several dozen books, has written scores of essays that have appeared in journals, books and encyclopedias, has worked on over two dozen documentary films and worked with Wynton Marsalis in creating Lincoln Center concert tributes to the early New Orleans jazz greats. On his most recent recording, Blue Crescent, as throughout his musical life, Dr. Michael White keeps New Orleans jazz alive not only by celebrating the past but by creating new music in the classic tradition.

CBS Sunday Morning recently called DONALD HARRISON “one of the most important musicians of the new millennium,” recognizing the breadth, depth, and intensity of his work. Harrison began his jazz career with the legendary Art Blakey, co-led a band with trumpeter Terence Blanchard, and has appeared during the last 20 years with a wide range of artists, including Lena Horne, Latin-jazz giant Eddie Palmieri, and hip–hop artists Jazzmatazz, The Notorious B.I.G., and Digable Planets. The boundary-leaping New Orleans alto saxophonist’s distinctive broad-toned sound is immediately recognizable as his own, regardless of the context. Harrison is the originator of the Nouveau Swing style, which merges acoustic swing with modern R&B, second-line, hip-hop, New Orleans African American roots culture, and reggae rhythms. His groundbreaking recording, Indian Blues, captured the essence of Mardi Gras Indian culture within a jazz context. His latest recording, The Chosen, showcases a quartet of young players whose development owes to Harrison’s mentorship through music workshops funded by the Tipitina’s Foundation. Harrison’s father was an important cultural leader in New Orleans, as Big Chief of four Mardi Gras Indian groups during his lifetime; Harrison is Big Chief of his own Congo Nation.

JORDAN HIRSCH is a native New Orleanian who, at a very young age, developed an enduring love for traditional jazz and the city’s street traditions of second-line parades and Mardi Gras Indian culture. He is one of the city’s leading advocates for the bearers of the city’s indigenous traditions. As Executive Director of Sweet Home New Orleans, a non-profit agency providing case management, direct financial assistance and performance subsidies to New Orleans’ music community, he has directed relief efforts for the city’s musicians since the flood of 2005, and built programs that have served thousands of artists in need. Sweet Home New Orleans’ mission is to perpetuate New Orleans’ unique music and culture by supporting the individuals and institutions that will carry it forward.

MARK SAMUELS started Basin Street Records in September 1997 as a hobby while working in the energy industry. Artists on the label include Los Hombres Calientes, Jon Cleary, Kermit Ruffins, Henry Butler, Jason Marsalis, Dr. Michael White, Irvin Mayfield, Theresa Andersson and The Headhunters.

In 2005 Basin Street Records was named “Best Record Label” (for the 5th time) and “Music Business of the Year” (for the 2nd year in a row) at the offBEAT Best of the Beat Awards.

Mark has been named as one of New Orleans CitiBusiness’ Power Generation, Gambit Weekly’s 40 Under 40, and offBEAT Magazine’s 20 Most Influential People in the Louisiana Music Industry. He was also Kingfish Magazine’s Kingfish of the Month.

Mark received a BBA and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and early in his career worked for the New Orleans’ World’s Fair, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), and the SulfaTreat Company (purifying natural gas around the world). Mark was also an adjunct professor at Loyola University’s Music Industry Studies program.

In his “spare” time he takes care of his wife and three high school aged children, and serves on the boards of the Louis Satchmo Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp and Louisiana Appleseed. He also continues to serve as a mentor for the Loyola University business school freshmen.