On March 13th, we spoke at SXSW on a panel moderated by Alex Rawls, editor of Oxford American‘s Louisiana music issue and of MySpiltMilk.com. “At Home He’s a Tourist: Louisiana Folklife in the Social Media Era” arose from the dialogue surrounding the funeral of Uncle Lionel Batiste, and featured Alison Fensterstock of Nola.com, photographer Erika Goldring, Louis Michot of Lost Bayou Ramblers, and PSP’s Brian Boyles.
We love panels and this was a good one. The first words (“keys to the Camaro”) come from Rawls. Take a listen.
This essay explores the relationship between New Orleans and the music produced, performed, and inspired by and in the Crescent City. The content presented is based wholly on personal experience, research conducted within the city of New Orleans, and interviews conducted with musicians currently residing in or originally from New Orleans. The examination is intended to represent a modern glimpse at the cultural economy of, and trends concerning, alternative genre music within the city of New Orleans, specifically following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Introduction:
New Orleans, one of America’s original and greatest Bohemian cities, has a musical history that is rarely matched elsewhere in the United States. Commonly regarded as the birthplace of jazz, the city of New Orleans, in modern times, would seemingly cater to, accept, and appreciate all types of music, no matter how eccentric or aberrant.
Storyville courtesy of GNOCDC.org
Imagine, for instance, walking into a ramshackle speakeasy or brothel in New Orleans red-light district, commonly known as Storyville, sometime during the early 20th century (before it’s closure by the federal government in 1917) to find a small group of musicians – the forefathers of jazz – huddled in a corner playing their acoustic instruments. This was a setting which has been described as the “unofficial American capital of vice,” where “prostitution flourished openly and a seductive new sound called jazz was coming into its own.” Legend even has it that “Louis Armstrong delivered coal to the district as a boy, [where he] lingered to hear the great jazzmen who performed in elegantly appointed bordellos and scruffy saloons.” (Powell)
Why then is the city of New Orleans, a destination once so readily willing to claim and even praise unique forms of music, so reluctant to do so in modern times? A typical night in one of New Orleans’s greatest musical institutions may evidence that the city and her inhabitants are hesitant, and oftentimes blatantly opposed, to accepting fresh genres of music – even ones that have commonly evolved from prior musical traditions just as jazz did in the late 19th century. This phenomenon, perplexing as it is, will serve as the driving inspiration as I seek to explain what has become a helpless consistency within the city New Orleans, one often driven by her citizens, to exhibit an unwavering focus on a minimal amount of specific musical genres.
I. A Glimpse at the Scene:
a. Subdivisions of Metropolitan New Orleans and Venues within those Districts
Before an outsider can begin to understand the issues surrounding the cultural economy and musical trends within New Orleans, in relation to the success of live musical performance within the city, one must understand the stipulations that implicate the current scene. In short, one must have a good understanding of the current musical setting within the city including, but not limited to: the cities’ most predominant live venues, the districts in which those venues are located, musical oriented festivals, and radio programming within the city.
Any local mildly invested in the local music culture will know that the metropolitan New Orleans area is subdivided into three or four districts that predominate local music: Uptown, Downtown and the Central Business District, Mid-city, and the Marigny/Bywater. All of said districts typically offer slightly different styles of music, and some more than others.
Tipitina's Uptown courtesy of Jeffrey P. Dupuis
Uptown is limited, for the most part, to the legendary music hall Tipitina’s. Save Tipitina’s uptown location, almost all venues located in this district cater to younger college bands, and audiences that follow them. In the scope of this piece, college bands are often an exception to the typical music trends of New Orleans, as it likely is in most cities throughout the United States. While musical education within the city of New Orleans often places a heavy emphasis on jazz, other musical genres, as expected, flourish among college students within in the city; this is something that I will discuss later.
Mid-city, much like Uptown is a very limited district when it comes to live music. Though there are several venues to be found in the area, relevant underground happenings are few and far between. Also, much like Uptown, these bands cater to college bands, but from UNO, as opposed to Tulane and Loyola, which are located Uptown.
Downtown New Orleans, which includes the Central Business District and the French Quarter, is a place to find much of New Orleans’ live music. The French Quarter, as a predominating tourist destination, is home to a handful of bars and venues. While one can’t walk more than 10 steps on Bourbon street without hearing a different band pouring through the open doors of a New Orleans or Mardi Gras themed bar, this certainly isn’t the place to go in search of anything more than background music to accompany a night of heavy drinking and general debauchery; and yet, this is where much of the money in New Orleans music is to be made. Though it may be true that acts performing on Bourbon or in a similar setting aren’t hired to do more than play what the common masses want, or expect to hear, i.e. jazz, covers, or cultural music, don’t think for one second that these musicians aren’t earning their take. For those unfamiliar with the setting, believe that there is something very admirable about possessing the tolerance to do exactly what these musicians are paid to do.
For a more serious musical experience downtown, there is the House of Blues: the New Orleans location for this corporate chain of venues. The House of Blues’ main room, capable of accommodating 843 people, is typically reserved for bigger touring acts and local acts that possess a considerable amount of clout. Bands like these, as this piece will evidence, are acts playing genres of music that tourists and locals alike would expect to find performing in this large concert hall on any given night. A more alternative experience at the House of Blues will most likely be found in the venues smaller concert hall, located above the main room. While it is commonplace to find more underground acts performing in this room, called The Parish, local groups rarely play here, unless opening for a touring act.
Washed Out at One Eyed Jack's by Joshua Brasted
The French Quarter’s other leading venue is One Eyed Jacks, a locally owned an operated venue. OEJ’s is arguably the best venue that the French Quarter has to offer,
boasting a schedule usually catering to local and touring underground acts alike. As a locally operated venue, a more intimate experience is likely to be had at OEJ’s. The setting is very aesthetic and the venue has played host to several groups that travel off of the mainstream, as the past year’s schedule will evidence. Toro y Moi (touring), Washed Out (touring), Sun Hotel (local), and Ty Segall (touring) have all performed in Jack’s concert hall in the past few months alone.
The Central Business District is one of the areas more decent locations for local alternative music. On the same street, in the span of one block, can be found two of New Orleans bigger local venues, the Howlin’ Wolf and the Republic. Though the main room of the Howlin’ Wolf, a huge space, is most typically reserved for touring acts and large local events, the Den, located in the rear of the venue often caters to local alternative groups, typically college students. The Republic, much like the Howlin’ Wolf, often plays host to touring acts, but boasts a “Throwback Night” every Friday. This event features local alternative acts like Jean Eric, Sun Hotel, Vox and the Hound, Empress Hotel, Royal Teeth, and Big History (who have all played in recent times) playing a selection of “throwback,” interspersed with original pieces. The Republic has also become home to “New Orleans’ Bounce,” a monthly event that showcases what is claimed to be the best of New Olreans Bounce.
The Marigny and Bywater are most likely New Orleans greatest alternative and underground music locations. Found in the Marigny is New Orleans’ legendary Frenchman street. Located on Frenchman street, in a matter of only a 3-5 block radius are no less than 13 music venues: the Dragons Den, the Maison, D.B.A., Snug Harbor, Mimi’s, and the Blue Nile are just a few to name. While Frenchman is known as one of New Orleans’ definitive jazz locations, the area has shown a real interest in alternative forms of music as of late. The Dragon’s Den is often home to local punk rock and electronic dub-step acts. On a similar note, the Maison has recently played host to many local alternative acts, as well as electronic DJ’s and producers. Frenchman street will undoubtedly continue to become known as one of New Orleans’ greatest alternative music locations.
If one travels still further into the Bywater, New Orleans’ final frontier, one will find what is arguably New Orleans’ most alternative and underground music scene. Regarded currently as the “cool part of town,” the Bywater serves as New Orleans’ Echo Park. A conglomerate of bars and music venues can be found, all within a short distance of one another: the Hi-Ho Lounge, Siberia, Saturn Bar, and the Allways Lounge are just a few. In addition to “legal” events held in bars such as these, there are also quite a bit of events held in houses or “speakeasies” found (or not found) in the Bywater. The underground venue owned by local swamp tech and noise rock musician Quintron, called the Spellcaster Lodge (no longer active), was the location of music shows, art events, and other weird happenings both before and after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
b. New Orleans Music Festivals
Generally speaking, New Orleans has two predominating music festivals every year: the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Voodoo Music Festival. The name alone of the former says it all. Both of these festivals, like many large festivals, aren’t held to solely showcase local music. Both are in essence, and actuality, held each year as huge corporately funded festivals that draw both local and international crowds.
Jazz Fest, as its name implicates is more than just a music festival. Because the appeal of Jazz Fest is more than just great local and international music, there is room for deviation, and the festival does play host to almost as many, if not more, local acts as it does touring acts. This interesting fact has much to say however about the typical trends of New Orleans music and may be capable of answering, as a microcosm, the anomaly of New Orleans music. The simple fact is that the New Orleans Jazz Festival draws large amounts of external people to the city every year. In 2010, around 375,000 people were in attendance at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, while a New Orleans census report, given the same year indicated that only 343,829 people were currently living in the city. These numbers will prove useful later on.
New Orleans Voo Doo Festival serves as the cities more traditional music festival, comparable to Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival, Chicago’s Lollapalooza, or Austin City Limits. Because this is the case, there tends to be much less local acts at Voo Doo, and quite a number more of national or international touring acts. This festival is almost irrelevant to observe in relation to this piece.
In absence of New Orleans NOIR (New Orleans Indie Rock Collective), Foburg Festival has assumed the role of New Orleans’ leading underground and alternative music festival over the course of the past couple years. The festival, modeled somewhat similarly to Austin’s South-by-Southwest festival, is run by a group of locals and caters to acts both touring and local. Last year’s installment of the festival featured performances by Big History, Brass Bed, Sun Hotel, Caddywhompus, and Empress Hotel. Events like these provide light at the end of the tunnel for the independent New Orleans music scene.
c. Radio Programming
A look at New Orleans radio programming is one of the best ways to learn what is and isn’t popular in the city of New Orleans. Because most radio stations obtain large parts of funding through donations to remain on the air, it goes without saying that they have to play what the people want to hear. While in New Orleans, a quick turn of the dial on an FM radio will leave very few choices besides top 100 country, rap, pop, and rock. The few main exceptions are WWOZ (90.7) and WTUL (91.5). WWOZ prides itself for the broadcasting of what is almost strictly New Orleans music, while WTUL is Tulane University’s radio station. Since WWOZ plays music predominantly from New Orleans, it offers a good reflection of what exactly most people, especially the station’s programing directors, consider as being New Orleans music. So, in 2003, when Davis Rogan was fired from WWOZ for, among other things, his “non-adherence to the music that should be played on the New Orleans Music Show,” a lot was said about what supposedly is, and isn’t, New Orleans music. In this particular instance, the WWOZ management was upset that a rap tune was played on the air, but as Scott Jordan acknowledges in his article regarding Rogan’s dismissal, “New Orleans rock and electronica are also invisible on WWOZ.” Furthermore, when WWOZ’s programing director at the time, Dwayne Breashears, claimed listeners have called in and reported (supposedly) that “’that’s not why we’re tuning in to ‘OZ, and that’s not why we support WWOZ,” as a response to rap music, and no telling what else, he also conceded to what the masses regard as New Orleans music.
On the other hand, WTUL is open to all types of music being played on the air. But, as before, this is not an adequate reflection of common New Orleans music trends because of the inconsistency that typically follows college students
II. The Success of Jazz in New Orleans
a. Cultural Tradition
Anyone familiar with New Orleans will know that tradition is one of its always present and inescapable qualities. Nothing in the city of New Orleans and, in a more general sense, most of Louisiana goes untouched by cultural tradition, both in the professional and personal realms. According to the official tourism website of Louisiana, the state has over 400 festivals every year – that’s more festivals than one person has time for in a year.
Almost every aspect of daily life isn’t just affected by Louisiana cultural tradition, but celebrated somewhere, in some festival. Natives in New Orleans don’t only expect things a certain way, they have learned to love them the way that they are here in New Orleans: spicy, drenched in alcohol, and jazzy. To summarize, New Orleans is a city with a central identity apparent to outsiders and lived, almost religiously, by the insiders. So the anomaly that has subsequently become the driving piece of this study should come as no surprise to anyone. The people of New Orleans love what they know better than any other form of music: swinging, horn-heavy jazz.
b. Tourism
Your run-of-the-norm New Orleanians aren’t the only people that brave the New Orleans nightlife in search of the jazz music that they expect to find. Tourists, visiting the city from external locations around the world are also part of this expectant demographic. Reid Martin, the lead vocalists and rhythm guitarists for the Blue Party, a local New Orleans indie-pop act, said that “the main reason jazz does so well [in New Orleans] is because it’s a central part of our biggest industry: tourism.”
Indeed, tourism is among the biggest industries in New Orleans. In fact, according to the New Orleans Industry Report, conducted by the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation in 2008, the “tourism industry is the largest employer in the metropolitan New Orleans area, and second largest industry in the state of Louisiana…the tourism economic engine accounts for 35% of the City of New Orleans’ annual operating budget.” Additionally, the report itself includes music venues as one the predominating business categories responsible for contributing to this specific industry, an industry often credited for expediting the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina more than any other industry. Also included in this report are attendance approximations for “record breaking festivals” held during the 2008 fiscal year, four of which (out of seven) are held solely for, or in accordance with, musical attractions.
After acknowledging tourism as one of New Orleans’ biggest industries, if not its biggest, it seems only rational that businesses everywhere within the New Orleans metropolitan area must consider what tourists want, as a huge customer demographic, almost more than any other demographic. This simple fact alone seems to greatly evidence the observation offered earlier by Martin. People come to New Orleans, a place that is often heralded as the birthplace of jazz, with expectations to hear jazz, and probably jazz alone.
c. Education
Yet another controlling factor concerning the success of jazz in New Orleans is education. Musical education is certainly a prevalent area of scholarship at all levels within in the city of New Orleans, and among that musical education, jazz is one of the predominate areas of study. Though there are many institutions of higher education within New Orleans, the University of New Orleans (UNO; public; current total undergraduates: 8,345), New Orleans largest public urban institution, Tulane University (private; current total undergraduates: 7,803), and Loyola University (private; current total undergraduates: 2,922), are all among the cities largest higher education institutions.
All three of these institutions boast undergraduate and graduate degree programs within the field of music, and again, all offer areas of concentration pertaining specifically to jazz. Furthermore, Loyola University New Orleans, one of 28 Jesuit Universities in the United States, is the only one to have a college of music and fine arts. Knowing this, it is safe to assess that high school graduates eager to study music, and often times specifically jazz, will likely consider the city of New Orleans as a serious option for their higher education experience.
Another interesting factor to note of is the effect that student bodies within the city of New Orleans have on the success of cultural economy, especially when pertaining to alternative genres of music. According to statistics given by College Search and College Board, 87% of Tulane Universities’ first year students come from out of the state, while 58% of Loyola University New Orleans’ first year students come from out of state. This means that many university students in New Orleans are pseudo citizens, or part-time citizens of the city, or that they maintain chief residences and billing addresses elsewhere, outside of New Orleans. This paired with earlier observations concerning the implications that university student demographics have on the success of alternative music genres within the city mean that the cultural economy of alternative music oscillates throughout the year, experiencing more success during times of study.
The effects such things have had on alternative music genres within New Orleans are drastic to the point of obvious noticeability. For instance, it is considered unwise, almost to the point of taboo, for show promoters and venues to throw or host certain types of alternative genre events in the city during intermediate periods of typical university sessions, i.e. winter and summer breaks. Furthermore, large portions of New Orleans’ alternative genres music groups, as college students, disband during such breaks, returning to their homes for these periods.
III. Alternative Genres in New Orleans
Of course, New Orleans isn’t a city completely void of alternative music genres. There are exceptions to all of the generalizations that made have been made or implicated throughout this piece thus far. New Orleans has boasted its fair share of non-jazz musical acts to emerge from the city in recent times. For instance, many influential rappers hail from the city of New Orleans: Currensy, Master P, Lil’ Wayne, Juvenile, and Mystikal are just a few to name. But in search of any group that claims New Orleans as their home, influenced by rock or other alternative genres, very few come to mind. In most recent times, one familiar with the genres of music discussed here, will think of indie-pop noise duo Belong, and American indie-rock duo Generationals. Save these two exceptions, New Orleans can lay claim to almost no alternative, indie-rock or pop acts that have gone on to achieve national or international acclaim in recent times.
a. Local Alternative Genre Bands
There are several exceptions to be found in New Orleans when observing music on a more local level. New Orleans does in fact possess a small group of musical acts and bands performing alternative genres. The first places to go in search of these groups is the NOIR Collective and the universities of New Orleans, as most of these groups are found within younger circles of people.
Of course, the large amount of these groups would hope to play music at a national or even international level, but simply haven’t succeeded yet. As a member of one of these groups myself, I have a deep understanding of the two sentiments usually shared among these circles. The first offers a hopeful outlook for New Orleans music: it is one that longs for a dramatic shift of New Orleans to a great cultural center and birthplace for alternative musical genres. Several movements within the city characterize this specific longing. Chinquapin Records, is a “cooperative” of local musicians and advocates, mostly from Loyola University, that “seeks to be an outlet for sharing the music we make and the music we love.” Another similar organization – one claiming itself more explicitly as a record label, is Park the Van Records. With many groups currently receiving representation from Park the Van, it is arguably the leading formal organization within New Orleans to promote alternative forms of music. Finally, there is the media and fans in New Orleans that hope for something similar: music blogs like Art Official and Barryfest are doing their best to make sure groups like these find their way to the rest of the world. On the other hand, there are those currently in New Orleans, possibly against their own will, that would like nothing more than to take their musical talent and abilities elsewhere, believing that New Orleans will never be capable of offering them what they need. These are the skeptics. Those resigned to the fact, sometimes unwillingly, that New Orleans, as it stands, is not capable of offering local musicians the fan bases and venues they need to grow.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I will bring together the observations made previously in one concentrated set of theory concerning cultural economy and the success of alternative genre music, specifically independent rock and similar genres, within the city of New Orleans. The answer to this question can be answered, in large part, with simple mathematics and populace figures.
Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the population of New Orleans was altered dramatically. Prior to the hurricane in August of 2005, the population of New Orleans was situated somewhere approximately around 484,674, a number that hasn’t been reached again since the storm. As of 2010, the U.S. Census bureau maintained that the population of New Orleans was only at 343, 829, almost 150,000 below its figure in 2000. The effects of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans have therefore been dramatic to say the least; where would New Orleans be today, had the storm never happened? This question obviously implicates every part of New Orleans life, music being included.
The unavoidable truth however is that niche groups and interests, ones like alternative genres of music, simply will not do well in a city lacking numbers. Reid Martin, of the Blue Party, makes this observation: “there are simply not enough people in this city to make it possible for most musicians to make a living from solely playing gigs…[but] for jazz musicians in [New Orleans], the audience travels to you.”
From this springs yet another unavoidable truth: that a predominating number of audiences in search of musical experiences in the city of New Orleans come from outside of the city. And they come in search of what they expect to find. In order to continue facilitating what is currently our greatest industry, the city of New Orleans must provide those things, which are in high demand.
Of course, the audience doesn’t always come from elsewhere, and cultural tradition is yet another major factor playing into the success of jazz within the city. It is a success that almost directly affects that of other musical genres, and most often negatively. The term “cultural economy” alone says an infinitesimal amount about why alternative music and music events, within the city of New Orleans, are almost completely glossed over. The initiative of cultural economy, as given by the office of the Lt. Governor, the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, and the Office of Cultural of Cultural Development, is to “support the development of creative industries as a viable sector of Louisiana’s economy.” The key word of this initiative obviously being viable; meaning that any cultural niche incapable of securing a lucrative economy will most likely be ignored not only by the government of New Orleans, but often times her people as well.
Sources:
Cover image taken from Belong courtesy of Kranky Records
Photo Credit: Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation
The primary mission of the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation “is to be a catalyst for the development and enhancement of the distinct cultural industries of Louisiana by promoting the economic health and quality of life of our cultural economy workforce.” The men and women of the New Orleans film industry chose to promote and inact cultural economy when it chose to keep the film industry in the state and move it to a north-Louisiana city after Hurricane Katrina brought its film production to a screeching halt. New Orleans chose to be that catalyst for the greater good of the state of Louisiana.
“Ranked third in film and television production”, Louisiana has rapidly become one of the United State’s largest producers of film (Louisiana Film and Television) . When people think of Louisiana made films they mostly associate them with New Orleans. Although it is true that New Orleans produces the majority of Louisiana’s films, another booming city is at a close second in film production. What city you may ask? No, not the state capitol. Shreveport, Louisiana has become one of Louisiana’s largest film producing cities due to Hurricane Katrina and the wise decisions of the New Orleans film industry.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina temporarily suspended film production in New Orleans, which in turn pushed Louisiana film production to North Louisiana. Out of this tragedy came an opportunity for the New Orleans film industry to boost the economy of a fellow city. An article in the Times-Picayune , released a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina, details the effect of the storm on the film industry in New Orleans: “Dozens of companies, hundreds of workers, and millions of dollars in film production have moved from New Orleans to Shreveport in the two weeks since Hurricane Katrina tore through the area, taking Hollywood South north, at least for now.” Shreveport was the New Orleans film industry’s saving grace in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. According to then director of the Governor’s Office of Film and TV Jeff Schott ”our [Nola Film Industry] focus was to keep the business in the state” and ”Shreveport offered the most attractive option.” Schott also said “the industry chose to relocate to Shreveport in part because Baton Rouge [was] too crowded and didn’t offer enough space for the industry’s businesses and workers.” Malcolm Petal, the firm’s chief executive officer during this time also said another reason for the move to Shreveport was “that unlike Baton Rouge and New Orleans , Shreveport and surrounding cities have [had] not yet reaped the benefits of the growing film industry.” It was huge for Petal to have this insight and to bring film to Shreveport. He saw Shreveport as a city that had yet to reach its potential in terms of film and television.
This move put a enormous amount of money in the city of Shreveport. One New Orleans production company named Lift alone spent 1.5 million to set up a an office in Shreveport after Katrina. Petal also said in the article that about “$80 million in production or post production work scheduled to be done in New Orleans [was] relocated to Shreveport” and the surrounding areas. Petal believed it was important to show everyone that you can make movies in north Louisiana. He even said he planned to keep “Lift’s Shreveport office running after New Orleans is operating again.” Out of this devastating storm came a great opportunity for Shreveport to be seen as a city capable of producing films equivalent to those shot in New Orleans. These two cities were able to take a tradegy and turn it into something valuable for the state of Louisiana. Shreveport has so much to offer the film industry in Louisiana and it has yet to see its best days of film production.
Visual of distance from NOLA to Shreveport Photo Credit: sus.edu
Another major reason why Shreveport is becoming such a popular city for filming movies is because of the city’s diversity. According to Shreveport-Bossierfilm.com diversity is “what allows the Shreveport-Bossier City area to become Anywhere, USA. Whether your story is set in Portland, New York City, or even Senegal, Africa, it can be and probably has been shot here in our area. No matter what kind of location you’re looking for, the Shreveport-Bossier area can make your production feel right at home. That’s because we have a sincere desire to make ever production successful. From the city administration down to support staff, you will find this area is full of just plain friendly, helpful folks.” Aside from its versatility, Shreveport is a close competitor with New Orleans for film production because Shreveport has the architecture and landscape similar to that of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. Surprising to some south Louisiana residents, Shreveport has “antebellum-style plantations, bayous, [and]swamps.” It is home to many notable films including Mr. Brooks and The Guardian, to name a few. Shreveport is able to transform into any location one can dream up. The following locations are placed that Shreveport has doubled for:
New York
New Jersey
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Portland, Oregon
Kodiak, Alaska
Miami, Florida
Amsterdam
Dakar Airport – Senegal, Africa
Bering Sea
Los Angeles, California
Alabama
Maine
Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Iowa
Mississippi
North Pole
New Orleans
New Hampshire
Kansas City, Missouri
Texas
St. Louis, Missouri
Sodom (Biblical City)
Oklahoma
Memphis
Arizona
Washington, D.C.
Maryland
Santa Monica, CA
The Amazon
Camp Pendleton, CA
Shreveport is also one of the State’s easiest and most accommodating places to work with. According to line producer Jeffrey Chernov and Unit production manager Tommy Harper “every film has a particularly difficult location. For Battle: Los Angeles we needed a freeway shut down for a month. When no other city could deliver, Shreveport-Bossier did.” Another movie producer, Michael “Mick” Flannigan, said “I’ve produced 6 films in Shreveport and can’t think of better city to shoot in. The city bends over backwards to help film makers realize their dream. The infrastructure and growing crew base is top notch. It’s a very easy city to navigate and has a diverse look in terms of locations. With the Louisiana tax credit it’s affordable to shoot in the US again!” and “I personally count Shreveport as my second home and look forward to shooting my next project there.” Producers not only love the state’s tax incentives, but Shreveport has its own local tax incentives that make it all the more appealing.
Filmed in Shreveport, La
Aside from the state tax incentives, Shreveport has its own local incentives listed below:
(Chart from shreveport-bossierfilm.com)
2.5% sales tax rebate – based on expenditures within Shreveport’s city limits (application process and rules apply)
Basic Cap – $150,000.00 total to any individual project or production for new productions by a production company which has not previously received any City of Shreveport incentives.
Subsequent Productions- $165,000.00 for a production company which brings a subsequent production to the City of Shreveport within twelve months of completion of the prior project.
The funding cap shall be increased by $10,000 for productions which utilize a Caddo Parish-based post production company.
1.5% sales tax rebate – based on expenditures within Caddo Parish (application process and rules apply)
Basic Cap – $20,000.00 total to any individual project or production for new productions by a production company which has not previously received any Caddo Parish or municipalities lying therein within the last twelve months.
Subsequent Productions- $22,000.00 for a production company which brings a subsequent production to Caddo parish within twelve months of completion of the prior project.
The funding cap shall be increased by $1200.00 for productions which utilize a post production company located within Caddo Parish or any of the municipalities lying therein.
Resolution passed for the Mayor to suspend certain provisions of city ordinances to grant temporary approval for uses of film production
Permitting: No charge for film and construction permit fees for set builds (Caddo-Bossier Parish)
Free Locations for most of our city and parish (Shreveport and Bossier) buildings
Free water for filming special effects – (City of Shreveport city limits) – exception wave tank
Easy and simple permitting – no permit fees
Assistance with DOTD permitting
Photo Credit: Robinson Film Center
The Shreveport area is also committed to instilling education of film and television in its college students. Due to the booming film industry these various schools are offering programs and classes in several aspects of film and television. Louisiana Technical College - Mansfield Campus, a college in the Shreveport area, offers training in hair, special effects, scenic painting, props, sound, set dressing, make up and wardrobe to anyone interested in working in the film industry in Shreveport. The Shreveport branch of the college offers degrees in barber/styling which can be beneficial in a film’s make-up and hair department. Centenary College in Shreveport also offers a track in film, television and video and has a film society for its students. Centenary hopes to “ teach students to express themselves and to communicate with others using various electronic and film media. With a liberal arts perspective and extensive production experience, students will have the opportunity to become creative artists and analysts of the media who have a strong sense of the complex realities of the role of film, television, and video play in communications.” Centenary students in the film society also work closely with the one of the city’s film centers, the Robinson Film Center. The Film Society screens of all its movie at the center. The center also plays a vital role in the education of students in Shreveport and the surrounding areas. It offers a film-making workshop that can be done at any school in the area. The program “is a perfect way to blend an interactive lesson about film production into your classroom. Your class makes its own short film in just 90 minutes!” The Robinson film city is very unique to not only Shreveport, but the region.
The Robinson Film Center is the “region’s only venue for independent, international and classic cinema and community resource for media-related educational programming for all ages. The RFC houses tow state-of-the-art theaters featuring the latest in 35mm and hi-eg digital projection. Private screening facilities for dailies (35 mm and digital) and multi-purpose media rooms are available.”
Shreveport Mayor, Cedric Glover stresses the importance of the Robinson Film Center on the city’s economy.
In the end, Shreveport owes a majority of its film success to the people of the New Orleans film industry for making the decision to move its post-katrina industry to Shreveport. These peopla saw a vision for Shreveport and that was a vision of a city booming with film production. Shreveport always had all of the tools and resoucres necessaryto produce an abundance of films, but they needed the help of a fellow city. In a time when New Orleans film needed help the city of Shreveport was there and New Orleans continues to repay Shreveport for its help everyday a new film is made in that north-Louisiana city.
The following clips highlight the amount of space and diversity the city has to offer and also the growing film industry in Shreveport.
Space in New Orleans has seen a massive breakdown since the onslaught (or chance for new beginnings, whichever outlook you prefer) of Hurricane Season ‘05. The deconstruction of space of physical property destruction was equally matched by the cultural deconstruction of a shattered population. After the Army Corps of Engineers drained the city and the evacuated population could slowly migrate home, the statistics reveal a disproportionate “New” New Orleans. The return rate among the 34 percent of homeowners who received little to no damage after the hurricanes was highest. Out of the rest of the 66 percent of the population, only those who had the resources to move back to homes with moderate to complete damage could actually come back. Those homeowners of low-income, with little resources to come back to the city and rebuild, were almost lost. “The largest federal source of rebuilding aid to low-income homeowners, the Road Home program, proved too little, too late for most. On the second anniversary of Katrina, the city of New Orleans is only 67.6 percent of its pre-Katrina size, with little promise of regaining its pre-storm numbers” (Fussell).
The city has seen improvement in the six years since 2005. Section 8 was created in the 1930′s and has evolved into a voucher program to help applicants afford reasonable and affordable rent based on income. It can either be project based or tenant based, allowing the applicant to live in a specific housing complex or one of their choosing, respectively. Applicants can apply in New Orleans through the HANO department (Housing Authority of New Orleans). The department’s newest and most well received development is the Harmony Oaks apartment community. “Just five years earlier, this area was home to one of the most economically-distressed neighborhoods in the city. But today, this community stands as a memorial to the internal and external growth of the Housing Authority of New Orleans.” Formerly the infamous C.J. Peete apartment community, the community features “193 public housing, 144 low income housing tax credit and123 market rate rental housing units.”
A step in the right direction is adaptive reuse to convert old space into new community outlets. Adaptive reuse is “the process of adapting old structures for new purposes” for sustainability. The MIT Greening East Campus defines the imperative of adaptive reuse as to “extend the life cycle of a structure is related to various sustainability goals: sprawl minimization, preservation of virgin materials, and energy conservation. Also, many Western cities are changing dramatically as industrial operations more often than not move to the South and the East leaving massive, sturdy buildings vacant.” Renewing historic, damaged space is not an unheard of concept in New Orleans, a city which heavily promotes the concepts of “renew” and “rebirth.”
New Orleans has recently seen the reuse of abandoned factories as apartments, lofts, and condominiums. These new properties are being marketed for their nostalgic and artistic aesthetics by blending “newly furbished” elements with the industrial foundations of the buildings. The impact on the community has incorporated these spaces as means for Section 8 and equal housing. Most of these apartment complexes are listed as “low-income” or “mixed-income.” Phrases such as “affordable housing available” are seen on brochures such as the new Aloysius Apartmets. The Housing Authority of New Orleans assists low-income families with rental payment through the Section 8 Program, available to those who apply through local Public Housing Agencies and meet low-income requirements.
The trend in adaptive reuse by converting old factories into housing quarters seems to begin with the American Can Apartments. In 2001, the American Can Apartments were constructed out of six warehouses left by the abandoned American Can Company constructed in 1906. Considered “luxury apartments,” the historic Mid-City complex advertises that 20% of the apartments are set aside for low-income residents. New apartment complexes soon to emerge in the market include a Creole cream cheese factory in Mid-City, converting to “31 energy-efficient, mixed-income apartments surrounded by a community garden.” The Gold Seal lofts are a product of the Domain real-estate firm, run by Tulane graduates attempting to revitalize New Orleans communities. Their work includes The Preserve Apartments—a complex of mixed-income rental housing redeveloped from the Crystal Preserve factory—among other Mid-City development projects. This project brings Domain’s investment in the Mid-City community up to $130 million. The Gold Seal apartments will be the “greenest mixed-income building” Domain is responsible for. Plus, the Gold Seals logo is just adorable—demonstrating that certain “cute” and “artistic” quality which restored industrial buildings bring as apartments.
Some rejuvenated spaces are targeted to help the elderly and disabled. These include the Mater Dolorosa Apartments on Carrolton, which were redeveloped in the 1980’s as low-income apartments available for the elderly and handicapped. They are owned by the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Another example of this is the Redemptorist Apartments for the elderly in the Lower Garden District. Originally a convent and a school, the buildings were rehabilitated and completed by 2009 for use as “affordable” housing for the elderly. Requirements for living include being over 62 years old and meet low income requirements. The Housing Authority of New Orleans helps pay part of the rent for most inhabitants. This is a video summarizing the apartment building’s history, problems post-Katrina, and an interview with two people—Henry Austan and Zelda Cousin—both who live there.
The idea of reusing space rather than the demolition of buildings or construction of new ones emphasizes the integral charm of historic New Orleans buildings. As a city where most of its economy is based on tourism, the emphasis on reuse of space should speak volumes to keeping New Orleans intact. Opposed to this reuse of space is the sheer amount of abandoned buildings. New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina is filled with deconstructed space: abandoned houses, an empty hospital, a deserted amusement park, and the naked looking foundations left from where buildings used to be. Large X’s spray painted by search-and-rescue teams still scar homes. Empty lots and gutted homes still populate areas such as Gentilly.
On a grand scale, two large spaces are still not being considered for revitalization which should be accounted for. The first one is practical: Charity Hospital in Mid-City. One of the “oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world until it was closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” Charity’s mission “to provide top-notch affordable health care to the citizens of New Orleans” could not be more needed (savecharityhospital.com). Having only flooded in the basement section during Hurricane Katrina, the building was cleaned and ready to work weeks after August 29, 2005. It was not allowed to reopen, however, supposedly as means for a new LSU hospital and volunteers were barred by hospital police from entering the building. The building sits empty now. “The abandonment of the old Charity Hospital stands as a potent symbol of the many disappointments and betrayals experienced by the residents of New Orleans after Katrina” (Brandes Gratz).
The second grand scale space not being considered is a bit more whimsical than the rational idea of building a hospital. Jazzland (or Six Flags New Orleans, but it is difficult not to call it by its original namesake) is a rusting mess even six years after Hurricane Katrina. This is most likely due to the low attendance rate pre-disaster and Six Flag’s unwillingness to settle on a claim that does not seem absurd. Pieces of the park were salvageable, however, and in a burst of adaptive reuse, the working “Batman: The Ride” attraction was stripped from the East and packaged off to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Six Flags is still in the process of finding a way to break its lease to the property despite being about 64 years too early.
Not all hope should be lost for these two unused spaces. The future initially looked grim for the Holy Cross community in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The nonprofit organization Historic Green worked intensely with the Holy Cross community to rebuild it in an environmentally sensitive way and to become the nation’s first zero carbon community. The reasoning behind this included the factors of the man-made and ecological contributions to the community being nearly lost.
The revitalization of space is not just a market for commercialization of industrial buildings, but a step towards progress in unexpected ways. The revitalization of space in New Orleans has been encouraging environmentally conscious endeavors, such as the Gold Seal apartments and the Holy Cross community. And spaces left unresolved, such as Charity Hospital and Jazzland, have not gone unnoticed. Community projects to save Charity Hospital have been popping up since the building’s doors first closed, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation has publicized the plight of the hospital and its surrounding neighborhood. And as for Jazzland, commercial use seems out of the picture for the next 64 years, but its deconstruction has not been left unnoticed or unexploited.
- Connecting the Faubourg Marigny and Bywater to the Rest of Metropolitan New Orleans
The Bywater by W Rush Jagoe V.
The story of Greater New Orleans’ population migration, housing development and abandonment, and economic neighborhood development throughout the last sixty years has been hectic to say the least. In addition to the long list of factors like neighborhood development and neglect, economic sustainability, and job opportunities that typically govern expected population and demographic shifts in American metropolitan cities, the Greater New Orleans area has also experienced the additional challenges of coping with natural disaster and an egregious crime rate, just to name a couple.
The capability possessed by the people and administration of New Orleans to withstand and endure such hardships is, if nothing else, a testament to the hope and determination of seeing this distinct city survive and flourish both in present and future times. Following the devastation of hurricane Katrina in 2005, the people of New Orleans have seen many neighborhoods thrive in ways never thought possible. And while the city is still dealing with problems caused by the storm over five years after its occurrence, governmental programs and private determination are becoming increasingly and noticeably responsible for the well-being of New Orleans.
Faubourg Marigny Historical Marker
In the last decade alone, developments in the Garden District area, specifically Magazine and Freret streets, have been astronomical, leading to the creation of many successful small businesses, job opportunities, and other social and economic endeavors. But most recently, an acute interest on the opposite end of New Orleans’ metropolitan area has been sparked – namely the Faubourg Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods. These areas, which make up large portions of New Orleans’ 7th, 8th, and 9th wards (neighborhoods commonly notorious for their atrocious crime rates and other infidelities), have long been regarded by many as a sort of red-headed stepchild to New Orleans. But recent efforts evidence a vision that will change these notions concerning one of New Orleans’ great historic neighborhoods.
When studying the development and population increase of any neighborhood, one of the most logical demographics to first observe is that of young adults – the group of people comprising college students, young professionals, and even bohemian artists. The past few years have undeniably seen young hipsters flocking to the “cool” part of town, specifically the area surrounding St. Claude Avenue, and a lively night life emerging on the Avenue itself canattest to that. Night clubs and music venues like the Saturn Bar, the Hi-Ho Lounge, the Allways Lounge, and Siberia, are just a few to recognize.
While an observation like this may seem superficial and unfounded, data courtesy of the non-profit organization, the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center can justify these claims. One of their most recent publications concerning Housing Development and Abandonment in New Orleans, which compares data from the 2000 and 2010 New Orleans censuses, notes that “the Bywater neighborhood is attracting younger singles while losing seniors living alone. The share of single person households increased in the Bywater from 40 to 46 percent.” [1]
Ideal Proposal courtesy of DailyKos.com
In addition to businesses that are catering to younger aged demographics, many other businesses and projects are popping up as well. Art galleries, restaurants and cafes, and independent theatre troupes are just a few that have emerged in recent times. But the most enthralling possibility, currently being entertained by the New Orleans governmental administration and the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority, is the placement of a streetcar line in the neighborhood. While plans for a streetcar line connecting New Orleans’ final frontier to the rest of the Metropolitan area have been in the making for over 20 years, they are just now coming to life. Ideal plans for the streetcar line, called the the “French-Quarter loop,” were revealed in a newspaper article in the Times-Picayune earlier this year. At that time, the plans and 90 million dollars obtained by the RTA to begin construction on the project would see the line “travel along North Rampart and then St. Claude between Canal and Press Street, with a 1.2-mile spur on Elysian Fields Avenue that would connect the Riverfront streetcar line at Esplanade Avenue.”
Earlier this month however the original plans were unfortunately modified as a result of insufficient funds. The RTA announced at a community meeting on Tuesday, November 8th, that they “will use money from a 2010 bond sale that netted the agency $79 million to create the service along Rampart and St. Claude to Elysian Fields, a distance of about 1.3 miles.” Justin Augustine, the top local executive for Veolia Transportation, a France-based conglomerate that is currently managing all of the RTA’s buses and streetcars, has said that construction on the line should begin as early as next fall, with a suspected project completion ranging anywhere between late 2013 and early 2014. [3]
RTA Chairwoman Barbara Major appropriately conceded earlier this year that “‘streetcars bring with them a sense of safety, a sense of culture and fun…[that] it’s public transportation at its best.’” [2] Indeed, the placement of a streetcar line in the Faubourg Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods may prove to be one of the most beneficial and venerable additions possible, and if Major’s observation is correct, it could improve the neighborhood in a majority of different ways.
“I can learn from way back when / and still live right now,” My Morning Jacket front man Jim James sings on the band’s latest full-length album, Circuital, released earlier this year. Anyone already familiar with the Louisville, Kentucky based rock group will know that James and company pull from an expansive conglomeration of influences to achieve a sound situated somewhere perfectly between the music of yesterday and tomorrow. Theirs is a sound that transfers the timeless “immortality” of New Orleans jazz (a word used by James himself when describing his first experience with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band) into a relevantly modern context.
My Morning Jacket and Preservation Hall Jazz Band photo by: Danny Clinch
James’ relationship with the Preservation Hall and its members began in March of 2009, when he was invited to record two songs for Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall & the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program. While the making of the benefit album saw the boys of Preservation Hall paired with many legendary American musicians, like Merle Haggard, Tom Waits, Pete Seeger, and Andrew Bird, the story surrounding James’s experience in New Orleans while at work on the project is one of the more interesting ones.
As legend has it (legend posing this time as an article in Rolling Stone Magazine), James experienced a series of vivid dreams the night before his recording session at the Preservation Hall. In his dreams, James, as a young orphan boy, became friends with an unidentifiable orphan girl who later breathed into James her spirit through the floorboards of an orphanage. It wasn’t until the next morning, when James was given an old red bullhorn to sing through, that the implications of his dreams became clear – the antique bullhorn had been used at one time by Sweet Emma Barret, a vocalist of the early Preservation Hall Jazz Band. “It was almost as if [the ghost] wanted me to carry her for a little while and blow her back out into Preservation Hall,” James said about the experience.
Louisiana Fairytale Cover
Following the completion of James’ two tracks for the Preservation Hall benefit album, the relationship between My Morning Jacket and the members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is one that has flourished greatly. Since 2009, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has completed one nine-city-tour with My Morning Jacket, accompanied the group on stage at several music festivals, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heitage Festival, Voodoo Festival and Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival and even worked together with the band on a documentary film, entitled
Louisiana Fairytale. The film, directed by Danny Clinch, explores the long and rich history of Preservation Hall, as told by the Hall’s creative director Ben Jaffe.
The result of this cultural import has done wonders for the Preservation Hall and it’s jazz band. The rich heritage and artwork that has emanated from Preservation Hall throughout the decades is now becoming readily available to many audiences that may have otherwise remained oblivious to its existence, and the efforts made with both My Morning Jacket and director Danny Clinch are largely responsible for this. The documentary film Louisiana Fairytale made its world debut this year at Austin, Texas’ music, art and film festival, SXSW (South by Southwest) and has screened in many major American cities since, most recently at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
For more information on the film, visit the Preservation Hall or Danny Clinch sites listed below, or the Louisiana Fairytale Facebook page:
Co-sponsored by The New Orleans Film Festival, Ben Jaffe (Creative Director, Preservation Hall, Producer, Louisiana Fairytale) and Gabriel Velasco (Composer, La Hora Cero, Henry Rollins: Uncut from New Orleans) discuss the business of scoring film.
Recorded live @ the Louisiana Humanities Center, 10.18.2011
Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall photo by: Clint Maedgen
Expectations can be high when you’re born into something; Ben Jaffe, of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, should know this about as good as any. Born in 1971 to Sandra and Allan Jaffe, co-founders of Preservation Hall, Ben has lived a life submerged in the tradition of New Orleans jazz.
Being constantly surrounded by musicians since birth makes an arbitrary task out of dating Jaffe’s first intimate experience with an instrument, but his first formal endeavor as a musician came at age 7, when Jaffe joined the McDonogh 15 school band as a bass player. Much of Jaffe’s lasting inspiration for playing music developed during this period of his life with the help of his band director, the late sousaphonist, bassist, and educator Walter Payton. Shortly after the passing of Mr. Payton in 2010, Jaffe alluded to the immense influence that the legendary bassist had in his life, admitting that “he had a lasting impact on me. He instilled in me a respect for music.” [1]
The seeds planted by Ben’s parents, Walter Payton, and the surrounding members of the Preservation Hall Jazz band soon flourished as Jaffe continued his education as a musician. Jaffe spent his high school years at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), where he would later become a teacher, and then went onto Oberlin Conservatory College to achieve his undergraduate degree. Jaffe anxiously cemented his career as a musician the day after graduating from Oberlin when he stepped onto a plane bound for Paris, where he joined the rest of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, currently on a world tour, as their primary bassist.
The ensuing ten years of Jaffe’s life served as an intermediate period; these were the careless glory days (if there ever were any) of his musical career. During this time Jaffe maintained the position of the Preservation Hall’s primary bassist. Gradually however, Jaffe began to address the power vacuum left at the Preservation Hall since his father’s death in 1987. The survival of the Preservation Hall as a legendary music institution became an unavoidable issue when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August of 2005.
At this point, Jaffe ironically surrendered his position as Preservation Hall’s touring bassist to his longtime mentor Walter Payton, and assumed a position as the Hall’s primary preservationist, working tirelessly to see the Hall thrive once again after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Jaffe’s efforts to do just this were spearheaded by the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund (NOMRF), an organization that seeks to help New Orleans musicians in need of help.
The work done by Ben Jaffe for Preservation Hall has undoubtedly surpassed even the high expectations inadvertently set before him at a young age. Now Jaffe, currently 40 years young, is doing more than ever to make sure that this legendary music hall, which seeks to preserve the tradition of New Orleans jazz music, receives some of the preserving necessary for its survival.
Today, Jaffe assumes the position of Creative Director at Preservation Hall, where he still plays the tuba, banjo, and upright bass. Jaffe has collaborated with countless world class musicians, the latest being with the Louisville, Kentucky band My Morning Jacket. In a documentary directed by Danny Clinch, entitled Louisiana Fairytale, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band shares a spotlight with Jim James and My Morning Jacket.
Glen Pitre , born November 10, 1955, is a film director and screen writer from Cut Off, Louisiana. Pitre attended Harvard and worked as a shrimper each summer to pay for his schooling. He has written nine films over the last twenty-six years. His first film titled Belizaire the Cajun was first shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986.
At the young age of twenty five Pitre gained the nickname “father of the Cajun film” by American film magazine. This was due to his low-budget and local dialect costume dramas breaking house records in bayou country cinemas. Belizaire the Cajun became Pitre’s first English-language production with the help of the Sundance Institute.
Since this accomplishment, ”Pitre’s works in a variety of media, frequently in collaboration with wife Michelle Benoit, have earned him numerous awards, grants and honors, including a knighthood from France. In 2003, film critic Roger Ebert acclaimed Pitre a legendary American regional director.” (imdb.com) To this day Pitre continues to produce movies with his wife. Together they run Cote Blanche Productions. The company centers it productions on documentaries and films concentrated in the Lousiana area.
“New Orleans has the image of an old whore. She’s seen some rough times; she’s had it hard.” –Sybil Kein (from the documentary Storyville: The Naked Dance)
No other city in the world holds the allure of New Orleans. Once ruled by Europeans, she now reigns supreme as one of the most quintessentially unique cities in America; her unequivocal distinctness has no parallel anywhere. With the lifestyle of the city summed up in her motto, laissez les bons temps rouler, is it any wonder that burlesque flourished in the Crescent City from the start? Burlesque at its apex found an avid and avaricious admirer in New Orleans, living out much of its glory days in this vibrant and beguiling city. Yet nothing gold can stay, and just as burlesque faded from popularity throughout America in the mid 20th century, so too did New Orleans somewhere along the passage of time.
The “jewel of the south” may have lost some of her luster, but for all that she does not gleam any less brightly. Echoes of her past pretensions linger in the soul of our city today. Those who have lived in New Orleans have never doubted her power and her enchantment, but recently others have fallen madly under her spell. How this has transpired remains somewhat of a mystery; perhaps it was Hurricane Katrina that brought New Orleans back into the public’s conscious, the sudden re-awakening to the realization that this city cannot be lost for no equal exists elsewhere. What is fascinating to note is that a revival in burlesque that began in the mid ‘90s has gained exceptional prominence in New Orleans, perhaps more so than any other city in America. Does this resurgence of interest in burlesque have something to do with the climate of change in the city herself?
Derived from the Italian word burla, which means a joke, ridicule, or mockery, burlesque originally referred to satirical, comedic plays intended to entertain the working class by parodying the upper class. Brought to New York City from England by Lydia Thompson and her “British Blondes” troupe in 1869, burlesque was an instant success. The infatuation with this more racy form of vaudeville theater quickly spread throughout all of the United States, gaining a decidedly American flavor. Incorporating various acts typical of a variety show, burlesque eventually came to emphasize the striptease aspect of its female dancers performance.
Burlesque was particularly successful in New Orleans. The very fabric of the city’s being resonated with all that burlesque stood for. For one, New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, and jazz grew alongside burlesque. The dancers would strip while a jazz band played, would bump and grind to the beat of the music, to the sultry strains of the sax. The two were inextricably linked; both came into existence around the turn of the 20th century, and who can say which of the two spurred the other’s burgeoning popularity. As a matter of fact, that very special dance of the performers, the aforementioned bump and grind, “….first appeared on the American burlesque stage during the twenties….like the shimmy, were borrowed from the American Negro.” With no place deeper south than New Orleans, and what with her slave-holding past, there was no lack of “American Negros” for the burlesque dancers to imitate.
Jazz was reputed to have arisen out of musicians who performed in New Orleans notorious red-light district, Storyville. In existence from 1897 to 1917, Storyville is just another reason why burlesque thrived in New Orleans. The city’s history of partaking in carnal pleasure was not new. It was a well-established fact that New Orleans was a loose, decadent city, full of every vice imaginable. In an attempt to regulate the booming sex trade, officials studied red light districts in the Netherlands and Germany, then relegated a special district exclusively
for the trade two blocks from the French Quarter based on these models. “Within the district, prostitutes had a de facto license to operate…the only legally constituted red-light district ever established in the United States.” Though Storyville was officially shut down only twenty years after its inception, and only after the Secretary of the Navy threatened the city with armed intervention, the industry itself is eternal and continues to this day. A city that so thoroughly enjoyed prostitutes would have no problem with this new, classier form of entertainment. As for the musicians, playing for the strippers must have been no different than playing for the hookers. Some musicians even grew to be quite famous from these gigs; Jelly Roll Morton is just one example of a musician whose international success stems from such lascivious beginnings.
Besides being “the city that care forgot,” New Orleans was also a bustling port, located at the mouth of the Mississippi River and on the tip of the Gulf of Mexico. This meant that the city was a cultural mecca, constantly flooded with new people and goods from all over the world. Unlike other places, New Orleans celebrated and embraced difference, and surely all this exchange contributed to her people being highly receptive to new ideas and art forms. Indeed, the city’s French heritage contributed to New Orleans biggest celebration of all: Mardi Gras. This is another reason for why burlesque likely prospered; the city’s love of costume and pageantry would certainly have extended to the burlesque dancers, who spent a fortune on their beautiful, elaborate garments so that they could glitter on stage. According to two ex-burlesque dancers who were interviewed for a documentary concerning the art form, “New Orleans was the most fantastic place in the world. It was all burlesque, up and down the streets on both sides. Burlesque and jazz bands. Mardi Gras was a fun time, and they had shows going day and night…In those days, it was a town of glamour.”
Beauty is fleeting, and just as the ravishing starlets of burlesque began to wither and fade, so too did the art they glorified. Starting with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City firmly shutting down the business in the ‘40s, burlesque began it’s ignoble descent into denigration. Spurred ever faster by the sexual revolution of the ‘60s and the creation of the porn industry, “…it’s decline into seamy quasi-pornographic theater for almost exclusively male audiences, and it’s final shabby demise (and collapse into a nostalgia-ridden trope) in the mid-twentieth century…” effectively ended traditional burlesque as we know it.
In recent years, however, there has been a revival in burlesque. Known as neo-burlesque to differentiate it from its predecessor, “Since 1995, burlesque has enjoyed renewed recognition in larger cities across the country…In its current incarnation, burlesque can take on any number of contemporary cultural hues, ranging from new age to postmodern.” Currently, there are eight burlesque troupes in New Orleans. What is interesting about this, however, is that New Orleans is not a large city. Compared to New York City, which only has two burlesque troupes, it seems a remarkable feat to have more than twice that amount. And New York City is where burlesque first hit American shores! So why has neo-burlesque flourished so spectacularly in our own little city?
I believe it has very much to do with nostalgia, and how New Orleans herself is such a nostalgic city. The city has undergone much change throughout her (almost) 300 years, but none so dramatic as after Hurricane Katrina. At that crucial juncture, there was much speculation as to whether New Orleans was a lost city. Though her inhabitants and true lovers never abandoned nor doubted the fact that she would survive, indeed, in some sense, we recognize that New Orleans is a lost city. Hurricane Katrina didn’t alter that; the hurricane only opened up others eyes who were not familiar to just how special our city is. The very fabric of her being was completely shaken and torn asunder after that horrific event, and things just never have been the same. That is just the process of evolution, so to speak; you can’t expect things to always stay the same. But what will always remain, what has always been there, is that feeling of knowing we are a city unlike any other, that has throughout history been threatened to succumb to the homogeneity that is the rest of America, and yet has clung so viciously to her identity. And has managed to retain it, surmounting whatever obstacles have been thrown her way.
Burlesque has had such a prosperous resurgence here because burlesque was itself a dying art, a lost art. The nostalgic aspect is what is so appealing about burlesque, of what is so appealing about New Orleans: “Nostalgia, in fact, may depend precisely on the irrecoverable nature of the past for its emotional impact and appeal. It is the very pastness of the past, its inaccessibility, that likely accounts for a large part of nostalgia’s power…” We of New Orleans have always been aware of that. There is a feeling in the air, it is the breath of the city of herself: of all the times that once were and no longer are, but for all that, remain eternal—a part of ourselves. As Lindsay Ross, CAC’s Director of Communications, says: “Whether it’s because of New Orleans’ traditional acceptance of “naughty” shows, our long-standing tolerance of go-cups, or a general nostalgia for that past nightlife…the interest in burlesque has grown so substantially, with numerous groups organized and performing in the city.”
Katrina brought New Orleans back into the public consciousness. Trixie Minx of the Fleur de Tease says herself, “Katrina inspired all people who were artists to come together and create. We started this troupe right after Katrina to be a part of the movement. We do a lot of benefit performances not specifically for Katrina but for anything New Orleans…” Recently, the whole makeup of the city has dramatically changed due to the influx of new people moving here to get a glimpse of New Orleans, to hold onto a part for themselves. “Perhaps nostalgia is given surplus meaning and value at certain moments—millennial moments, like our own. Nostalgia, the media tells us, has become an obsession of both mass culture and high art.” With the recent HBO show Treme, parts of the city and our unique culture that were secrets known only to New Orleanians have been shared with the world; everyone wants a bit of New Orleans. There is a fascination with how New Orleans was and an attempt to popularize it in order to “save it,” to remember it. But this brings a different vibe to the city, different people, and ironically you destroy what you are trying to save: “…they did not want to return to a place, but to a time….Time, unlike space, cannot be returned to—ever; time is irreversible. And nostalgia becomes the reaction to that sad fact.”
Sources:
–Allen, Robert, C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991. eBook. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711072 >.
–Hansen, Chadwick. “Jenny’s Toe: Negro Shaking Dances in America.” American Quarterly. 19.3 (1967): 554-563. Web. 21 Sep. 2011.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711072>.
–Hutcheon, Linda. “Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern.” Web. 21 Sep. 2011. <ttp://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html >.
–Kealey, Edward, R. “Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District, by Al Rose.” American Sociological Association. 4.3 (1975): 315-316. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2063249 >.
For centuries, literally centuries, race had divided New Orleans, and there simply aren’t enough efforts to put this divisive issue to bed. It’s naïve to think that any movement toward racial equality in this city is going to be easy, but should that stop people from trying? 2-Cent doesn’t think so, and they have undertaken this task with infectious fervor.
2-Cent creator Brandan Odums considers his creation to be a modern manifestation of the work started during the Civil Rights Movement. With practically zero funding, the production value of 2-Cent’s videos is impressive. The organization has managed to produce videos that address—in light-hearted but still educational way—social issues like racism, poverty, and sex.
I was captured by just one visit to 2-Cent’s website 2-Cent.com. The video in the “About” section of the website explains the movement that this group of young, socially conscious activists are growing just out of the public’s sight. 2-Cent has gotten some recognition; winning awards for their efforts, but they have yet to catch their “big break.” This brand of “edutainment” has yet to really gain a foothold in mainstream television, but a locally-aired television show at the end of their last season, one can’t help but hope that it won’t be long before they are able to get their message into public consciousness.
Before visiting 2-Cent’s website, I wasn’t even aware that there was a group like this that was trying to make a difference in the youth of New Orleans. Not only is 2-Cent’s message a pertinent one, but it is fun to watch because they approach the issues with a mix of humor and activism.
I think the video below is enough to show what 2-Cent is about and make more people aware of what they are trying to do for the future of New Orleans.
Justen Cheney is a senior at Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana studying English and Philosophy. He is also the owner and founder of art/official, a multi-media art and culture blog based in New Orleans, and a local musician.
Each year, strategically scheduled between the two consecutive weekends of the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Chazfest is held in the ninth ward and is home to both local musicians not afforded a place on the jazzfest roster and fans that are sick of being financially insulted by it’s unwarranted ticket prices.
This year, the beautiful Chazfest site, which is located in the New Orleans bywater on St. Claude Avenue in between Montegut and Clouet Street, was host to such local acts as the Valparaiso Men’s Chorus, King James and the Special Men, Helen Gillet, Schatzy, Narcissy, and many many more.
The festival, which was organized by several New Orleans musicians, including Alex McMurray, is intended specifically to serve as an alternative to Jazzfest. For more information, visit the festival’s website, and if you’ve never had the opportunity to make it to an annual Chazfest, be sure not to miss out next year.
How much of what you read on the Internet has a direct influence on your daily choices? Do you take bad restaurant reviews whining about lukewarm entrées and grumpy waiters to heart or do you dub the commenters as persnickety nobodies with too much time on their hands? Would you buy a book or attend an event just because of the abundance of Facebook “likes” and “fans” next to its link? With the Internet, especially social media, taking over how grow as a culture, interviews reviews often have a big impact on the very success of a product, event, or even a single person. In this article we will discuss how the Chaz Festival matches up with the New Orleans Jazz Festival in regards to conversations and reactions via the web.
If you’ve read any entries on this site regarding Alex MCmurray, the singer/songwriter recognized as “the embodiment of the downtown New Orleans lifestyle,”* you’ve probably heard about “Chaz Fest”—a 10 hour event of nonstop music and culture founded by McMurray to celebrate local artists unable to make the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival roster. So how does this localized grassroots gig match up to the big time event attractive to both locals and visitors from around the globe? Lets first take a look at the brief history of the festival and move into how it is has gained reputation on the Internet. (*Source: alexmcmurray.com)
Named after washboard genius “Washboard” Chaz Leary, the Chaz festival began just after Hurricane Katrina when many local artists were “frozen out” of the New Orleans Jazz Fest lineups. Many believed the big festival had slowly drifted from its roots of artistic celebration and unfortunately evolved into an over-priced and commercialized event. While many New Orleans’ artists had claimed the Thursday event days as their own, this day had been cut from the schedule all together that year. Refusing defeat, rejected artists gathered outside the fairgrounds at what is known as the “Truck Farm”: four houses of which were quickly transformed into recording studios, party venues, and concert stages for the local musicians. (These houses are owned by: Trina Shoemaker (Grammy-winning producer), Karen Brady (former manager of the legendary Kingsway recording studio), David Pirner (of the band Soul Asylum) and Jeff Treffinger (a producer and engineer.) The event has since grown into a full-blown musical festival complete with permits, volunteers, food stands, and of course great jazz music.
So is the festival just considered a success to the families and friends of the “uninvited” local musicians? Absolutely not. Whether taking a break from the crowds of Jazz Fest or skipping the big event altogether more visitors find their way into grassroots experience each year as it gains more recognition and even more coveted artists. This years event garnered great reviews:
One member of www.nola.com wrote: “Been to every one of them and its truly one of the greatest annual events we have in New Orleans…Alcohol selection is far superior to Jazz Fest.” Another remarked about the hype which has grown over the years for the event: “I’ve heard good things about this shindig, but I’ve been living away for a while and haven’t been able to get a first hand experience…that is until this year.” Some spoke of their appreciation for the laidback atmosphere surrounding the Chaz fest: “Go on by, take your shoes off, enjoy some music & meet the neighbors” only going on to point out “That, in & of itself, is a vanishing American Tradition, kept alive here by these intrepid & friendly people.”
On yelp.com, a New Orleans native wrote: “It was like paradise for hipsters young and old.” Facebook fans of the event also had their fair share to say about the event this year: as one fan wrote: “Thanks everyone for all your hard work and giving us one of the best days of the year!” as others dubbed it the best Chaz Fest to date. The Chaz Fest Facebook group enjoys 721 “likes”, 20 Facebook check-ins (this year) and 68 followers on Twitter.
If you attended Chaz Festival this year or you plan to head over for your first time next spring, make sure you to help raise awareness for the event by joining in the conversation whether its commenting on your anticipation for next years lineup, uploading a mobile photo of the event or even simply tweeting how it feels to be a part of the new Orleans musical grassroots movement.
For more information on Chaz Fest such as lineups and updates click here.
To become a Facebook fan of the Chaz Fest click here.
Margaret Sands is a native of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina who recently graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with an Environmental Studies major and minors in English Writing and Latin American Studies. She is now pursuing a graduate degree in International Environmental Policy at the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
Writers/Directors Brandan Odums (2-cent TV, Listen! Literacy & Arts Festival) and Glen Pitre (Cote Blanche Productions, Belizaire, Cigarettes & Nylons, Hurricane on the Bayou) discuss the business of making films in and around “Hollywood South.”
Recorded live at the Louisiana Humanities Center, 04.19.2011
The Man Who Came Back is a graphic and gruesome look into post Civil War America, depicted through the events of the second bloodiest labor strike massacre in United States history. It is the tale of Reese Paxton (Eric Braedon), a Confederate Civil War hero, and his endless struggles as a sympathizer for African Americans and their rights after attaining so-called “freedom” following the war.
The film, directed by New Orleans’ own efficacious screenwriter, Glen Pitre, begins in the dirty swamps of southern Louisiana when a band of local and recently freed African Americans strike because of their unfair and hostile treatment at the hands of local and crooked big bosses. When Paxton, the former plantation overseer, is dubbed by many of his hometown’s (Thibodeaux, Louisiana) inhabitants as a benefactor and defender of the former slaves, he is falsely convicted of lynching one of the “negroes” that his very conscious had convinced him to protect. After the consequences of Paxton’s supposed wrong doings affect his family, as well as himself, the story follows his many actions of revenge.
Though the film sets out initially to explore the many issues surrounding equality and civil rights in southern America during this highly controversial time period, it quickly becomes absorbed in the vengeful story of Reese Paxton. And while the film left me, at times, longing for a closer view of the several aforementioned problems, don’t allow yourself to believe that this story does not accomplish exactly what it sets out to do. The intrepid catch phrase alone, found on the movies cover (“Revenge was his only answer”), very appropriately summarizes what this entire film is all about.
In the end this film is a bold and daring window through which we may view the many horrors surrounding such a dark era that is often avoided and covered up. It is a successful and thoughtful depiction of one of our nations greatest travesties, and is a must see for any fans of Louisiana culture or good ole’ gritty westerns. Because the truth is that this is a western on the steroids called civil rights.
easonable and affordable rent based on income. It can either be project based or tenant based, allowing the applicant to live in a specific housing complex or one of their choosing, respectively. Applicants can apply in New Orleans through the 
unity outlets. Adaptive reuse is “the process of adapting old structures for new purposes” for sustainability. The MIT Greening East Campus defines the imperative of adaptive reuse as to “extend the life cycle of a structure is related to various sustainability goals: sprawl minimization, preservation of virgin materials, and energy conservation. Also, many Western cities are changing dramatically as industrial operations more often than not move to the South and the East leaving massive, sturdy buildings vacant.” Renewing historic, damaged space is not an unheard of concept in New Orleans, a city which heavily promotes the concepts of “renew” and “rebirth.” 
The 
n Mid-City. One of the “oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world until it was closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” Charity’s mission “to provide top-notch affordable health care to the citizens of New Orleans” could not be more needed (savecharityhospital.com). Having only flooded in the basement section during Hurricane Katrina, the building was cleaned and ready to work weeks after August 29, 2005. It was not allowed to reopen, however, supposedly as means for a new LSU hospital and volunteers were barred by hospital police from entering the building. The building sits empty now. “The abandonment of the old Charity Hospital stands as a potent symbol of the many disappointments and betrayals experienced by the residents of New Orleans after Katrina” (Brandes Gratz).
Burlesque was particularly successful in New Orleans. The very fabric of the city’s being resonated with all that burlesque stood for. For one, New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, and jazz grew alongside burlesque. The dancers would strip while a jazz band played, would bump and grind to the beat of the music, to the sultry strains of the sax. The two were inextricably linked; both came into existence around the turn of the 20th century, and who can say which of the two spurred the other’s burgeoning popularity. As a matter of fact, that very special dance of the performers, the aforementioned bump and grind, “….first appeared on the American burlesque stage during the twenties….like the shimmy, were borrowed from the American Negro.” With no place deeper south than New Orleans, and what with her slave-holding past, there was no lack of “American Negros” for the burlesque dancers to imitate.
for the trade two blocks from the French Quarter based on these models. “Within the district, prostitutes had a de facto license to operate…the only legally constituted red-light district ever established in the United States.” Though Storyville was officially shut down only twenty years after its inception, and only after the Secretary of the Navy threatened the city with armed intervention, the industry itself is eternal and continues to this day. A city that so thoroughly enjoyed prostitutes would have no problem with this new, classier form of entertainment. As for the musicians, playing for the strippers must have been no different than playing for the hookers. Some musicians even grew to be quite famous from these gigs; Jelly Roll Morton is just one example of a musician whose international success stems from such lascivious beginnings.
Besides being “the city that care forgot,” New Orleans was also a bustling port, located at the mouth of the Mississippi River and on the tip of the Gulf of Mexico. This meant that the city was a cultural mecca, constantly flooded with new people and goods from all over the world. Unlike other places, New Orleans celebrated and embraced difference, and surely all this exchange contributed to her people being highly receptive to new ideas and art forms. Indeed, the city’s French heritage contributed to New Orleans biggest celebration of all: Mardi Gras. This is another reason for why burlesque likely prospered; the city’s love of costume and pageantry would certainly have extended to the burlesque dancers, who spent a fortune on their beautiful, elaborate garments so that they could glitter on stage. According to two ex-burlesque dancers who were interviewed for a documentary concerning the art form, “New Orleans was the most fantastic place in the world. It was all burlesque, up and down the streets on both sides. Burlesque and jazz bands. Mardi Gras was a fun time, and they had shows going day and night…In those days, it was a town of glamour.”
Burlesque has had such a prosperous resurgence here because burlesque was itself a dying art, a lost art. The nostalgic aspect is what is so appealing about burlesque, of what is so appealing about New Orleans: “Nostalgia, in fact, may depend precisely on the irrecoverable nature of the past for its emotional impact and appeal. It is the very pastness of the past, its inaccessibility, that likely accounts for a large part of nostalgia’s power…” We of New Orleans have always been aware of that. There is a feeling in the air, it is the breath of the city of herself: of all the times that once were and no longer are, but for all that, remain eternal—a part of ourselves. As Lindsay Ross, CAC’s Director of Communications, says: “Whether it’s because of New Orleans’ traditional acceptance of “naughty” shows, our long-standing tolerance of go-cups, or a general nostalgia for that past nightlife…the interest in burlesque has grown so substantially, with numerous groups organized and performing in the city.”
How much of what you read on the Internet has a direct influence on your daily choices? Do you take bad restaurant reviews whining about lukewarm entrées and grumpy waiters to heart or do you dub the commenters as persnickety nobodies with too much time on their hands? Would you buy a book or attend an event just because of the abundance of Facebook “likes” and “fans” next to its link? With the Internet, especially social media, taking over how grow as a culture, interviews reviews often have a big impact on the very success of a product, event, or even a single person. In this article we will discuss how the Chaz Festival matches up with the New Orleans Jazz Festival in regards to conversations and reactions via the web.
Margaret Sands is a native of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina who recently graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with an Environmental Studies major and minors in English Writing and Latin American Studies. She is now pursuing a graduate degree in International Environmental Policy at the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
