Two years after Katrina, New Orleans music scene is a faint echo of its past - Washington Post
A melancholy song from the broken cradle of jazz
NEW ORLEANS — In a crowded bar in the French Quarter, locals are passing a tip bucket while singer John Boutte whoops and hollers, crooning tales of regret and rage over the havoc wreaked by that witch Katrina. Adding his own spin to an old Randy Newman song, "Louisiana 1927":
Michael Williamson
WASHINGTON POST
'People tell me I should get ... out,' says New Orleans musician John Boutte. 'Hell, no. Why should I leave? This is my home. My ancestors' bones are here.'
Michael Williamson
WASHINGTON POST
Singer-songwriter Paul Sanchez, below, says, 'We all lost more than we can ever articulate.'
President Bush said, "Great job, good job!
"What the levees have done to this poor Creole's land . ..."
Backstage, the Virgin Mary gazes down from her perch on the wall while the bar's managers count the proceeds ... $147. They count again ... $147. And then hand the loot to Boutte, the son of seven generations of musicmaking New Orleans Creoles.
"I'm rich," Boutte says sardonically.
Two years post-Katrina, it's like this for the city's musicians: New Orleans may be the music mecca, the birthplace of jazz. But it's no place to make money.
Nearly 4,000 New Orleans musicians were sent scattering after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005. Many of them have been trying to return ever since. Today, the soul of the city — its rich musical legacy — is at risk.
"Everything is shrinking," says David Freedman, general manager of WWOZ-FM, a public radio station in the city. "In the clubs, you get the impression that all's back to normal. When you start scratching the surface, it's smoke and mirrors.
"So many musicians have not come back. How many can we lose before we lose that dynamic? To what degree do we just become a tourist theme park?"
The waters rushing in from Lake Ponchartrain obliterated already fragile support systems. Neighborhood-based Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs, once the backbone of New Orleans society, helping their dues-paying members with burial and hospital expenses, have been displaced. Eighty percent of the city flooded; more than 200,000 homes were destroyed in the process. Rents have close to doubled since the storm.
The upside to calamity, if there is one, may be artistic.
"Post-Katrina, everybody is getting in touch with their New Orleans roots," says singer-songwriter Paul Sanchez, co-founder of the country-rock band Cowboy Mouth. "We all lost more than we can ever articulate. And as artists, it's our job to articulate that loss."