Joyful Noises and Joyless Measures in New Orleans

Posted on Jul 2, 2010

AP / Alex Brandon

Alana Jones, left, leads the Treme Brass Band through the French Quarter of New Orleans in a 2007 parade to call attention to the plight of musicians.

By Larry Blumenfeld

(Page 2)

At her law office in a MidCity shotgun house earlier this year, civil rights attorney Mary Howell—whose work inspired the character of attorney Toni Bernette in “Treme”—recalled for me how she began defending musicians on a regular basis more than three decades ago. A nearby picture frame held Matt Rose’s 1996 photograph, which ran in the Times-Picayune, of musicians marching after one such incident: There, next to a 10-year-old Troy Andrews—better known as “Trombone Shorty” these days and, just last week, a guest on “Late Night With David Letterman”—is a teenage snare drummer wearing a sign: “I Was Arrested for Playing Music.” The French Quarter, where tourists regularly get their first encounter with New Orleans music, has long been contested space, she explained. And throughout the city, music still has a surprisingly uneasy relationship with established law. “The citywide curfew ordinance regarding music is completely overbroad and obviously unconstitutional,” she says. “And it’s unenforceable.”

Section 66-205 could be construed to prohibit a lone guitarist strumming on a corner or someone playing harmonica to no one in particular in the street. Same for Section 30-1456, which, curiously, pertains to a stretch of Bourbon Street filled mostly with bars that blast recorded music well into the night. Add to this, Howell explains, that in 1974 the city passed a zoning ordinance that actually prohibits live entertainment in New Orleans, save for spots that are either grandfathered in or specially designated as exceptions. Those interior shots in “Treme” faithfully depicting the vibe at Donna’s Bar & Grill and Bullet’s Sports Bar? Grandfathered in, or they’d be technically illegal. Current zoning restrictions could, without much of a stretch, be construed to prohibit band rehearsals, parties with musical entertainment, even poetry readings. “It’s a draconian ordinance,” says Howell, “and a blanket over the city.” The very idea is mind-boggling to those who live outside New Orleans: a city whose image is largely derived from its live musical entertainment essentially outlawing public performance through noise, quality-of-life, and zoning ordinances.

When it comes to music in the streets, Howell says, “My position is, look, we don’t have garage bands in New Orleans because we don’t have garages. Where are these kids going to play? Where are the incubators? People think this is easy. This is hard. You have to have a repertoire, interact with audience, play your instrument well, and entertain. The streets are incubators and critical venues.”

According to Joe Maize, a trombonist with the To Be Continued band, the take at the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets is “a significant chunk of our income.” Shut that down, even for a stretch as city officials rethink policy, and you tighten the screws on what is already a marginal living. “But it’s not really about the money,’’ he said. “All we want to do is have somewhere we can play our instruments every day. People wonder why we sound like we sound, how come we can relate to the crowd like we do. Well, we call Bourbon Street our practice room. We experiment on Bourbon Street crowds, and they tell us what works.”

For Maize and his band mates, when quality-of-life officer Jones rolled up to To Be Continued’s corner, notice in hand, it smacked of disrespect if not disenfranchisement. “It felt like the police can decide to tell us whatever they want to tell us whenever they want to tell it to us,” says Maize, “to run us off our home base whenever it suits them.” He said he just wants to be part of the conversation. “We’re reasonable guys, we just want to work out a situation where we can play where we need to play.”

Carol Kolinchak, an attorney who has defended many musicians, has joined Howell in representing the To Be Continued band and pushing for negotiated solutions. “The larger issue for the city,” she said, “is that we all have to learn to work together to support our culture and not just trot it out whenever it’s convenient for marketing purposes or to score political points.” (Brass bands are regularly hired in New Orleans for all manner of marketing and political functions.)

Maybe there’s always been a culture war in New Orleans. But since 2005, each skirmish takes on heightened significance. And each time I hear someone in New Orleans, whether a musician or artist manager or club owner, lament the lack of effective branding and promotion (the self-designation of Austin, Texas, as “Music City” gets mentioned a lot), I have to think, Well, doesn’t respect begin at home? That, and how can you wholeheartedly promote something that is on the one hand touted and on the other kept on the run like an outlaw?

Beyond practicality and promotion, there’s a deeper read to all this. Michael White, a clarinetist who began his career in brass bands and is now a Xavier University professor, told me: “There’s a feeling among many that some of our older cultural institutions are in the way of progress and don’t fit in the new vision of New Orleans. That they should only be used in a limited way to boost the image of New Orleans, as opposed to being real, viable aspects of our lives.”

Nothing in New Orleans is not about race. Considering that brass bands are for the most part formed by young black men and are playing primarily a music born of black tradition, that Landrieu is the first white mayor in New Orleans since 1978, that the New Orleans City Council has a white majority for the first time in more than two decades, and that the city’s population, though still majority black, is less so since Hurricane Katrina, it’s hard to ignore the potential racial repercussions here. And everything in New Orleans somehow relates to class divisions: Though most would agree with what pianist Ellis Marsalis once told me, that whereas in most cities culture trickles down from the top, in New Orleans it bubbles up from the street, there is often disdain or at least condescension regarding brass bands and other elements of local street culture among professionals seeking a more burnished image for their town.

None of which implies that homeowners and businesspeople are wrong to assert a need for rules and regulations and that civility requires a certain degree of, well, quiet time. The rich history of the French Quarter includes its various incarnations as a neighborhood. The Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents, and Associates, a nonprofit corporation formed in 1938, takes as its mission, “to preserve the Vieux Carré as a national treasure, to maintain its quaint and distinctive character and to achieve in that historic, living neighborhood a quality of life which can be enjoyed by residents, fellow citizens, businesses and visitors.” And yet it is unclear whether musicians playing at night, or which musicians and what locations, would truly threaten that character; some argue that the presence of a brass band here adds historical correctness and a certain luster to the ambience. In the case of the To Be Continued band’s corner, where Bourbon Street spills into the French Quarter off Canal Street, a main business thoroughfare, the logic of the ordinance is particularly strained. “The brass band is never a problem for us,” Don Zimmer of the Astor Crowne Plaza, a hotel on that spot, told Times-Picayune reporter Katy Reckdahl, adding: “… for us, they’re part of the excitement of the gateway to Bourbon Street.” There’s another truth to confront: These days, Bourbon Street offers little in the way of New Orleans jazz; instead, there’s mostly loud rock, R&B and karaoke. The To Be Continued band’s music may be the first and last jazz a visitor will hear heading that way.

For musicians like Maize, making music on the streets is a viable alternative to other versions of street action. At a June 18 rally in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, Revert “Peanut” Andrews, a trombonist with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, told a reporter: “If it wasn’t for the music and these streets, I don’t know where I’d be. I don’t want to think about where I’d be.” The rally was organized and led by his cousin, Glen David Andrews, also a trombonist. Glen David, who, at 30, has been arrested more than once in his life while playing his horn, is among the city’s most forceful musicians on and off the bandstand. “We’re not bending on our position,” he told me over the phone the next day. “We’re here to play. We’re going to play. As a culture, we’ve been doing it for 100 years or more, and we’re not about to stop.” And yet he sounded a positive if not conciliatory note. “We don’t want to make it seem like it’s the musicians against the city,” he said. “We have a new administration, we have a new day in New Orleans, and I think we can all sit down and talk about this.”

In fact, that’s what’s going on right now, in the offices of City Council member Kristin Gisleson Palmer (whose district includes the streets at issue in the To Be Continued band dust-up, and several other popular spots for street music) and of mayoral adviser Hucheson, and involving a number of interested parties—among them, David Freedman, general manager of the beloved, listener-supported WWOZ-FM. “It’s time we got this right,” Freedman told me.

The To Be Continued band has been out on its corner every night since June 12, playing past 8 p.m., as onlookers hold signs with slogans like “Don’t Stop the Music.” The musicians proceeded without incident, but other bands, like the Lil People, have been shut down again in the past week. Yet Palumbo has been cautious. “My primary concern is the law that affects the To Be Continued band directly, so that we can keep doing what we’ve always done,” she said. “But I think we can address these laws in a way that respects everyone’s needs.”

Brian Furness, president of the French Quarter Citizens organization, echoed that sentiment. “It’s important to enforce the laws as they stand, but these are complicated issues that need careful consideration. I think there may be a way to address everyone’s position, and that most homeowners and businesspeople are open to that.”

The formal statements issued during the past two weeks have contained positive hints. A joint statement from Landrieu and Palmer talks about “an obligation to protect and support the very things that make our culture so authentic. … It is possible for musicians, residents and businesses to co-exist in the French Quarter and across the city. It requires having ordinances that make sense, that are clearly communicated to the public and that are properly enforced.”

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