Thursday August 20, 2009
New Orleans in KL
By SHARMILLA GANESAN
A living, breathing entity that is intertwined with every aspect of life ... that’s what New Orleans jazz is all about.
IT was like the Pied Piper was in town: seven men, armed with musical intruments, filled the night with the exuberant sounds of New Orleans jazz as they led concert-goers out of the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas (DFP) onto the upper foyer. Curious passersby joined the clapping, swaying crowd, and for a few minutes, the outside of the philharmonic hall almost resembled a street carnival. Finally, with one throbbing note of the trombone, the performance ended, a fabulous finale to the showcase of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (PHJB) held in Kuala Lumpur last weekend.
This, in essence, is what New Orleans jazz is all about. It isn’t confined to a particular place or group of people; rather, it is a living, breathing entity that is intertwined with every aspect of life in New Orleans. After all, it’s not for nothing that the city is known as the birthplace of jazz; it is from here that jazz travelled to places like Chicago and New York City.
Rhythm and blues: The Perservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans, which performed at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, Kuala Lumpur. “Not a day goes by that you don’t hear live music in New Orleans,” says Ben Jaffe, PHJB’s creative director. “I wake up every morning to the church bells from St James, then the calliope music from boats on the Mississippi (River) starts, and then the bands on the streets play all day long.”
“Music is everywhere in New Orleans!” says 76-year-old PHJB member Charlie Gabriel, a fourth-generation New Orleans musician. “It’s in our people, our food, our environment. When you walk around our city, you’d see people standing in corners playing intruments, or people walking along and just singing. It’s a feeling like no other.”
PHJB takes its name from the Preservation Hall in New Orleans, a historic music venue that began in 1961. Founded by Allan and Sandra Jaffe, the hall’s aim was to protect and nurture the distinctive sounds of New Orleans jazz, which were slowly being displaced by modern jazz and rock ’n’ roll.
Located in the French Quarter, just three blocks from the Mississippi River, the hall provided a place for the city’s own musicians to perform, and still presents shows every night of the week. PHJB boasts an illustrious history, with many of its charter members having performed with jazz greats like Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and Bunk Johnson.
Ben, who is Allan and Sandra’s son, says New Orleans jazz, which has roots reaching as far back as the 1800s, exhibits the diverse cultural and historical influences upon the city.
Originally a French colony, New Orleans was passed on to the Spanish empire, and then purchased by the French again. The city was also a large port of entry for the slave trade from West Africa.
“Our style is combination of many things. It came from the marching band tradition, and also from church songs and hymns. (The music) also came from the blues traditon, and a lot of it also originates from folk songs in the countryside,” explains Ben, who also plays the tuba with the band.
Ben Jaffe (right) is the creative director of the Perservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans; next to him is Charlie Gabriel. Gabriel, who plays the clarinet and saxophone, says he first started playing at the age of 11. Coming from a musical family dating back to 1842, Gabriel definitely has “music in his spirit”, as he puts it.
“I was fortunate enough to (get) jazz at the source; this is where we helped nurse it, and then brought it to the rest of the world. Jazz is a part of New Orleans’ history,” he says.
Gabriel gives an example of how jazz plays a role in New Orleans’ funeral traditions. He says a band would play a funeral dirge to accompany the body to the cemetery, and then later, they would play uptempo numbers for everyone in the neighbourhood to get together and dance.
The band would go on playing as it visited the deceased’s usual haunts, collecting “second liners” who would sing and dance along behind the band.
“It’s meant as a way to uplift the family, and to take their minds off their loss,” he explains.
“Preservation Hall’s mission is to preserve and perpetuate these cultural traditions,” Ben says. “The music has such a long, unbroken history, and it is important for the next generation to know it.”
According to Ben, New Orleans jazz’s strength is its accessibility.
“Jazz can be a very intimidating term, and many people think they need to have certain knowledge or expertise to enjoy jazz. But New Orleans jazz is one of the most accessible (types of) music, because it comes out of dance, church, marching band and folk traditions. When we see little kids dancing to our music, we know that’s the truth,” he says.
“If it don’t make you pat your feet, it ain’t music,” asserts Gabriel. “Or make you cry,” Ben chimes in.
“It’s the rhythm; it gives you freedom, it makes you connect with the musicians, and it’s the rhythm that makes you do them other things!” chuckles Gabriel.
At DFP last weekend, the rhythm certainly made the audience do “them other things”. Forget about clapping to the music, people were up on their feet and shaking their behinds to the jubilant sounds of PHJB’s music. The set nicely balanced infectious rhythms with soulful, bluesy numbers, and the band members’ enthusiasm was irresistible.
Songs like St James Infirmary and Sugar Blues beautifully highlighted the deep, quavering notes of the saxophone and clarinet, while the cheeky Shake It And Break It gave a ragtime-inspired flavour. Jazz classics like When The Saints Go Marching In and Ice Cream also brought the house down. An unusual and very popular inclusion was Blue Yodel #9, originally by Jimmie Rodgers and Louis Armstrong.
The band even managed to get audience members to be their “second liners” as they strutted around the philharmonic hall playing their instruments, before taking all the followers up on stage for some free-spirited dancing.
Now, that’s how they do it in New Orleans!
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