Since arriving in New Orleans Friday, several people have asked us what our goal is for the next six weeks here. Depending on who it is, I might quip back that my goal is to have no goals — to just be, which is the opposite of hyper-achievement oriented New York. But that’s not actually true. My biggest goal is…
I’m a little kid about birthdays — I enjoy making a fuss about other people’s birthdays and I love celebrating mine. Yes, even as a suit-wearing executive with an MBA, I have been known to take a box of cupcakes to work on my birthday, just like you might have in elementary school. As part of that, we don’t just…
Preservation Hall Jazz Band plays New York tonight and I’m such a geeky fan girl that I’m going even though I think I’ve seen them five times already this year. Traditional jazz is my soul music. It never fails to make me happy. Whether I am covered in mud on a rainy day at New Orleans Jazz Fest or packed…
Last night, John and I went to see Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Blind Boys of Alabama — a phenomenal show full of joyous, uplifting music that makes my soul feel good. One of my favorite numbers of the night was Blind Boys singing the traditional spiritual Free At Last. Though it’s a powerful anthem of the Civil Rights movement,…
Just in time for Halloween, Preservation Hall debuts this beautiful animated video which includes a graveyard romp with Marie Laveau: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDYGIeZDMyg&feature=player_embedded] The video is part of a package from Preservation Hall Recordings featuring four small-group arrangements from the Preservation Hall Hot 4, the King Britt remix of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s “St. James Infirmary,” and three music videos. It’s…
Editor’s note: This is a fairly lengthy post. I suggest you fire up Preservation Hall’s live performance on World Cafe, maybe mix yourself a hurricane, and settle in. Ben Jaffe grew up with dreams of becoming a modern jazz musician, “really hell bent on moving to New York.” Family responsibility and appreciation of where he’d come from put him on…
For anyone waiting to hear the story of Ben Jaffe, director of Preservation Hall, apologies but you’ll need to wait a bit longer. Ben and I got started on a fantastic interview but technology was not cooperating. He was on his cell phone at a French Quarter theater, preparing to shoot video of a Terence Blanchard show the next night,…
