{"id":802,"date":"2009-10-02T19:00:49","date_gmt":"2009-10-02T23:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/?p=802"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:42:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:42:41","slug":"preservation-hall-ben-jaffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/preservation-hall-ben-jaffe\/","title":{"rendered":"Preservation Hall's Ben Jaffe balances tradition and innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This is a fairly lengthy post. I suggest you fire up Preservation Hall’s live performance on World Cafe<\/a><\/em>, maybe mix yourself a hurricane, and settle in.<\/em>
\nBen Jaffe grew up with dreams of becoming a modern jazz musician, \u201creally hell bent on moving to New York.\u201d
\nFamily responsibility and appreciation of where he\u2019d come from put him on a different path.
\n

\"Ben<\/a>
Ben Jaffe, far left, with Preservation Hall Jazz Band.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nJaffe is the son of Allan and Sandra Jaffe, who established Preservation Hall in New Orleans in the 1960s then grew it into a jazz institution. \u00a0They are credited with not only building the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which played Saturday Night Live <\/a>and Newport Jazz Festival <\/a>before Ben got to kindergarten, but with protecting the heritage of New Orleans jazz itself.
\nAllan Jaffe died of cancer at 51 <\/a>while son Ben was still in high school, then Ben went off to Oberlin College<\/a> to study music.
\nBen Jaffe had grown up around music, considering Preservation Hall an extension of his living room, but \u201cit wasn\u2019t until college when I realized how unique my childhood was.\u201d He began to reflect on the way music permeates the culture of New Orleans \u2013 it is not unusual to hear talented musicians playing on the street or in an alley for whoever wanders by, not to mention at weddings and funerals.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t grow to appreciate New Orleans until I moved away and I\u2019ve never moved away since.\u201d
\nJaffe graduated from Oberlin in 1993 and stepped into tradition the next day, flying to Paris to meet up with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on tour.
\nThough he was back in the French Quarter, and taking over his father\u2019s duties as director of Preservation Hall, Jaffe said it took until his early 30s to set his own course.
\n\u201cIt took me about 10 years to figure out what we were trying to achieve,\u201d said Jaffe, now 38.
\nToday he’s working at balancing transformation of Preservation Hall into a modern, multimedia experience with protecting its rich heritage. He is also on his own path of evolution as a creative, pursuing filmmaking projects in addition to managing PHJB and playing tuba with the band.
\nEducation as a mission of Preservation Hall<\/strong>
\nWhen the last original member of the band, Narvin Kimball,\u00a0stopped touring in 1999, Jaffe seriously considered what that meant.
\n\u201cThat was a huge turning point,\u201d Jaffe recalled. For the band to continue to evolve, and not become a parody of itself, it needed a reason to be.
\nJaffe collaborated with Oberlin classmate Ethan Graham <\/a>to develop a music education and outreach program. They would bring in a couple hundred kids to introduce them to New Orleans jazz, second line dancing and other parts of regional culture.
\n\u201cI wanted kids to put their hands on a piano. I wanted to demystify music,\u201d Jaffe said.
\nPreservation Hall wants its MTV<\/strong>
\nOut of the education programming, Jaffe began to think of Preservation Hall as a multimedia experience.
\nHe worked with friend Rebecca Snedigar to archive his parents\u2019 copious film properly \u2013 the hot, humid air of New Orleans risked ruining it, and Preservation Hall famously lacks air conditioning.
\nFootage from the 1960s \u201creally renewed my belief in how important Preservation Hall is to the community and really, the world,\u201d Jaffe said. They developed a 10-minute Preservation Hall history video and showed it whenever they played.
\n[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lJO6S7mrX8s]
\nDigging into the film helped Jaffe understand his parents’ risks \u2013 a Jewish couple from the north who moved to New Orleans, pre civil rights, and ran a business upholding traditionally black music, showcasing \u201cmixed\u201d bands, even if it meant getting arrested. Jaffe watched a Brinkley News Hour interview <\/a>where his father referred to the band\u2019s black members as \u201cgentlemen,\u201d and admired the subtle political statement.
\nPreservation Hall meets New Orleans Bingo! Show<\/strong>
\n
\"New<\/a>
New Orleans Bingo Show must be seen to be fully appreciated but you can start by listening to them on their MySpace profile. Click here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe first time Jaffe saw punk cabaret act New Orleans Bingo! Show<\/a>, he only went to accommodate a friend who wanted to go. \u201cI could have cared less.\u201d
\nThen he walked into the back room of Fiorella\u2019s, the French Quarter fried chicken joint where Bingo played weekly, and saw a clown on the bar dancing, a video playing, a big bingo board and a \u201cbingo girl\u201d working the crowd.
\n\u201cI immediately recognized I was in the presence of true performers,\u201d Jaffe recalled. \u201cI knew nothing about them but I was immediately touched by what they were doing.\u201d
\nPart of that was Bingo front man Clint Maedgen<\/a>. \u201cThe electricity of Clint\u2019s voice and the entire experience stopped me cold.\u201d
\nHaving enjoyed making the history video, Jaffe recalls he approached Maedgen saying something like \u201cYou don\u2019t know who I am but I have an idea.\u201d Jaffe proposed a one-take video with Maedgen singing the Kinks song Complicated Life while delivering Fiorella\u2019s on his bike, winding through the Quarter. Jaffe remembers Maedgen\u2019s response as \u201cif you\u2019re crazy enough to think I can sing with Preservation Hall, I\u2019ll give it a shot.\u201d
\nThey shot the video in 2005, a few months before Katrina hit New Orleans<\/a>. They hadn\u2019t released it before the hurricane devastated their beloved city, and luckily the video and Preservation Hall itself survived.
\nWhen Preservation Hall reopened in May 2006<\/a>, during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, I\u2019m honored to say I was there for the debut weekend of the Complicated Life video.
\nIt\u2019s an understatement to call life post-Katrina complicated. Many of the band\u2019s members lost their homes<\/a>.
\n\u201cIt was amazing the timeliness when it came out, even though it was shot before the hurricane. It gave everybody in my world hope.\u201d
\n[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dzVCHv6FSbg]
\nWhat\u2019s next?<\/strong>
\n
\"Cartoon
Cartoon Clint Maedgen sounds just as good as the real-life version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"Driving
Driving Mr. the Turk? Ronnie Numbers rides shotgun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nJaffe continues to scratch his filmmaking itch. The day we first spoke by phone, he was on site for a Terence Blanchard video project<\/a> with Ron Rona — AKA Ronnie Numbers, the Bingo Show clown.
\nBingo and Preservation Hall are all tangled together, with Rona leading Preservation Hall\u2019s PR and Earl Scioneaux<\/a>, Bingo\u2019s keyboardist AKA Madd Wikkid<\/a>, doing PHJB\u2019s engineering.
\nAnother example of that comingling is an animated video <\/a>more than a year in the making. A King Britt arrangement of St. James Infirmary, the video to be released Oct. 20 features animator James Tancill’s cartoon versions of Bingo Show and Preservation Hall, along with New Orleans icons like Marie Laveau. Jaffe gave me a sneak peek and I couldn\u2019t stop comparing it to the masterful Triplets of Belleville<\/a>. Check out their YouTube channel <\/a>later this month.
\nPreservation Hall is exploring the recording business<\/a>, including releasing both new tunes and remastered archival material.
\nJaffe has also begun interviewing family and friends about his father. He started out to make a documentary but has since realized it is also an intensely personal project, getting to know the man he only had in his life until he was 16.
\nTransformation versus preservation<\/strong>
\nJaffe knows he risks alienating jazz traditionalists — not only fans, but his band mates — when he invites U2\u2019s The Edge to sit in with them, for example.
\n[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5y4Z0WiRCE8]
\n\u201cAt the end of the day, I have to be true to myself,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a balancing act.\u201d
\n\u201cIf you look at what we\u2019ve done, it\u2019s no different from what New Orleans musicians have been doing for 100 years,\u201d Jaffe said. \u201cThey\u2019ve always pulled from different cultural influences. Otherwise we just become an artifact or a museum piece.\u201d
\nAs he told another blogger <\/a>recently:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you combine a song that was written in the 1820\u2019s with African rhythms,\u201d he said, \u201cyou have the beginnings of what we know today as New Orleans jazz.\u201d He winces at Bourbon Street\u2019s lecherous, debauchery-laden reputation and thinks that the dignity of pure jazz is often overlooked. \u201cYou really have to look beyond Bourbon Street to see my New Orleans,\u201d Ben said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jazz has alienated its audiences by becoming too precious, too serious, not engaged enough with modern culture, Jaffe said.
\n\u201cAs a band, we have a responsibility to be entertaining and to evolve.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve always battled with that \u2018Preservation\u2019 in our name,\u201d he said. \u201cI like the definition \u2018to protect.\u2019\u201d
\n\u201cI think you pay homage to your history and your culture by becoming someone who protects the blessings you\u2019ve been given.\u201d
\nAnd what if one day his children take Preservation Hall in a direction different from his?
\n\u201cI\u2019d like to think I\u2019d embrace it,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the key to any creative decision is knowing in your heart that it is done with the utmost respect and integrity.
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t make a bad decision if that\u2019s how you approach life.\u201d
\nFree consulting, worth exactly as much as you paid<\/strong>
\nBen didn’t ask me what I think Preservation Hall should do next, but since it’s my blog, I can say so anyway:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Launch a Preservation Hall branded jazz channel on XM Radio to take their visibility to a broader audience, or at least a show on the Real Jazz <\/a>station like Wynton Marsalis<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Continue collaboration outside the jazz genre — my top recommendations include Eddie Vedder<\/a>, Aretha Franklin<\/a> and Ray Manzarek<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. Roll out a series of PHJB\u00a0jazz-apalooza\u00a0shows across the country, curated to show their sense of traditional jazz and innovation. Since Bingo Show has practice organizing the line up of a tent at Voodoo Festival <\/a>in New Orleans, I’m betting Ron Rona could bring some fantastic ideas to this and their new agency TKA <\/a>could help drive it.<\/li>\n
  4. Don’t let the traditionalists — both inside and out of the band — feel forgotten. Sometimes you just need to hear When the Saints Go Marching In<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Oh, and did I mention coming back to New York<\/a>? Ben, you don’t have to live here to enjoy the Big Apple.<\/p>\n