Mardi Gras krewes create their own little worlds of fun and traditions, all for the practice of being in a social club that excludes other “inferior” mortals. It’s been that way since the holiday started and it persists today.

There are krewes that are old- line and the newer, more inclusive groups. Momus used to be the most fun to watch as they had the most satirical floats. They’ve gone away now, but thank goodness we have the Krewe du Vieux, which keeps getting better and better. They’re about as satirical and lewd as you can get. The Krewe du Vieux was an outgrowth of the Contemporary Arts Center’s storied “Krewe of Clones”, a sort of protest group that made fun of what had become a pretty staid event (except for activities in the Quarter, but that’s a whole other issue). The first parade I ever rode in was the Krewe of Clones, whose theme was “Ken and Barbie Go to the World’s Fair”—obviously it was around the time of the 1984 World’s Fair. We threw generic doubloons (brilliant!). I’d been to a bazillion parades in my life, but it was then that I discovered why Mardi Gras has persisted over these many years: it’s for the riders, not the hoi polloi on the streets.

When you can afford a costume, the throws and you put your money up to be a member of the club, it gives you power that you never had in your ordinary crummy life. “Hey, want these beads? Then grovel!” “Want those pearls? Let’s see some tits!” Riding on a float gives you the opportunity to ride in a “royal carriage” far above the madding crowd, survey your “subjects,” spread your “goodwill” and “largess” of worthless crap that costs a hundred thousand dollars to clean off city streets. And of course, you get to get totally blasted and not have to drive home. It’s quite a mind-boggling experience.

I’ve ridden (or marched) in several parades. The first Mardi Gras parade I ever marched in was Babylon, when I was in the band (yes, a band nerd!) in a New Orleans all-girl high school. We were pretty sucky. All I really remember is walking a long, long, long parade route, carrying my trombone and having sore feet. The entire OffBeat staff rode in Tucks for a couple of years.

But the really good stuff about Mardi Gras is the camaraderie that pervades the city. It’s an unbelievably happy, friendly time. We’re all in this crazy-ass city together, loving every minute of it: fake royalty, crappy beads, barbecuing on the neutral ground; costuming; hanging with friends; being stuck behind parade traffic—just being a dyed-in-the-wool New Orleanian. It’s a goofy tradition, but it’s ours, it’s unique and we love it. Happy Mardi Gras!

It’s been over two decades since OffBeat started its crusade to promote and market music, not only to locals, but to people all over the world. We took on a higher mission as well: to create recognition and appreciation for the importance of local music and musicians as an economic force, and a renewable resource that continues to enhance the economy of New Orleans and Louisiana.

I think we’ve succeeded rather well in some areas, but we have a long way to go.

I believe that the music and the musicians who create it are now a lot more familiar to us as a city and a state. Rarely a day goes by when local media doesn’t cover some story related to music (other than OffBeat, that is!).

There are a lot more media outlets than there were in 1988 when OffBeat was born, and now all of them feature something on music or musicians on a pretty regular basis. While music has always been an integral part of our culture, it’s only been within the past 20 years or so that we’re seeing more regular attention paid to it.

OffBeat can’t take complete credit for this phenomenon, but I certainly believe OffBeat had a lot to do with it. We’ve focused consistent attention on local music, and other media has followed. The continuing success of the Jazz Fest and the emergence of other festivals as musical icons has done much to draw attention to local music and musicians. Ironically, the Internet—while pretty much turning the music business on its head—has also given consumers access to so much more music from this area as well as information on the music from sources such as ours, OffBeat.com.

Frenchmen Street as a music mecca didn’t exist 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. There was no Crescent City Blues & BBQ Fest, no Satchmo SummerFest, no Sync Up! Conference, no Basin Street Records or Piety Street Recording Studio, New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, or Tipitina’s Foundation 20 years ago. And certainly no HBO Treme. WWOZ had yet to become the powerhouse it is today.

Music as a mainstay has grown, developed, and become iconic in the city. But what we’re still lacking is a real understanding and concerted effort by the business community to tap into our potential as a music city. We have to brand New Orleans as a music city, make sure that it’s easy to do business here, and promote it to other business leaders and visitors. If Memphis can do this, we can. If Mississippi can do it, we can. I’m looking forward to being involved in the next millennium that takes our music to another plateau in world consciousness.

When I was a kid, I thought it so farfetched to think that I would live as long as I have. I thought that surely I would be dead by the turn of the century. Little did I know, huh?

Of course, they say that 50 is the new 30, so that means 60 must be the new 40. We lose a generation now in our aging. Does that also mean that 30-year-olds are only 10 mentally? (Sometimes I think so!). We all live longer and are much healthier than our parents and their parents. I can’t imagine not working and retiring—how boring would that be?

This has been an interesting year, and some things have transpired that I’ve been working towards and wishing for: Armstrong Park (finally) reopened. Hopefully, it will be the site of a lot more activity, both in the park and on North Rampart Street. We still haven’t managed to get music over there, but I’m convinced that, sooner or later, it will happen. There’s just too much potential and history on North Rampart and Congo Square across the street to allow that corridor to remain music-less.

The Louisiana State Museum has reopened an abbreviated music museum at the Old Mint, a retrospective of Preservation Hall, and has plans to open an expanded music museum some time in 2013. The expanded museum will contain the items and exhibits from the old jazz collection, as well as more from the state museum archives, and supposedly will cover the spectrum of Louisiana music. I’m still looking for a museum/visitors center on Canal Street that would focus on the city’s musical heritage and be the information centerpiece for anyone interested in either experiencing local music and/or an education experience for locals and visitors alike. That dream is partially fulfilled, and the Old Mint now has a world-class performance area and recording facility on its third floor that will be primarily dedicated to the work of the New Orleans Jazz Historical Park/National Park Service’s lectures, jazz performances and edutainment, oral history recordings and the like.

The Joy Theater at the corner of Canal and Basin streets is reopening at the end of December with shows booked for New Year’s Eve weekend (see page 11). Formerly a movie theater, the new Joy is now strictly a performance venue to host music and theater. I’m still waiting on something to happen at the old Saenger. What a waste of a great theater, but the Mahalia Jackson is filling the bill with ongoing music and Broadway touring shows, many more than last year.

City Park officials announced the long-planned opening of festival grounds in the park, bordering on Wisner Boulevard. In the past, we used to have festivals on a tract near Marconi and Interstate 610. The grounds contain 50 acres, soccer fields, and will be festival-friendly with a pavilion and electrical hookups. Remember the talk years ago about moving the Jazz Fest to City Park? Hmmm…

Frenchmen Street is getting more and more popular and more and more crowded. The Frenchmen Street Business Association was founded this year to try to control and steer growth in the right direction. There’s still a long way to go, and the major problem is enforcement of drug laws, illegal vendors and such, but it’s a start.

The French Quarter Festival has kicked up its reputation (among musicians, anyway) by instituting a program that will allow sponsors to pay local non-union bands. Up until now, non-union bands had to obtain their own sponsorships to be paid for playing at the festival. Festival officials have stepped up to the plate to solicit business and individual support for musicians to play the festival. It’s been a long time coming, but kudos to the festival for realizing that local music is the main draw of their festival, and trying to create a system that pays musicians for their services.

I’m fairly limited by space here, but these are just a few of the positive advancements in the music scene in the last year. There are also a bazillion new young entrepreneurial types who are working on a multitude of ideas for the music community: new promoters, interactive music maps, live music recording and dissemination. I love it all.

I would be remiss if I didn’t invite you all to our upcoming Best of the Beat Awards on January 27, 2012 at Generations Hall. This year we are honoring a true living legend: George Porter, Jr. George has probably influenced more musicians than anyone I can think of. His body of work continues to grow, as well as his influence. But there will be more on that next month!

I wonder if there are any provisions in the contract for the Mercedes-Benz name to be deleted should we have another catastrophe like Katrina. Don’t know if the Mercedes people would want their image associated in the news media with 50,000 poor New Orleanians suffering in a filthy shelter. Come to think about it, I have nothing against naming rights to help defray costs; for example, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell (Oil). I doubt, however, that Shell’s deal with Jazz Fest extends for 10 years at a time. That’s a really long time to be affiliated with one entity. After all, anything can happen in 10 years (like a hurricane that decimates not only the citizenry but the sports-playing potential of a city). I must congratulate the city and the city’s Sports Foundation for getting Mercedes-Benz into this deal.

Of course, all this money goes to the Saints and to the state. The Saints are now committed to be in New Orleans through 2024, and this naming rights deal will help ensure that there won’t be any more threats to move the team to another city for a while, as the state and city won’t have to come up with cash to get them to stay here.

I’m grateful that the Saints will remain in New Orleans. But not being a huge sports fan, I would wonder why any big corporation would tie its marketing capital up for 10 years in naming rights for a sports stadium. One hundred million dollars could be invested in a lot of other things in New Orleans that would really qualify as “economic development” (the naming rights deal is being touted by Governor Bobby Jindal and Saints owner Tom Benson as being a huge economic development initiative; in other words, we get to keep our Saints here instead of having them decamp to Utah or some such).

I wonder how far $100 million could go towards education, crime abatement, or infrastructure improvements. In the long term, wouldn’t improvements in these areas have a much greater economic impact than the New Orleans Saints? But an investment in education, etc., doesn’t carry the same cachet. It’s all about marketing and appearances, isn’t it?

Having an NFL franchise in our city generates income in many ways: salaries, equipment and capital purchases, taxes generated through purchases by visitors to the city. In the long run, though, what really matters is the ability of New Orleans to get considered to host a Super Bowl. Without a major NFL franchise, we’d be out of the running as a Super Bowl host city.

So we’re committed to the Saints and they’re committed to us—at least through 2024, with the help of Mercedes-Benz’s contribution. It’s sort of pitiful, isn’t it, that the NFL, in some ways, controls the destiny of a great city like New Orleans?

Where the levees failed during Katrina.

The Big Uneasy documents the efforts by a group of scientists to scientifically evaluate and uncover the reasons for the Katrina levee fails, as well as to help provide answers to keep the levees from failing again. These scientists’ research and investigation pointed clearly to incompetence on the part of the Corps of Engineers. In the film, you’ll learn more about our federal government’s use of the Corps for congressional boondoggles and funneling money to state projects.  The film has several heroes in the scientists who participated in the research, one of whom was Dr. Ivor van Veerden, who was the deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center. Van Veerden was fired as a result of his report, which clearly pointed to major engineering mistakes made by the Corps. Another heroine is Maria Garzino, an engineer and employee of the Corps who was a whistle-blower on the agency’s incompetence and lack of oversight.

Shearer and company have made a very important film that everyone in New Orleans—and the country—should view. Frankly, it didn’t help my personal cynicism towards our federal government, and it surely doesn’t make me feel very secure, should we experience another hurricane in the near future. Our country’s infrastructure and our levee protection is inadequate, and our tax dollars are being spent via an agency who clearly is not prepared to keep us safe. The film is now available on iTunes, Amazon and on Netflix.

Heads up: the Louisiana State Museum will open its new performance venue/recording studio on the third floor of the Old Mint in mid-November, as well as an abbreviated portion of their music museum on the second floor. The completed music museum isn’t scheduled to open until some time in 2013. The National Jazz Historic Park is a partner in the performance venue and will use it regularly for presentations.

This November’s show will focus on the 50^th anniversary of Preservation Hall. More on this in our upcoming November issue.

The Rex organization is threatening to sue the Krewe of ‘tit Rex (that’s “petit” or “small” in French, colloquialized to “’tit”) for trade name infringement. Rex, the holiest of holy Mardi Gras krewes that parades on Fat Tuesday, wants to protect its copyright.

The Rex organization was created in 1872 and is a private club (along with the other Mardi Gras krewes) that stages the glitzy Mardi Gras parades. ‘Tit Rex is a raucous neighborhood group that puts on a parade of miniature floats built on shoeboxes with satirical themes. If you grew up in New Orleans, at some point you made your own float from a shoebox. Made you feel like a king/rex for a day.

I do understand the Rex Organization’s desire to keep their brand intact—after all, when you proclaim yourself “king for a day,” you rule the city, don’t you? I suppose we’d have serious repercussions if, for example, we had ‘tit Bacchus, ‘tit Endymion, ‘tit Orpheus, ‘tit Zulu—Wow! All those krewes’ merch branding and worldwide reach would potentially go down the toilet, huh? Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill!

I think in order to win a lawsuit, you’d have to prove some sort of confusion between the Grande Rex and ‘tit Rex, and the last time I looked, a few decorated shoeboxes being pulled by a group of drunk revelers in costumes only has one thing in common with the big Rex: the drunk revelers in costumes. Only in New Orleans would this ridiculousness make the daily paper. Don’t you big boys have anything better to worry about? [Full disclosure: editor Alex Rawls is a member of ‘tit Rex.]

After more than 25 years of asking musicians to get their own pay to play at French Quarter Festival, the festival is finally devising a way for musicians. The festival is seeking sponsors to pay the bands that play the festival in April. It has been a long time coming, but the organizers realize that the festival’s music is an integral part of its success, and that requiring bands to solicit their own sponsors to be paid for playing the French Quarter Festival was starting to hold the festival back.

It’s a free event, and there are no ticket sales to support buying the talent as there are for Jazz Fest. In fact, the entire budget for the French Quarter Festival is probably only 10 percent of the Jazz Fest, yet the event continues to grown exponentially. OffBeat encourages the local community to get involved in sponsoring music at French Quarter Fest. If you’re interested in the possibility, get in touch with Georgia Rhody at FQFI: georgia@fqfi.org or call (504) 522-5730. [Full disclosure: I’m on the board of the French Quarter Festival.]

The park has been a political football for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always tried to figure out why such a precious jewel as an urban park has remained—for the most part—deserted.

I figure that the location of the park, which displaced so many long-time Treme homeowners when it was first constructed, has made the park a bitter feuding ground for neighborhood residents who still resent the fact that not only was it constructed while their homes were razed, but a fence was placed around the park, with locked gates, ostensibly to keep out neighborhood “riff-raff.” I’ve heard a lot of racist overtones in meetings I’ve attended on both sides of that proverbial fence over the years.

For years, I’ve been told not to go into Armstrong Park because it’s highly dangerous. Another tourist was attacked and murdered some 20 years ago, and the city never forgot. So with this new tragedy, the reputation of the park continues to fester.

Solving the park’s reputation for crime isn’t rocket science. Put more people in the park and on North Rampart Street, create foot traffic, and the park will be safer.

At a minimum, get Parks and Parkways to clean and maintain the park.

To get the park functional, open to the public and safe, a few crucial things need to happen:

1. The fences should come down. The park should be open to everyone.

2. If the fences can’t come down, then the gates should be open, so everyone can have access.

3. The park needs to have a constant presence of people, either via Parks and Parkways personnel, the National Park Service, or even by setting up an information kiosk at the main entrance and inside the park. Where there are eyes, there’s less crime. That’s just common sense.

4. Armstrong Park and the environs needs be patrolled after dark by NOPD personnel.

5. There’s a need for more events, music and daytime traffic on North Rampart Street. Entertainment venues devoted to jazz would be the best solution for development.

6. The Municipal Auditorium needs to be put back into use.

7. An area in the park should be set aside for families and children’s activities. This is sorely needed near the French Quarter.

8. There could be a public- private partnership for management of the park. Just look at what’s been done with City Park and Audubon Park.

9. Mahalia Jackson Performing Arts Center should consider partnering with the city to manage the park.

10. Create a board and executive director to manage the park.

We need Armstrong Park to be safe and user-friendly for all.

Clubs located outside Frenchmen Street are having a more difficult time of it because the market has shifted to that area of town. We’re aware of this problem at OffBeat, and since we’re committed to supporting music all over the city, we are attempting to put together some programs that will benefit clubs that are outside the downtown area. Stay tuned to our website and Facebook page for more info on those ideas in the coming weeks.

We’re always supportive of venues that give musicians a real opportunity to play, whether they are in the clubs, restaurants or festivals—such as Satchmo SummerFest and the Satchmo Club Strut this month. For many years, local hotels have presented local musicians, but primarily as background music in their bars, a notable exception being the Ritz-Carlton, which has its own Jeremy Davenport Lounge, and which also hosted Marva Wright.

The Royal Sonesta has embraced Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse, which has given local jazzmen a place to play and make some scratch while they do it. It’s comfortable; it has seating for its audience, and it’s located in the Quarter on Bourbon Street, so it can appeal to visitors as well as locals (Mayfield tells OffBeat that about 35 percent of guests at the Playhouse are locals).

While Mayfield is a jazzman himself, he recognized the fact that there were not enough conveniently located places downtown for music lovers to hear good local music. I imagine the Howlin’ Wolf and 12 Bar might take exception to that idea, but Mayfield wanted a different sort of room for local musicians.

“We thought that the JW Marriott had a wonderful room [the old location of a fine dining restaurant, Henri, back when it was Le Hotel Meridien] that was just sitting there,” he says. “When we took a look at it, we thought we could really do something different from what we had done at the Playhouse. The Playhouse—if you cut it—bleeds jazz. It’s a destination for the art form, and was designed to allow musicians to function creatively so that they didn’t have to think about filling the room. It allows them to concentrate on their music, being creative.”

Although the Playhouse is Mayfield’s flagship music club, his new venue at the JW Marriott, called “I Club,” is one that will feature a much broader range of music. “The Playhouse is focused on jazz, but the I Club will include people outside of that realm, musicians like Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington, George Porter, Jr. and Amanda Shaw. None of these types of performers have a home base in New Orleans right now, and it’s time that they did. We also want to feature some of the younger performers and singer-songwriters who don’t necessarily have a great draw, like Mia Borders and Kristin Diable. These people deserve to be heard and to develop themselves and a fan base.

“One of the best things about doing a club like this and to be embraced by a high-end facility like the JW Marriott is that we can bring artists in and literally sit them down and say, ‘What is your dream? What is it that you would like to do here?’” This, Mayfield explains, gives the musicians the opportunity to create their own environment that will be conducive to their own musical creativity, unlike being thrust into a club situation where they have to conform to a set pattern that’s already been established.

“There’s a big difference in what we’re doing because our concept is ‘artist-led’ teams. We’re focusing more on the music.”

Being in the CBD, Mayfield feels there’s a community that’s underserved. “After dark, the CBD is pretty much a ghost town. We need a place for great entertainment there that’s an undeniably safe place to go and ridiculously secure. Often, unfortunately, we have to think about where we take people to go hear music. We’ll have valet parking available and a membership program that will give special privileges (maybe parking, special events). You have to be invited to join, so it makes you feel special.”

The venue can seat 120 plus in a two-story, intimate setting. There will be cover charges from $8 upwards to $25, depending on the act and the day of the performance.

How will local people respond to an $8 cover charge? “We expect to attract a lot of business clientele who can bring clients in to see some real local music downtown in a high-level setting, but we also know we have to get locals to come in too. It’s going to be different because the setting will be comfortable, and the service will be first-class,” says Mayfield. “Just as it’s possible for people to have a first-class restaurant experience in the city, the I Club will give them a first- class music experience too.

The most important thing is that we’re using music to stimulate economic development. We’re going to employ 60 people right off the bat, and also give some good exposure to local musicians who are also going to not only be paid well for their performance, but who will also be able to be more creative in their approach to gigs.”

There’s always been a push-pull in New Orleans between residents and businesses in the city concerning music and street “noise.” It’s most evident in the French Quarter, particularly on Bourbon Street, and now on Frenchmen Street. However, it seems as though French Quarter residents are a lot more opposed to noise on Bourbon than Marigny residents are to noise on Frenchmen. The difference is probably that most of the Frenchmen Street clubs present live music; many of the clubs on Bourbon don’t.

Our office has been located on Frenchmen Street for almost 13 years. The street has been our home for more than half of the magazine’s life span. There’s an understanding in our ‘hood that somehow Frenchmen Street is different. It’s not another Bourbon Street, and hopefully it never will be. No one wants Frenchmen to be another Bourbon.

Decades ago, Bourbon Street was the place to hear local music and be entertained. Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Dr. John and many other older musicians honed their chops by playing on Bourbon. Those days are over. I’m certainly not claiming that there is no good local music on Bourbon, but let’s face it: Bourbon Street is more about the booze than the beat while Frenchmen Street operators still care about the beat. On Bourbon, the good ones try to operate by the rules, especially when it comes to noise, while the bad ones don’t give a damn and they make the scene worse for everyone.

These are the businesses that need to be shut down or penalized in a big way.

Unfortunately, there’s always going to be some jerk that makes his neighbors miserable by opening the doors to his club and blasting music—live or otherwise—into the street. I’ve spoken to some clubs and retail store owners on Bourbon Street who can’t function because there are places that try to outdo each other in the loudness of the music. I assume the theory is that the club with the loudest music will attract the most tourists. This is infuriating and illegal, but what’s a club business on Bourbon to do? Complain and never get results? Or join ‘em? Most seem to have given up and joined the loud brigade.

The matter could simply be resolved—assuming that no one is taking bribes to look the other way on noise violations— by establishing a way to not only enforce the ordinance but to find a way to stop the ever- escalating noise madness by fining the bad neighbors in a way that’s going to really hurt their pocketbooks. The current methodology is that one of the NOPD’s two “Quality of Life” officers gives the offender a warning and then, if nothing changes, a citation that’s less than $200.

When I heard the amount of the fine, I was astounded and had to laugh. Why would any club owner care about a $200 fine? More serious penalties have to be found and enforced. How about a warning first, then a second tier—physically remove and impound the sound equipment, and a third tier—take away the liquor license? We need something with teeth in it, and we need a commitment from the city and the NOPD for enforcement.

Since last year, the Mayor’s office and Councilman Kristin Gisleson Palmer’s office have been working to try to re-vamp the noise ordinance. The current ordinance is so Byzantine, that no one can quite understand how it should work. It’s been amended and cobbled back together so many times that it even contains contradictions. The first draft can be viewed on Councilman Palmer’s website, but agreeing what should be in the ordinance is only the first step. The crucial element is setting up a system that can effectively enforce the law.

Having tourism officials recognize the value of using our music to attract visitors has been up-and-down. The last big push we had for music statewide ended when Mitch Landrieu stepped down as Lieutenant Governor to become mayor of New Orleans. Too bad. Our indigenous music, which defnes our culture statewide and particularly in New Orleans and in southwest Louisiana, is just another part of the “rich gumbo” (God, am I tired of that cliché!) that defnes our mix of cultures throughout the state. Music is not the focus, and that’s really too bad.

Last weekend I was driving to Pass Christian, Mississippi, to attend a wedding. Whenever you ride into a new state, there’s always a welcome sign. All of Mississippi’s welcome signs now state “Birthplace of America’s Music.”

Mississippi was the birthplace of the blues, certainly not all of American music. Just like Austin is the “Live Music Capital of the World.” If you convey a message to an audience often enough, it becomes embedded in their consciousness—even on a sign.

Pushing for change is no easy task. OffBeat has worked with New Orleans and state officials, encouraging them to use music as a marketing tool to attract people to the state. In New Orleans, it’s a no-brainer. In western Louisiana (Cajun/zydeco country), it’s pretty obvious too. Baton Rouge is all about blues, and the northern part of the state is inextricably tied to rockabilly, the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and country music. But it still hasn’t sunk in that Louisiana is way more of a musical birthplace than Mississippi, and unless you convey that message, the concept does not exist.

So why aren’t we telling potential visitors this constantly, consistently and clearly?

I hate to say this because Louisianans tend to think that they are superior to their Mississippi neighbors, but it appears that Mississippi has had the foresight to do some pretty interesting niche marketing. There are some in the state who don’t like the fact that their state’s new tourism message is now entrenched in promoting their state as an historic center of American music. I think the campaign’s pretty smart, considering that Mississippi certainly doesn’t have as much to offer, tourism-wise, as Louisiana, and especially New Orleans (sorry, friends throughout the rest of the state—it’s just the way it is).

Mississippi’s strategy makes Louisiana look ridiculous. Our state’s new slogan is “Pick Your Passion.” Huh? Are there really hundreds of thousands of people who are passionate about hunting quail who will “flock” to Louisiana to satisfy this burning passion in “Sportsman’s Paradise” (a previous marketing slogan for the state)?

“Pick Your Passion” sounds sophisticated, but it’s way too broad. It’s like advertising Las Vegas with the phrase, “What Happens Here Is Great.” Compare that with “What Happens Here Stays Here.” Which slogan connotes a party town?

The key word in 21st-Century marketing is “niche.” You certainly can’t please all your constituents at one time, but if you use the right marketing and advertising tools, you can increase visitors/tourism as a whole. Then, everyone wins big-time.

On the up side, New Orleans has another window of opportunity nationwide, with the success of Treme. Not only does this show depict the city’s culture in as authentic a way as it’s ever been shown, but our music is the linchpin of the storyline. More people than ever will be able to have a glimpse of what makes New Orleans unlike any other city in the world, and be able to hear our music, see it being created, and to the performances of musicians they might never get to see unless they visited the city. It’s surprising, though, that the public sector tourism people haven’t picked up on this thread. Is it because Treme’s action centers on the day-to-day life and music of musicians and, for the most part, the types of people tourists aren’t supposed to see?

The lives of musicians and the world they inhabit are hard-scrabble, and they have to hustle from day to day to make ends meet. The life of any artist is pretty much the same, except for the very, very few who become popular and affluent enough to actually get wealthy making their art. I continue to applaud Treme and its creators for having the guts to show it like it is and to expose our art, music and culture to an international audience. The show’s been green-lighted for a third season, and I’m thrilled.

Over the two decades I’ve been in this business, there also seems to be a lot more interest in jazz from (thank God!) the younger generation. Jazz is sometimes perceived as old folks’ music, and it is so far from that. There are many young bands and entrepreneurs who are exploring and interpreting jazz in a new, fresh way (I think of bands like Meschiya Lake, the New Orleans Moonshiners, Irvin Mayfield, Trombone Shorty, Big Sam, and many, many more). I haven’t seen that in a long time, and it’s about time. We have hotels that are offering real jazz in clubs on a regular basis (Jeremy Davenport at the Ritz-Carlton; Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse at the Royal Sonesta, and the I Club that will open soon at the J.W. Marriott hotel on Canal Street). Bravo to these new torch-bearers who are carrying on the New Orleans jazz torch! We need more of you.