About Me
You could walk right past Preservation Hall and never know it’s there …
You’d be in New Orleans, in the middle of the day, between Bourbon and Royal, at the center of the most musical neighborhood in America.
All around there’s music playing -- a babble of zydeco and Cajun, jazz and funk. It blares from doorways and windows that face the street, a soundtrack to the visual razzle-dazzle that’s transformed the old French Quarter in New Orleans into a riot of stimulations. Lights glare everywhere -- everywhere, except outside Preservation Hall, 726 St. Peter Street, whose worn wood walls fade nearly into shadow.
Even so, as evening settles, people find the address and start forming the line that eventually winds all the way down the block.
The longer it gets, the more this line stands out amidst the wild costumes that jostle past. These folks seem centered -- not exactly gushing with glee, certainly not solemn, but warm, with knowing smiles, like gastronomes about to be seated at a five-star restaurant. They speak quietly, in a rainbow of languages -- on any given night you’ll hear German, Japanese, Portuguese, really just about any tongue -- yet they share an unspoken understanding.
Soon the gate swings open, and everyone files inside. Passing through the entryway, past the posters announcing appearances by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in Moscow, in San Francisco with Santana during the Summer of Love, in parts of the world beyond the reach of English, they fill the main room. Lights are low, furniture is rudimentary -- some benches, cushions scattered in front, paintings of musicians, their dignity undimmed within the faded colors. The wooden floor is buckled and rough. Pegboards patch the old stone walls.
In front, before the tall windows which somehow make St. Peter Street seem far, far away, are the simple chairs, the upright piano, the thirty-year-old drum set -- the altar in this church, where the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is about to work its magic.
So has it been nearly every night since this venue opened as Preservation Hall. The building itself dates as far back as 1750, when it served as a tavern. Over the centuries, aside from being rebuilt after suffering damage during the Battle of New Orleans in 1812, it maintained its original design, changed only by the weathering of seasons.
Tenants came and went. A doctor’s office, a butcher shop, a clothing store, studios for artists and photographers: The place played host to a succession of enterprises. Momentous changes -- America’s birth, its battle in this city’s streets to finally expel the British, the turmoil of slavery, secession, and reconciliation, the simmer and interplay of cultures into a complex Afro-Euro-Caribbean blend, the evolution of music nourished by all these elements -- played out just beyond the front door, in the streets of the French Quarter. Yet inside the high-ceilinged rooms, and beneath the trees that shaded the cobblestoned veranda, time moved more slowly, as if harvesting the lessons of history.
Through much of the 1950s the place was home to Associated Artists, a gallery run by Larry Borenstein, a Milwaukee transplant lured by the city’s mystique. He took to spicing up his openings by inviting musicians to drop by and perform. Many had known the founding fathers of jazz: Punch Miller, for example, a frequent visitor, had played thirty years before with Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, both of them already figures of folklore in American music, George Lewis had ties to the equally celebrated trombonist Kid Ory, and bassist Papa John Joseph went even further back, to Buddy Bolden, the mythic progenitor of jazz who blew his last trumpet chorus before the era of sound recording had begun.
In 1961 Borenstein transferred management of the facility to Allan Jaffe, a former market researcher at the Gimbels department store, and his wife Sandra, both of whom left New York after falling under the spell of New Orleans. As Preservation Hall the room was transformed into a performance venue unlike any other in the city. It was, first of all, dedicated to performance only: Where clubs throughout the French Quarter used musicians as bait for bar business, Preservation Hall served no alcohol or refreshment. And where bookers -- not just local but all across America -- naturally sought the trendiest acts in order to pull in maximum numbers of customers, the Jaffes dedicated their place only to support New Orleans jazz and the musicians who played it.
Paradoxically, its non-commercial nature helped transform this labor of love into an international phenomenon. Preservation Hall became a refuge for the living legends of this music, many of whom had been playing gigs that mimicked rather than celebrated the essence of New Orleans -- or not playing gigs at all. Brought back to prominence through nightly shows at the Hall, these musicians presented traditional jazz in a different light, in which respect took the place of the gimmicky abuses inflicted on it by Dixieland. Listeners took notice; before long they were standing shoulder to shoulder for each set, all the way back into the dark recesses of the room. The media followed; within a year or two Preservation Hall had been covered on national television and by Time, Downbeat, The New York Times, and other prominent publications.
As curiosity grew, invitations began arriving for the band to play far from its hometown. In 1963 it traveled to Chicago for its first road engagement. In a sense, that marked the beginning of a tour that goes on to this day. The first international concerts followed just a few months later, as the Jaffes accompanied the musicians on a swing through Japan. From villages in Africa to the Mexico City Olympics, from the Soviet Union to the White House, the original vanguard -- clarinetist Willie Humphrey, trumpeters Percy Humphrey and DeDe Pierce, bassist Papa John Joseph, pianists Billie Pierce and Sweet Emma Barrett, and the rest -- recruited listeners who couldn’t speak English but understood the emotion behind "Basin Street Blues" or "Just a Little While to Stay."
At the same time the veterans brought younger musicians into their circle and passed along the wisdom they’d picked up as apprentices to the original jazz greats. Some of these acolytes descended from local royalty, like Lucien Barbarin, grand-nephew of Paul Barbarin, longtime drummer for Louis Armstrong. Others, like French-born multi-reed player Jacques Gauthé, came as pilgrims to study with the masters. All shared a commitment to keep New Orleans jazz alive through their association with Preservation Hall -- which meant honoring the music and allowing it to evolve, as opposed to just replicating the style as it was developed nearly a century ago.
Benjamin Jaffe, who plays bass with the band and also became director of Preservation Hall after his father Allan’s death, has made it his mission to maintain this balance between tradition and vitality. The essentials of the style -- playing within tempos that reflect its ties to dancing or marching in parades, solos that come from the heart more than from any compulsion to "show off," an abiding connection to the blues and to infectious rhythm -- remain unchanged, even as new generations of band members also drew from more contemporary influences. The result was the interplay between past and present that gives their music an organic quality seldom achieved outside of this institution.
In addition to performing with the band, Ben also oversees the day to day operations of the Hall and manages the band’s extensive touring schedule. Ben’s wife, Sarah, is a graduate student at Tulane University where she is working on a Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies. Not wanting to shortchange any of his commitments, Ben has chosen to travel less with the band, enabling him to pursue other projects for the group.
For all the history that’s been made at Preservation Hall, the story seems to be just beginning. And whenever the band takes to the stage, no matter where in the world it may be, the music draws us back to that storefront at 726 St. Peter Street, where time holds its breath in nightly communion with the spirits of New Orleans.
