In the Comments on Zachary Young’s “The Noise Goes on Forever,” one reader writes:

I think it is equally short-sighted to compare the jazz musicians of the 19th and early 20th century to the terrible renditions of “stairway to heaven” and garbled cliched saxophonists pestering quarter residents at all times of the night. Surely, there is some room for compromise between \music purists and the most endangered species of them all, full-time residents of the French Quarter.

Actually, it really isn’t an unfair comparison. As Young documents, people have complained about all manner of noise, whether it’s cars, military bands or organ grinders, and even in their day, the merits of those forms of music were debated. It’s hard to imagine any of those as paragons of art who overshadow those playing in the streets today. Public music has likely always been a mixed bag, and it doesn’t sound like it has ever been loved by the people who lived near it.

But the quality of the music also strikes me as a fig leaf. In the story, Zachary refers to the 1997 bust in the Jackson Square that sent a young Trombone Shorty and his cousin Glen David Andrews to jail. Today they’re certainly respected, and even then they had good reputations as members of the Andrews musical family. If I remember correctly, they were playing with Tuba Fats at the time, so its unlikely they were playing garbled cliches.

The debate about noise has been muddied by the residents’ vision of the Quarter as a historically genteel place, but I don’t think that was ever the case. Young quotes a fine example of this convenient memory from an OffBeat article on the 1997 arrest. In it, a Pontalba building resident said, “Musicians would have us think it has always been this way,” he said, referring to musicians playing in the streets. “And it has not.”

There are ways in which I’m very sympathetic to Quarter residents. I’ve often thought that I’d love to move to the Quarter, but not until I don’t need a car. Those hassles alone daunt me, and I don’t doubt for a minute the degree to which unwanted noise can be a source of irritation. But this issue isn’t about whether Quarter residents will continue to exist; it’s about whether these Quarter residents will stay, and whether or not those who live here will maintain their property values. It’s true that noise might make selling a Quarter home harder, but if the price drops enough, people will buy it. The question for those working to craft some sort of compromise is whether or not they’ll declare music to be enough of a priority to put it ahead of property values. If other cities’ similar battles suggest a possible outcome, history’s not on the side of musicians.