Sense of History

Bravo and congratulations to Jason Marsalis for his frank and insightful piece in the July 2010 issue of OffBeat. His emphasis on the importance of a sense of history and “the jazz tradition” is right on.

My only comment would be that, as a member of the generation of Jason’s distinguished father (and one who grew up in the era of the bitter battles between the “moldy figs” and the “boppers”), I find a certain déjà vu in his remarks. Many of the phenomena that trouble Jason troubled others well before his watershed “early 2000s.” I’ve always been irritated, for example, by those— both musicians and jazz educators—who seem to believe that jazz began with Diz and Bird.

Nevertheless, thanks, Jason. I’m always pleased to encounter young people with a sense of history.

—Tom Jacobsen, New Orleans, LA

Music on the Streets

This quote is from an ad in The Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2010: “Right now in New Orleans, there’s a brass band playing on Bourbon and a jazz combo jammin’ on the corner. Right now. New Orleans is, well, New Orleans. Visit neworleansinfo.com for Spicy Summer Deals.”

Please note these key phrases: “on Bourbon” and “on the corner.” The web address listed tracks back to the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau Web site.

Please work with the Mayor and City Council and explain to NOPD the details of the economic engine which drives the local economy. The Quarter is often referred to as an “Adult Disneyland.” At least Disneyland pays their musicians. The city and the NOCVB should be subsidizing these young musicians, not letting NOPD harass them.

The best thing your organization could do right now is to buy a portable canopy for Tuba Fats’ park bench in front of the Cabildo. Glen David Andrews, Kenneth Terry and Wolf Anderson would have some shade while they play for visitors during the summer. To quote Big Chief Tootie Montana before he collapsed in Council chambers five years ago: “This has got to stop!”

—Bruce H Ward, Duke of Tchoupitoulas, New Orleans, LA

Simply Panhandling?

I was disappointed to read your editorial [Jan Ramsey] in the July issue of OffBeat (“Getting Rid of the ‘Noise’?”) which I felt failed to present multiple sides of this very complex issue. Here are some additional perspectives that are worthy of consideration.

This is a complex issue with multiple stakeholders: local residents, local businesses, tourists, as well as the musicians themselves. Attempts to oversimplify the issues into “black vs. white” or “white vs. black” or “wealthy vs. poor” or “big government vs. personal freedoms” or anyone being “anti artists” or “anti musicians” are inflammatory and small-minded.

Both things are true: Our music culture as a whole is an important and precious resource. At the same time, as a community, we must protect the quality of life and the rights of the residents and business owners who work hard, obey the rules, and generate the monies that pay for the city infrastructure.

Residents and businesses have some very legitimate reasons for complaining about noise violations—not only at the corner of Bourbon and Canal, but elsewhere throughout the French Quarter and in the Marigny. The NOPD did not randomly decide to begin enforcing the noise ordinances on the books. A large number of complaints have come in, and the new chief of police is right to look at the reason for this as well as at all areas of enforcement that have been neglected and overlooked in years past.

This is not about an agenda to “kill the music” in New Orleans. I don’t believe anyone here hates music or musicians. I am a resident of the Marigny Triangle neighborhood, and work on Royal Street in the French Quarter. Part of why I live in New Orleans is the proximity to all kinds of venues in which to hear live music. Yet in both areas of the city I observe that there are chronic problems with musicians performing outside of our homes and businesses.

It may very well be that we need to re-examine and clarify the noise ordinances to be more specific. There can’t be a one-size-fits-all ordinance that will satisfy constituents in the commercial entertainment corridors of Bourbon and Frenchmen Street at are also appropriate for more residential “fringe” areas.

I don’t believe anyone is interested in stifling the development of our young talent, nor does an ordinance prohibiting street music after 8 p.m. do this. But kids shouldn’t grow up learning that the world owes them a living outside the law, or at other people’s expense, either.

Residents and business owners need to provide for their customers’ needs, take care of themselves, and get a decent night’s sleep in order to function here. There are many places for both tourists and residents to go out and hear music, and when you’ve had enough, you can retreat to your home or hotel room and rest and refresh yourself before going out again.

The French Quarter has changed dramatically from the resident-dense neighborhood it was two decades ago. The number of permanent residents has dropped dramatically and subsequently the neighborhood has lost some of its unique qualities (compared to the days when there were families with children and many artists in residence along its streets). If residences are made further unlivable due to street noise (or other conditions), we would ultimately have no owner-occupied properties, only rental properties with owners living elsewhere, or weekend condo tenants—this would not be good for the city. If French Quarter hotels have unhappy customers because of a brass band blaring under patrons’ windows until late at night, and the customers post a less-than-satisfactory review online, that is not good for business, which is not good for the city.

No one wants the French Quarter to be Disneyland, where we are all just carefully orchestrated, costumed bit players who then take buses to our suburban homes after our shifts. But we can’t live in Anarchyland, either. A delicate balance must be maintained. To do this, we need respect and effort by all constituents to be reasonable, employ common sense, and follow the golden rule. And we have laws on the books to provide some structure to obtaining this balance, if necessary.

New Orleans has a long history of businesses and residences sharing the same roof. Of second line parades. Of spontaneous musical celebrations. Of all types of people from all walks of life living together in our “checkerboard’ neighborhoods of great diversity.  Of great clubs hosting world-class musicians, many of whom are home-grown. This is all very different from having a brass band “practicing” in an apartment upstairs from you, or not being able to hold a conversation in your front room or have a meal on your back porch because of someone violating your space with their volume, or your employees in a shop on Royal street having to listen to an off-key rendition of “Stand by Me” repeated 100 times a day, or… there are many examples. I am not suggesting we “kill” music in the streets. I am saying that it is reasonable to set some limits—and the current noise ordinance is not excessive or unreasonable.

It is not okay for residents and business owners to be held hostage by street musicians—no matter how talented—who “work” to make extra money off the tourists, while making our homes unlivable and our businesses unviable with the volume and duration of their performances.

Just because something is “tradition” doesn’t make it right.

I recognize that in some cases, the street musicians add to the unique ambience of the Quarter, and are part of the rich pageant of living here. It can also be an invasion, and an assault on the senses. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

Even while we respect and appreciate someone’s musical talent and drive to succeed, that doesn’t give them license to break laws or inconvenience the very neighbors who would be happy to go to a club and pay money to support them and tip the band and drink at the well of the legitimate business hosting them. By refusing to respect their neighbors’ needs (not to mention the law), they are alienating the very people who could be their biggest supporters, and acting in a spirit counter to what the music is all about.

The street musicians need to remember that, were it not for the unique buildings, shops and businesses in the French Quarter, and the legitimate music venues in clubs all around the city, there would be no tourists on the sidewalks to be audiences for their music. Instead of recognizing that they are enjoying an unauthorized opportunity, and staying respectful of residents’ needs, it seems that some of the performers now take a mile if given an inch.

For too long, many illegal and unlicensed businesses have been allowed, through lack of enforcement, to exist in New Orleans. (I’m including coffee shops and restaurants, illegal Bed & Breakfasts who compete with legal, permit holding, tax-paying businesses for their livelihood, and there are many examples.) We have zoning laws, we have rules and guidelines that help protect historic properties and districts for the individual and greater good. Noise ordinances are important for the same reasons.

We need the NOPD to enforce many of the ordinances that have long been on the books—not just the noise ordinances, but all illegal business activity. I support the NOPD in this enforcement.

Residents who live and work in New Orleans are the front line spokespeople who promote their favorite aspects of the city, tell people where to dine and what music to hear. Musicians seeking to make a name for themselves would be smart to reach out to their local audiences first and foremost, not make enemies; they will build a following quicker based on locals’ endorsements than anything else.

There is a great opportunity here for a club owner on Bourbon Street to create a venue that is a true “gateway to New Orleans” and showcase established and up-and-coming brass bands in the French Quarter, in a venue that can contain the sound appropriately so that we can maintain a harmonious co-existence with residences along the surrounding streets.

Here are some of the challenges we—as a community—face in examining the noise ordinance issue:

Challenge: Locations.

Not every street corner is an appropriate venue for every type of musical group. How do we make tailored rules for areas that are more commercial, or more residential?

Challenge: Hours of Operation.

An across-the-board curfew of a certain time is not necessarily appropriate for every part of the city. How do we tailor hours of operation to achieve a healthy balance?

Challenge: Volume.

A guitar player / singer creates a different decibel level than a brass band. How do we account for volume level? Is it ever appropriate or necessary to use an amplifier in the French Quarter?

Challenge: Duration of Performance.

How do we protect businesses (and their staff) whose commerce depends on shoppers navigating clear sidewalks to enter open doors? And what about staff who are often subjected to the same “crowd-pleasing” songs over and over again for the course of several hours.

Challenge: Panhandling & Harassment.

Some street performers are simply panhandling and looking for handouts. Some exploit their young children for tips. Some harass passers-by on the basis of racial threats. Do these issues need to be covered under separate ordinances other than noise?

Also, the NONPAC meeting is held every Thursday, which makes this month’s meeting Thursday, July 8th 2010 at the Maison Dupuy hotel.

—Jill McGaughey, Marigny, New Orleans, LA

Hillbillies from Deliverance

Regarding Jan Ramsey’s Mojo Mouth “Getting Rid of the Noise” I would like to see bands playing at night on the steps to the river opposite Jackson Square. The one hundred block of Bourbon Street, where vehicular traffic is allowed, is too congested for bands and puts visitors at risk from pickpockets. But what really struck me about your editorial was your acknowledgment that “the Quarter has been exploited shamefully by some of the businesses that now operate there.” The T-shirt shops with profanity in the windows, combined with the broken sidewalks and crime, have discouraged well-behaved urban tourists from flying to New Orleans. In their place we have attracted more disruptive backwoods people with burned-out lives and broken teeth, who drive in from poverty-stricken rural areas. Since many of them are from dry counties, they see the French Quarter, where I live, as a chance to get drunk, start a  fight with a “city boy,” urinate on our doorknobs, vomit on our stoops and scream as loud as they can on a residential block in the middle of the night. Other than buying beads to wear in August, they only spend money on pizza at daiquiri shops. Bourbon Street has become an Appalachian version of Saturday Night Fever, giving it a much harder edge than it had 10 years ago. Why would we want to attract tourists like this? If 90 percent of the visitors to Washington, D.C. came from the rock bottom state of West Virginia just to get drunk, the leadership would have their head in their hands all day. The Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal, but are all tourists created equal? Hillbillies from Deliverance or the “Okie from Muskogee” could not appreciate New Orleans and seek its uniqueness like someone from a more educated place. They act in ways that they could not act at home, and have as much respect for New Orleans as if they were on an alcohol-fueled bender in Tijuana. If country tourists cannot conduct themselves better, then I would prefer that they stayed home in the trailer park, polishing their rifles and getting ready for the Rapture (Revelations 6:12-17, referencing 1 Thessalonians 4:18). Am I a bad person for noticing this?

—Ian Goldenberg, New Orleans, LA