New Orleans Ignorant Of Music’s Value
I read the Mojo Mouth in this month’s OffBeat [4/99], and to put it mildly I’m disappointed that New Orleans is taking such a negative attitude towards its musicians and club owners. We face a similar problem here in San Francisco, where wealthy Yuppies moved into new loft-style apartments in the City’s South Of Market area and then complain about noise from the area’s many long-established clubs and bars. San Francisco’s city government, which has never been one to piss off folks with money, are predictably taking the newcomers’ side and making life extremely hard for club owners. ÎTwas ever thus, I suppose.
But anyway, we’re all curious for an update on the situation in the Quarter, and especially the status of Troy Carter’s proposed ordinance. If you have a minute, we’d love to hear what’s going on with this … or, better yet, if you could post an update on the Web site so that everyone can follow this issue.
I’d also like to ask you to send along Councilman Carter’s mailing and/or email addresses, along with the addresses of anyone else who might benefit from some polite, constructive feedback on this issue. I’d especially like to remind Councilman Carter and others that tourism is New Orleans’ life blood; even if they don’t respect the city’s musical traditions, they should respect the millions of dollars that tourists pump into the city’s economy. The last time I checked, New Orleans was in no position to turn away that kind of money.
If visitors want a neat, tidy, sanitized French Quarter, they can visit Orlando … Disney will always do a better job of providing that kind of experience. If French Quarter residents don’t want to provide a welcoming environment for the city’s musical and cultural traditions, they should consider moving … there are plenty of places for them to go where they won’t have to lay awake at night listening to street musicians. And if the city wants to bite the hands that feed it, it can continue to push these short-sighted proposals.
Oh, and one more thing: your call to buy more JazzFest program guides was very charitable, but I can tell you that many of us are inclined to take the opposite approach. If the city wants to “sanitize” the area around the Fairgrounds in order to encourage sales, it might find themselves with an impromptu boycott on its hands. I don’t appreciate being told what I can and cannot read; if they city wants to force other publishers to keep their distance from the Fairgrounds, then maybe we should keep our distance from the program guides and from other officially sanctioned JazzFest merchandise.
Just a thought….
By the way, we love your magazine. Getting it every month is like getting a free trip back to NOLA. Keep up the good work, and we hope to see you folks soon.
Matthew S. McKenzie
San Francisco, CA – via e-mail
To our knowledge, the “music on the streets” issue has not been resolved. If anyone’s interested in contacting Councilman Troy Carter regarding this issue, his number is (504) 565-6315, fax (504) 565-7652; Mayor Marc Morial: (504) 565-6440, fax (504) 565-6423; mailing address 1300 Perdido, New Orleans, LA 70112. Or try contacting Jackie Harris, Executive Director of The New Orleans Music & Entertainment Commission, 1515 Poydras, 12th Floor, New Orleans ,70112, (504)565-8104 fax 565-8108 … Ed.
More Commentary From The East Coast
On my most recent trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras ’99 and the week thereafter, I was shocked and disappointed to learn of the latest assault on the right of street musicians to earn an honest living and bring joy to tourists and locals alike. Having been a shopkeeper, small business owner, and resident of the Quarter during the ’70s, and a two to three times per year visitor to your city for almost 20 years since then, I can view this issue from both perspectives, tourist and local.
Why do you keep trying to shoot yourself in the foot? Don’t you realize that when you mention New Orleans to people outside of Louisiana, they first think of Mardi Gras (which attracts lots of tourist dollars, but only for about two weeks a year.) Second, they think of the MUSIC! This not only includes the two weeks of Jazz Fest (which I love, this year will be my 25th), but year round music on the streets and in the clubs. The third thing they think of is the food, the other good thing available year around.
I usually spend an average of six weeks and many dollars visiting New Orleans each year. Like many other of my fellow tourists, my favorite way to end the day is with an evening meal at Irene’s or one of your many other fine restaurants followed by a leisurely evening stroll through Jackson Square and down Royal Street stopping along the way to listen to the street musicians.
Granted, some of them are not so good and I waste little time listening to them, but others lay down some pretty great licks. I especially like it when they are playing in the Square on either side of the Cathedral and I can sit and rest these tired old legs of mine out in the fresh air, while enjoying good music in an intimate enough setting so as to be able to request and hear on old jazz standard or other favorite tune. I really wish you would build some benches for Royal Street and reinstitute night time street music there, at least until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until midnight on Friday and Saturday, especially in the summer. I really miss that.
Through the years, I have noticed that those who were lacking in musical talent were seldom still there by my next trip and almost certainly gone by the following year. Those who were fair musically and still around had noticeably improved. Only a relative few of the really good ones, such as David & Roselyn and Doreen’s Jazz and most recently Mary and Frank, have been able to withstand the triple test of: my ears, the years, and the City Council’s seemingly bi-annual attacks on them. Don’t you realize what a wonderful asset they are to your city? Don’t you realize how much street music adds to the uniqueness of New Orleans’ traditional charm?
I am additionally surprised that in the wake of the apparent abandonment of your city by the oil industry, you are not doing more to encourage increased tourism and court corporate enterprise. Instead, by not promoting your street musicians, you are sabotaging both these efforts. You should accentuate what you have going for you. Both you and Atlanta have dismal summers, and yours are worse. The only way to lure me to Atlanta in the summer is with the promise of a Braves’ night game. Until a few years ago, you used to be able to lure me to New Orleans in the summer with the prospect of some cool jazz while walking down the street on a warm summer night. Now I skip New Orleans in the summer and spend my money going to the Hampton’s or Nantucket instead. A word to the wise.
Bill Crescenzo
Yonkers, New York
David And Roselyn Reiterate Their Stance On Street Music
Thank you for quoting parts of my essay on street music and music in the bars in your April 1999 issue.
And you are quite right. We should compromise. But this is our LIFE we are discussing.
Our music. Our First Amendment rights! We were on two different documentaries on the same night on PBS in January (The Herman Leonard Story, “Frame by Frame” and the Smithsonian Institute’s “Mississippi River of Song.”) We’ve had our photo in People our name mentioned in Time (both on January 11, 1999.)
After we were honored with the Christmas cover issue of OffBeat AND we can still be arrested for making music in the streets of New Orleans after eight o’clock at night.
So what do you suggest, we should split the difference and make it eleven Sunday through Thursday and midnight on Friday and Saturday? Some people are asking for all night. We thought midnight was a good compromise, but eleven sounds OK. What do you say? We think everybody should put their two cents worth in. What do you think?
And if it is just music they object to, why are they targeting the mimes and the readers?
Thank you again for caring.
David & Roselyn
New Orleans
We suggested that both sides come together for a powwow, which so far hasn’t happened. We believe it should be on the side of the city to put this effort together. Councilman Carter? Mayor Morial? Your move … Ed.
Miraculous Escape
I want to thank everyone for their kind words, e-mails, prayers and candles as Laura and I resume some semblance of normalcy following our miraculous escape from the “City of New Orleans” wreck.
I personally want to thank Red Cross volunteers everywhere. You never know how important the Red Cross is until you need them. Also, our heartfelt gratitude goes out to the LSU Musicians Clinic, especially Carol Schwaner. As a musician and the husband of a small shop owner, the Musician’s Clinic is the only health assurance I have.
My hats off to David & Roselyn who took over for me organizing the monthly street musician’s legal defense fund raiser at the Dream Palace. They netted close to $500 for the ongoing battle with a few French Quarter curmudgeons, marginal shopkeepers and condo owners who just don’t understand that the New Orleans tourist-based economy begins and ends with the music. Travel writers for hundreds of years have extolled the virtues of the melody, harmony and yes, cacophony, that is the aural gumbo of the Quarters.
And I for one am happy to be home where I can get lost in all the wonderful sounds, smells and sights that make this the City That Cares and Never Forgets.
David Roe
New Orleans
Guitar Gable
Thanks for running the fine article [OffBeat Vol. 12, No. 4, April 1999] about Gabriel Perrodin, professionally known as Guitar Gable (actually since 1954, before he met J. D. Miller). It takes a lot of journalistic integrity to criticize R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. when the brand in question, Winston, bought your two-page centerfold ad in the very same issue.
North Carolina-based Reynolds and promoter Tim Duffy have done the same in other local publications, and likewise throughout the music and mainstream press nationwide and abroad, not only promoting the clearly fraudulent Thomas Gable, a Piedmont artist, as the “real” Guitar Gable, but also promoting the deceased Piedmont artist Robert Lewis Jones, aka “Nyles” Jones, as “Guitar Gabriel,” routinely shortening that to “Guitar Gabe.” Predictably, there have been instances of actual confusion in both cases, and they know it, but they don’t care. You see, Duffy produced and played second guitar in for-profit releases on both Piedmont artists, while getting himself and his Music Maker Relief Foundation portrayed as saints in such credible publications as Juke Blues (England), Real Blues (Canada), Living Blues, and Rolling Stone, through skillful schmooze and a lot of tobacco money. To them, the long-standing goodwill of Guitar Gable is something to be exploited vigorously, while the person, Gabriel Perrodin, is someone to be trivialized and ignored. Mr. Perrodin gave them every opportunity to do the right thing, and they have declined. He isn’t going to take it any more.
The revived interest in Guitar Gable and King Karl is in no way attributable to this travesty, but rather is part of the greater global phenomenon of blues and swamp pop revival. Although a couple of articles now have covered the impostor story, Guitar Gable has been featured recently in Guitar Player, Real Blues, and on the cover of Blues Rag (Baltimore Blues Society Newletter), entirely on his own merits. He rejoined King Karl (and also backed Lazy Lester) in last November’s Blues Estafette in Utrecht, Holland to enthusiastic reviews. Guitar Gable and King Karl will soon be listed in OffBeat’s Louisiana Music Directory and the Billboard Directory of Touring Bands. A new project featuring unreleased King Karl songs is in independent pre-production, and labels are, as they say, interested. Thanks again to OffBeat.
King Alexander
Lafayette, LA
We all know too many musicians who were exploited in the past. It’s too bad that in this more enlightened age, their art, good will, talent and good names continue to be abused for others’ financial gain. To those who did the exploiting, shame on you. To the musicians: stand up for your rights and find a good knowledgeable lawyer. … Ed.
