I’m sitting here in my Frenchmen Street perch on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, working on this March issue. Frenchmen Street has calmed down a lot since yesterday, when there was a lot of traffic as we forever buried the ’Aints.

Frenchmen Street is quiet at this hour of the day, but there’s a huge sound outside of a metal band cranked up really loud at Checkpoint Charlie. They’ve been on one break, but they’re back now at 2:30 in the afternoon, raising all kinds of hell. Metal isn’t my bag (never has been), but there are a lot of people who still love it, and god bless ’em. I’ve already heard some neighborhood people (loudly) asking them to keep it down. I certainly believe in music and everyone’s right to make it, but I have a pretty good idea why people who live in neighborhoods with music clubs complain about the noise. If you don’t like the music, then it’s really going to annoy you, particularly when it’s loud. That’s the problem with bars and clubs in local neighborhoods. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a bar and a church on almost every corner of New Orleans’ streets.

I’ve been an advocate of allowing music clubs to open on North Rampart Street, and through the Quarter, but it’s prohibited, and of course, music that isn’t the preference of local neighbors is the reason why. There has to be a solution to the problem, though. Is it possible for the city to allow music of certain types only? Maybe the solution should be that the music played has to be acoustic and not require sound amplification, except maybe for a microphone. Jazz should be allowed throughout the French Quarter and on North Rampart Street. This is where people expect to hear jazz. And right now, it’s not available. It’s really too bad that city officials have bowed down to the least common denominator of bar owners in the Quarter who insist on hosting overamplified cover bands and who allow loud, non-live music to pour out into the street. But they have no reason to care about the quality of entertainment. They just want to sell as much liquor and beer as possible. Most of the patrons on Bourbon Street are either tourists or kids who don’t give a damn about  hearing original music performed by local musicians. So the city has sold out its cultural soul to a few people who are only in it for the money.

Now, I’m not saying that every bar in the Quarter is a sell-out. They’re not (see Fritzel’s, Maison Bourbon, Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse, the Funky Pirate, the Kerry, Donna’s, etc). But for the most part, the music in the Quarter sucks. It’s too loud, it’s crappy, and it sure doesn’t portray New Orleans as the Birthplace of Jazz by any means. Why can’t we change that perception somehow? Let’s begin again and really plan what the city of New Orleans could and should be, which isn’t necessarily defined by a skanky district. At one time, the Quarter was a place to hear some great music. Can’t we get that back?