When I was a little girl, my daddy used to give me and my siblings advice on what to do. To warn us if what we did was not acceptable, he’d often give us a swift kick in the butt. (That was when parents were still capable of giving their kids a spanking without child protective services being called in.)
His admonition always was “A word to the wise is sufficient.” So in other words, you if you didn’t listen, you certainly weren’t a wise person.
This morning, I received a letter from my friend, Dr. Jerry Goolsby, who teaches at Loyola’s music business program. It was a rant that warmed my crotchety—yet passionate—heart. The letter was a response to the Times-Picayune’s story regarding the status of the proposed development of a jazz park, new government buildings, and a jazz museum that was proposed near the Hyatt.
The T-P’s story described the same-old, same-old. The owners of the Hyatt are repairing their property that was devastated by Katrina. The city was supposed to be involved in raising funding for the museum to the tune of $120 million, but nothing has been done since the project was announced over a year ago. The city has “other priorities,” and it has fallen to Ronald Markham, the executive director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, to help raise funds for the museum. The jazz park and other developments are on hold.
Goolsby’s letter—if you don’t see it in the TP, look for it here—points out that the city of New Orleans continues to shoot itself in the foot by hindering music development and by not promoting itself as a music town. Goolsby pointed out that even little burgs like Branson, Missouri attract millions of people to experience music! I am a subscriber to Southern Living, which contains a lot of ads for southern cities and regions. There are usually some ads for Louisiana and New Orleans, but they don’t focus on music. Nashville had a nice ad this month asking readers to “Visit Music City.” God knows how many times I’ve seen Austin promoting itself as the “Live Music Capital of the World.” People believe what they read and hear, and they’ve been told many times over that Nashville is Music City and Austin has more live music than anyone on the planet. Promoting and advertising this concept obviously works!
I cannot tell you how many damn boards, commissions, committees and task forces I’ve served on for the past 20 years that have tried to “do something to improve the music industry.” One thing that’s been lacking is a coordinated effort with muscle—that means money and power—to put New Orleans and Louisiana on the map as a musical mecca, I don’t mean just during Jazz Fest or French Quarter Fest or Festival International or Acadiens or the Baton Rouge Blues Fest or Red River Revel Fest or whatever. I’m talking about a long range strategy to market and promote our music specifically. Leave off the plantations, the sportsmen’s paradises, the food. We’ve been using those things for years. Just focus on our music, and the culture from which it springs.
We have many people who have taken the appeal of Louisiana food to international audiences: Paul Prudhomme, Justin Wilson, Emeril Lagasse and John Folse to name a few, but we need some music champions in the media as well. The closest we’ve come is Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford and Wynton Marsalis. Harry and Branford are certainly giving back to the city by their commitment to the Musicians’ Village. Wynton certainly is a high-profile musician, and he and Jazz at Lincoln Center have helped in the post-Katrina millennium.
But we need more, a lot more. We need our city government to do more than pay lip service to New Orleans music. We need it to recognize the music as a potential source of income and a natural resource we still haven’t seriously tapped. Rather than squeeze it out through neglect and zoning laws, we need to nurture it, advertise it and promote it, letting consumers—not just travelers—know that our musicians are at the heart of all American music, and that we have a treasure trove of musical culture that has deep roots that have touched everyone’s lives.
Instead of the city attempting to find corporate sponsors who will underwrite Mardi Gras, why don’t we look at the bigger picture and try to highlight our heritage of music that permeates our culture, day in and day out?
A word to the wise…
