In response to last week’s blog on the sad state of Frenchmen Street, we received this letter from a local jazz musician, who asked us not to identify him, his colleagues or club name. He has some interesting points that made me think about the state of New Orleans music:

Your latest “rant” on May 25 has inspired me. Let me tell you a story about an experience I had recently on Frenchmen Street.

My first gig in that area was when Jason [Patterson] was calling Snug Harbor “The Faubourg” and it was the only club on the street. (I vividly remember playing James Black’s tune “Jasmine”, which tune was referenced in that latest OffBeat email, with James, Cassandra Wilson, Kent Jordan and Patrice Fisher! It must have been the late 70’s…) In the years since, I, like you and many others, have watched Frenchmen Street become a musical entity, for better, and for worse.

I’ve retired from teaching music at a local university after 30 years, (and after 17 years prior to that, 10 of which at Hank Mackie’s studio World of Strings), but I refuse to retire from playing bass in this magnificent city. I can tell you, it gets harder to find gigs as an older player. You’d think that your life experience would count for something, but essentially, that’s just not true. I play, gratefully and happily, with the Pfister Sisters, Bruce Daigrepont, the Dixie Cups, and a few others, and I work every week playing trad jazz at Fritzel’s on Bourbon. But I really miss playing modern jazz, especially on electric bass.

So, I was looking for a gig where I could do that. The guy who books [Frenchmen Street venue] was an acquaintance, so I was booked into two Wednesdays there, 12:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. I cajoled a drummer and pianist [names redacted] to play the gigs with me, by essentially playing the gig for free myself, and giving them my share of the pay ($20 per set, per man, plus tips). We played the gigs: Coltrane, Parker, Miles—not the usual 15 songs every other Frenchmen Street band plays. The booking cat said we sounded “f**king amazing”. It was so much fun! The people there really responded to us, and we had paid for ourselves at the club.

When I asked the booking cat for some gigs the next month, he said the owner wanted us to have a singer. Well, the whole musical point was to NOT have one; the intent was to play mainstream jazz, (not “Street James Infirmary”, “Muskrat Ramble” etc., etc., etc.) as an instrumental trio, with electric bass and keyboard, bridging swing and funk. Musically, we nailed it. We have yet to be rehired, and I don’t expect to get a return call from there. They have a commercial formula which is paramount; musical quality is irrelevant. I get it.

The point is that Frenchmen Street has devolved into a crude imitation of what Bourbon Street was in its worst years. (I’ve seen Bourbon in that state; my first steady gig on Bourbon was in 1972. Today, some Frenchmen Street players are endeavoring to return to Bourbon Street clubs!) The music offered on Frenchmen today is mostly poorly-played commercial crap, more closely related to DisneyWorld than to New Orleans, with repertoire sickeningly inbred by the bands participating—they copy each other’s songs (as I said, a total of about 15 tunes in common, most of the time) and even copy each other’s patter between tunes! In all of my years playing in this city, never has the musical quality become so low. It’s extremely disheartening. Many of the players, some actually proficient on their instruments, have absolutely NO knowledge of New Orleans traditions, and no knowledge of musicians of their instruments of the past, having come from elsewhere, and few have the will to research and learn this vital New Orleans information. (I’ve heard older players use the derogatory term “yankee jazz” to describe these musicians…not my term, by the way.)

The problem with the Frenchmen Street scene, and by extension, our entire music scene, is that discriminating audiences are becoming more and more rare. (What is it? Digital tech eroding our minds? Generational disinterest in music in general? A function of the putrid polarization that pervades our entire social fabric? Never have I seen such polarization in our city between Black and White musicians. I don’t know what’s happening anymore.)  But as your “rant” recognizes, consistently playing for drunks degrades both musical discernment and repertoire. If your audience is solely interested in getting s**t-faced, then the same tunes, the same solos, the same patter that you used yesterday will do just fine, and you might as well join them at the bar. That is not art. It is up to musicians to present themselves as artistic professionals; if they don’t, no one will think of them as artists, either.

I can’t think of a single venue in our town to book a competent electric instrumental trio playing a modern take on mainstream jazz, flavored by years of New Orleans musical experience. I’m still looking. Pay is still in the toilet and just as bad, or worse, as it was in 2017, when you graciously published my guest editorial in the magazine addressing this very problem. But musicians themselves have a large part to play in the conditions they endure and the pay they receive. If we consistently present excellence, conditions and pay will advance. But we need venues that are interested in presenting musical excellence, not just Disneyland commercial crap played by yankee carpetbaggers masquerading as New Orleans artists. Also, we need listeners who can tell the difference.

Thanks for letting me vent. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful, extremely grateful, to play every gig I have, musically rewarding or not. At my age I absolutely cherish being able to continue “the gig hustle”, as Joe Ashlar recently said to me, in this absolutely incredibly beautiful musical town. I love our city, our scene, and our players. I love playing New Orleans music. But sometimes, our wounds are self-inflicted.

My very best wishes, as always.

Reading this letter made me think about how much we still take our music and musicians for granted. The fact is that we can no longer do that because musicians are becoming more exploited by local clubs and bars without any appreciation for the special quality of music itself. That happened on Bourbon, and it’s happened on Frenchmen. That is ultimately going to affect tourism related to music in this city. Moreover, no one seems to have recognized that unless we continue to be vigilant about building a market for local music by educating younger audiences and exposing them to the uniqueness of our culture, we are going to lose New Orleans’ claim of being a true music city.

We are in danger of losing New Orleans music. I don’t mean tomorrow or next year, but within five or 10 years, there’s gonna be trouble. There already is. It’s going to get worse.

For decades, New Orleans has been celebrated as a city immersed in music. We’ve always been perceived as a “music city.”

We have generations of musicians here. We have culture bearers, like the Black Masking Indians, the Social Aid and Pleasure clubs, the New Orleans Baby Dolls and Skull & Bones gangs, the drum circles—all of which emanate from the neighborhoods of New Orleans—that have had a profound influence on the development and growth of the types of music that are considered to be “New Orleans-style.” This includes stuff like jazz, funk, rock, swamp pop, bounce and the burgeoning hip-hop scene, to a certain extent.

But here’s the rub, and it’s a big one: young people, especially those who did not grow up here, are not being exposed to our indigenous music, especially jazz. And they don’t care about it one little bit.

I have always loved music, even as a kid, and I grew up listening to Irma Thomas, Art Neville, the Meters, and a lot more on mainstream radio. That doesn’t happen today. How many young people are exposed to jazz or brass bands or funk on an everyday basis, like we were, growing up? Local kids? Nope. They may know who Drake is or Taylor Swift or Lil Nas X or Beyoncé, but I doubt seriously if many know Professor Longhair, the Radiators, Buddy Bolden, (maybe) the Meters, Uncle Lionel, the Dejans, the Lasties, the Andrews, the Harrisons, Allen Toussaint, or any of the musicians that helped shape the New Orleans scene.

If young people are not exposed to jazz, R&B, soul, funk and other New Orleans-centric music, they will never appreciate it, venerate it and nurture it. To them, it’s “old people” music. It’s interesting that in many European countries, and in countries like Japan, brass bands, jazz, neo soul, and the aforementioned musicians (along with hundreds of others) are venerated and still celebrated by young and old. But not here. New Orleans music is special. While several brass bands have ventured into hip hop, and there are a slew of successful bounce artists here, the music of New Orleans cannot, absolutely cannot, be pigeonholed as “dead” music.

When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, we liked to party with our friends, and there’s no difference in the more recent generations. But a lot of the time, we were going out to local music bars and clubs to experience music, and to drink and party; to meet others at those venues who were potentially “romantic partners,” if you get my drift. I can barely remember going anywhere without live music as part of the picture (getting wasted was not on the top of my list).

That’s not so today. Most college students do not go out to listen to live local music. They’d rather drink and party at a bar or a club where a deejay may be spinning whatever is popular in the mainstream, NOT a live local band.

Why?

It’s less expensive to go to a bar with a deejay. There was a time that Tuesday nights at the Maple Leaf hosted an enormous number of college students, because Rebirth had a Tuesday night slot there, and it drew college kids, big-time. No more. I heard recently that the Leaf was considered to be an “over 40” venue…which of course means that young people wouldn’t be caught dead there, because who wants to hang out with “old people”? The fact of the matter is that the market for real  New Orleans music is in decline. And if we no longer have college students exploring the wonderful music of New Orleans (except for maybe a local hip hop show or two), well, we’re sure not going to be able to build a future market for local music, particularly jazz.

Unless we can get not only all those college kids who are going to Tulane or Loyola or Xavier or UNO or Dillard to appreciate our musical culture, then what’s it going to be like five or 10 years from now?

I’ve not heard anyone really address this problem. We have a real systemic issues in developing an appreciation (and a future market) for local music and musicians, which means that down the line, New Orleans music and the city’s reputation as a unique music city is going to seriously decline.

I always hate to comment without offering some sort of solution to this problem. Exposing kids to local music and culture obviously needs to start in elementary school, and continue through high school. At least they will have modicum of appreciation for some of the greatest music in the world. And their parents need to expose them to local music and culture. We have some organizations that are pursuing educating young kids, and they should be supported. I’m thinking Roots of Music, for one. I’m thinking Delfeayo Marsalis’ Uptown Orchestra, the Heritage School of Music and

the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp, and NOCCA.  But we need more. We need music and cultural curriculum in elementary and high schools that are required for all students.

But this doesn’t solve the problem of introducing local college kids to New Orleans music and culture, since so many of them are not locals.

Maybe venues who present jazz and more “New Orleans-type” musical fare could sponsor college nights (with a cheap or free cover) to get college students into their venues to experience local music. I’ve nothing against pop music, but there is stuff in New Orleans that you can literally only hear here. You can catch pop music, hip hop and rap in any town in this country. You cannot catch a Johnny Vidacovich or a Meschiya Lake or a New Orleans Suspects or even a Big Freedia gig on any day of the week.

Coming up with a strategic educational effort (are you listening, New Orleans Cultural Tourism Fund?) to expose New Orleans and Louisiana music to children and teens is sorely needed. I’d also like to encourage the people with deep pockets who have benefited the most from our music scene—the liquor and beer companies and distributors—to use their philanthropic arms to create an ongoing campaign to get young people of drinking age to understand and experience more New Orleans music other than what they hear on Spotify or on YouTube.

We have to demonstrate that there’s more to music than the top Spotify plays of the week. But it’s even more important to know that we’ll be building a market for our music for decades to come. New Orleans music is hanging in the balance.