The Preservation Hall Jazz Band will bring their second annual Preservation Hall Ball to New Orleans’ Civic Theatre this Saturday, October 3. This year’s event will once again raise money for the Preservation Hall Foundation, the non-profit wing of the iconic French Quarter music hall. Additionally, the concert will find the Preservation Hall Band teaming up with a eclectic array of special guests, including EDM superstar GRiZ, Living Colour singer Corey Glover, local hero Ivan Neville, alternative rockers from the Afghan Whigs, multifaceted neo-soul artist Meshell Ndegeocello and many more.

Those that would like to attend the Preservation Hall Ball can order tickets here, though Offbeat is also giving away a pair of tickets to the show to a few lucky winners.

I got on the phone with Preservation Hall creative director/Preservation Hall Jazz Band tubist and bassist Ben Jaffe to talk about the upcoming Ball, the essential work of the Preservation Hall Foundation, crossing genres, spreading the culture of New Orleans and more.

What kind of exciting stuff do you have planned for the second annual Preservation Hall Ball?

The event is one of the foundation’s fundraising concerts that we do throughout the year. This is the one that we do at the Civic Theatre, the newly renovated Civic. And this is our second annual ball. This year we invited several of our close friends and some new collaborators to join us and celebrate Preservation Hall, New Orleans music and everything that we do.

What are some of the things that the Preservation Hall Foundation does throughout the year?

We sponsor activities throughout the year. We underwrite performances, we do outreach programs in New Orleans and around the world, we do master classes, we do presentations. We also mentor some musicians. When we are travelling, we open our sound trucks to students to come and watch a professional band rehearse and we meet with the students and answers their professional questions. The kind of questions I had when I was studying music at NOCCA, for example. There were invaluable lessons I learned from musicians I knew growing up who were willing to take the time to answer my questions or show me something on the instrument or share a piece of knowledge with me. Those were critical, important moments for me. So I know how important it is to create those moments and to be a part of something that passes on the very beautiful tradition that Preservation Hall has come to be such a part of.

You have a pretty diverse group of guests lined up for the Ball. Griz, for instance, is a popular electronic artist. Have you guys made a sort of a conscious effort to collaborate with people from across the musical spectrum?

I really try to collaborate, not only inside of our universe, but also outside of our universe. That’s really when you see incredible things to start to happen and when you see the ground shift, when you start to work outside of your comfort zone. Griz happens to be an incredible musician. He plays saxophone and, even when he’s using his electronics, he still tries to play acoustic music on top of it. When he’s creating his electronic music, he’s creating it with live instruments.  So it’s an interesting time, where I see two generations of young people that have grown up with the internet. They’ve grown up with a world that only has the internet, and they hear music differently than we do.

In New Orleans we are very blessed and fortunate to have so much live music. When people come to Preservation Hall, most of them are not from New Orleans. So it’s maybe the only time during the year that they actually hear live music. I know to someone from New Orleans, that’s unbelievable. I mean, how can that even be, right? You’re like, what do you mean? You mean you hear a band playing twice a year? And they’re like, “Well, I’m from Oklahoma and you know you can’t just walk out your door and hear a band on Frenchmen street or in the French Quarter or Uptown.” So it’s really a beautiful thing to be proud of, to understand that the rest of the world, including all these musicians who aren’t from New Orleans, have such a profound and deep respect and appreciation for what musicians in New Orleans do and the environment that we all get to be a part of.

And yeah I mean Griz, the Afghan Whigs–the Afghan Whigs are New Orleans guys, really. Dulli spent quite a bit of time here. Their bass player is Rick Nelson runs and he manages the Marigny Recording Studio. So there is a big connection with them. Deacon John is a treasure, he’s one of those rare amazing treasures, when he starts talking about all the records he’s played on and all the people he’s been countered and all the things he’s done musically, it’s unbelievable. He’s up there with all the greats. Corey Glover, no one can deny what an amazing singer he is, he is a “musician’s musician” and all the work he did with Galactic really started to inspire us to reach out to him to be a part of this project. Ivan Neville, there is another great example of someone who is from an important,multi- generational music family. It’s a dynasty, the Neville dynasty.

You mentioned how things are different down in New Orleans than they are in other places. When you guys tour and in different country, do you feel , in some sense, like ambassadors for New Orleans?

A lot of times we just kind of feel like a freak show because there’s nothing out there that’s anything like what we’re doing, really. I definitely feel like, since Hurricane Katrina, we’re on a mission to spread awareness of what we do and what New Orleans is and that really made what we do much more important. One of the things most people would agree on, as a result of losing our city for that period after the hurricane, is that we all discovered a deeper appreciation and deeper love for all these things we have in New Orleans. Music, and of course community, are at the center of that.

Is there anything else you’d like mention about the Preservation Hall Ball?

We are going to have special guests that we haven’t yet announced. I am going to be DJing as my alter ego White Noise. Winn (Butler) from Arcade Fire gave me that name by the way. I didn’t earn that name, I was branded with it. There’s a lot going on Saturday night. This is something that the bands look forward to, that we all look forward to, because of how much fun it is to perform in all these different genres. It’s like an old time variety show you know, every five minutes something new happens. It’s like an entire weekend of Jazz Fest condensed into one show.

And one more thing – you don’t have to come to the show to be a part of our foundation. People are welcome to make donation anytime on our website, or they can come down to Preservation Hall. It’s a great thing to be a part of it. Even if you’re not in town this weekend but just want to be a part of what we do, there’s ways to get involved.