Feature Article

Unstoppable: The Heart of New Orleans

Unstoppable: The Heart of New Orleans

New Orleans is no stranger to regulations. Rules and attempts to curtail or control the musical expressions of the culture emerging from this melting pot of people groups has been common. Congo Square is recognized as a place of vibrant musical expression, and its history is riddled with failed attempts to regulate it[1]. It is no mystery how the city would become the king of all improvisational expression, soul, and jazz. The birth of this important part of American music culture brought a multitude of talented people. Their contributions and labor would also help form an important source of work for millions of Americans. This built a crucial part of life for the listening and dancing pleasures of millions more. The emergence of unions led to the organization of this newly created opportunity for the musical culture of New Orleans. In the late 1800’s the shift from agriculture to trade in urban centers brought about this emergence, and the question of whether musicians were artists or laborers became a pinnacle item of contention.[2] Industrialization revolutionized the way Americans spent work and leisure, and this dramatic shift meant the expansion of prospects for musicians. Music culture perseveres and evolves in New Orleans despite attempts to control it. The government entities try to suppress expression and the union attempt to halt performance to preserve income equality. The recording industry impacted labor, production, and transmission of jazz that was being played in New Orleans, and the ban on recording in the 1940’s created a lost generation of musicians developing modern American Jazz.

Music has always been at the heart of labor unions. Joseph Hillstrom, an early member of the Workers of the World, (a group for rail workers and tradesmen across the globe), sang songs on the picket lines to help communicate and encourage. He coined the phrase, “Pie in the Sky” with one of his songs in 1911.[3] The expanding leisure market meant unparalleled openings for musicians. In this era before the boom of recorded music, theater owners routinely hired orchestras, sometimes for seven days a week to perform concerts or enliven vaudeville acts and burlesque. (J. Kraft)[4] The lines between amateur and professional musician were continually blurred. The common practice of bands in the workplace and military post-civil war and pre-WWI brought organized groups of professionals who collectively bargained for the common good. These collectives, in the beginning were regionally based, and mostly just forums for musicians to collectively look for work. However, they created standards for pay and general expectations for employment standards. New Orleans was part of this evolution, and as Kraft writes, “During the 1870s and 1880s, many African Americans received musical training in army bands and made the best of it afterward in theaters and nightspots. New Orleans became famous for its unsurpassed brass bands made up entirely of blacks.” It was not long after, in 1896 that the American Federation of Musicians was formed.

By the 1920’s, the recording boom is in full swing. New Orleans creole piano player and son of a bassist Clarence Williams started a black-owned music publishing house in New Orleans with A.J. Piron. Williams organized recording sessions with the early pioneering jazz instrumentalist Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. (Denning)[5] Silent film and live radio of the acoustic era had depended on musicians. These jobs disappeared when the film industry developed electric recording techniques, (beginning with The Jazz Singer in 1927) and the radio industry gradually turned to records. The American Federation of Musicians began their long and largely unsuccessful recording strike of the early 1940’s as a result. (Denning)[6] At the time, the artists are not getting paid royalties for use other than the initial studio sessions. This endangers live music because diners and club owners can use juke boxes and radios to provide entertainment. The dispute triggers a recording strike by the AFM in 1942-1944 (Also known as the “Petrillo Ban” named after the Union president at the time) during a critical period of development in Jazz music, when Bebop and swing is being innovated.

Bebop, swing, and other early modernists of jazz come to New Orleans after Dixieland and traditional forms of jazz expand from the city via records and migration. When the modernists look for work, they are often limited to strip clubs and after-hours locations.[7] Bassist Bill Huntington once remarked, “You know, the swing era just about bypassed New Orleans.” Suhor writes that this is an exaggeration, but not by much. The early pioneers of modern jazz range from the 1940’s to 1960’s, and most went unrecognized. 1960 to 1970 saw considerable development, however.[8] Musicians were limited on what they could play to facilitate the clubs, so they resort to staying after 3am and jamming on their own. The unions are quick to discourage musicians from providing essentially free entertainment.[9]

A whole host of performers come from this era. Not every club hired jazz musicians, but among those that did were behind the backdrop of dancers and after hours in the red-light district. Clubs like Gunga Den, Prima’s 500 Club, French Opera House, Old Opera House, Puppy House, Stormy’s Casino Royal, and Club Slipper, to name a few. Some of the musicians who made these hang-outs their place of performance were Al Belletto, Mouse Bonati, Sam Butera, Benny Clement, Fred Crane, Tony D’Amore, Johnny Elgin, Bill Evans, Don Guidry, Pete Kowchak, Black Mike Lala, Tony Mitchell, Brew Moore, Bruce Lippincott, Joe (Cheeks) Mandry, Joe Morton, Fred Nesbitt, Earl Palmer, Joe Pass, Bill Patey, Chick Power, Bob Teeters, and Louis Timken. These are just some of the names of the many pioneers of modern jazz during its turbulent beginnings in New Orleans.

House Jams and sessions in various settings were essential components to developing modern jazz. The style had captivated so many young musicians but had virtually no popular audience in New Orleans during the early post-war years, as most commercially successful venues were only interested in traditional big band material. Earl Palmer and Al Belletto tell of sessions in the mid-1940s at Benny Clement’s house in the French Quarter. They have stories that tell of warmth and humor, recalling the camaraderie that existed in these gatherings. They also illustrate the framework of legal oppression in Louisiana that had far more serious consequences. This trouble related specifically to racial tensions that still existed in New Orleans. Two of the city’s best drummers, Earl Palmer and Ed Blackwell were virtually banished due to relationships they had with white women. Louisiana was still a segregated city at the time, and interactions like this made it nearly impossible for them to survive. Despite these cultural roadblocks, modern jazz continued to evolve in the city. Jam sessions with Ellis Marsalis, Edward Frank, Don Suhor and many more continued to pave the way. They playing on busted pianos and cardboard-box drum sets if necessary.[10]

Other racial challenged were in the French Quarter, where the clubs were almost exclusively intended for white audiences. Some had black musicians that played for the dancers behind a screen, out of view. Musicians like Fats Pichon, Pickett Brunions, and Lavergne Smith played at music clubs like the Absinthe House, Three Deuces, and Tony Bacino’s, but again, black customers were discouraged or kept out. Many reports indicated that there was hostile “backdoor” treatment at clubs, and segregation of tourists and locals was a common hurdle for safe working conditions. Black musicians of New Orleans, like in many places in America, worked on the outskirts of accepted norms and conventions. As DeVeaux writes, “Black bands, for reasons more cultural than musical, also tended to operate at the margins. Systematic discrimination denied black bands access to such important sources of income and prestige as commercially sponsored radio programs and major hotel ballrooms (Kolodin 1941, 7)”[11] Despite this, black musicians, swing, and bebop innovators relegated to strip clubs, after hours hot spots, and house parties still carved their names into the definitive culture.

Looking at New Orleans today[12], it is hard to not find a corner that isn’t steeped in music, celebration, and festival. The official tourist website for New Orleans (prior to the Covid-19 pandemic) had page after page of events, performances, and attractions. There were vast job opportunities and venues for musicians to express the culture of the city. The established styles and genres are still at the heart of the mainstay, while new alternative music still stays on the fringes. The fascinating component on this freedom of expression is the broad category expanse that it encompasses. The economic advantages to New Orleans embracing the variety of cultures that evolve here is evident. At the same time, a new type of price barrier exists to some of these categories. Where regulation and censorship through rules and ordinances has been the typical response to curtailing expression in the past, appropriation and regulation is a common control method exerted on these expressions, currently. For example, in order for musicians to perform today in the city, they face regulations in the way of permits, noise ordinances, and fees.[13]

While economic recovery in the face of Hurricane Katrina (the devastating natural disaster that struck the region in 2005), was crucial to preserving the identity of the city and rebuilding its infrastructure, many roadblocks created by rules were born out of the need to generate revenue for the city, particularly for the economically disadvantaged. As Heather Lyons wrote, “After the 2005 devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the city's musicians have spread out as far as Portland, Oregon, and Hoboken, New Jersey, to restart careers and lives. This need to recover livelihoods post-Katrina naturally reflects the destinies not only of musicians but also of New Orleans residents in many occupations.”[14] One key obstacles many of the musicians have overcome is the educational barriers in the midst of rebuilding. After schools closed, post-Katrina, in their place came charter schools without musical education components. As Adriane Dixson writes, “New Schools for New Orleans supported the FINS (charter school) takeover through a federal invest in innovation (i3) grant of $800,000. Surely, that money could have gone to the construction of the previously promised chemistry lab or to the repair of the building. But, the majority of the i3 grant went to the salaries of White men, including Barr who received $137,378 of the grant toward his $250,000 annual salary; Stein, the New York real-estate developer and former president of FINS who received $150,000; and Alexander Ryan, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who is currently serving as the CFO for Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc. (Harden, 2013).”[15] Despite this, you can still see young people in poor neighborhoods playing horns in the street. This is just another aspect of how the music heart of “The Big Easy” never dies.

New Orleans survives on the shoulders of an incredible mixture of cultures that thrive within its borders. The oppressed continue to push forward and play for better days, and the power positions of the metropolis always seem to give way to their enchanting songs. In the end, the whole city starts to sing. The brass bands of the late 1800’s, the night club jazz bands of the 1940’s, and the street musicians making their wages on the corners all create wonderful examples. No matter how many roadblocks or speed bumps there are in New Orleans, the parade will rally right on down the street, as the Saints Come Marching In.

-CHH, 2019

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