Strike Up the Band

And architecture?

Architecture moves the least readily of all because of what it is. For years many, many musicians were also plasterers, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers. Louis Armstrong’s banjo player was a plasterer. Jelly Roll Morton decided not to be a bricklayer. Sydney Bechet’s family is full of plasterers. Even today someone like Eddie Bo, the piano player, is a carpenter. All these Creoles had these guild craft skills in their families. In particular antebellum free people were valued for their craft skills. Some of that persists in this city.

There’s an opportunity for whole cloth reinvention of neighborhoods now.

Absolutely and the local building trades guys could be very central to that.

What is it about New Orleans that it became the birthplace to such a unique culture?

It is at once America’s most African and most Mediterranean place. It has remained separate and apart because of its relative economic [and geographical] separation from the country, particularly after the Civil War. People always loved jazz but so many of our great artists had to leave to make a living and get respect. Same thing with R&B, the scene moved on to other places. But nonetheless the place has remained creative. That sets it apart. In Anglo-Saxon America, culture is usually with a capital C and it’s made official. Here, culture just is ... and it’s with an “S” at the end. And it’s shared by people across lines of race and class. It’s not marginal, it’s the center of civitas .

© 2006