FoodMusicJustice.com

New Orleans is famous for its Second Lines, informal open-to-all parades that accompany funerals and social club processions.

The New Orleans Police Deparment provides security for these parades as well as for Mardi Gras Krewes and other public events and bills the parade sponsors.

Fair enough.

What’s not fair is the billing system, or the lack of one. The law limits what the NOPD can charge a Carnival Krewe: $750.

There is no limit - or rational guidelines - on what the police can charge other events like funerals and social clubs.

For example, the Helen Hill funeral parade was charged $1,175. In contrast, the parade for Dinneral Shavers was charged $3,610 for its parade.

Now, the NOPD has proposed charging the Original Pigeontown Steppers Social Aid and Pleasure Club $7,560 to provide security for its upcoming Easter Parade.

This is the epitome of injustice and makes no sense in a city where the second line tradition is not only a force for good, but practically defines the city’s culture.

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the fee system in court. Good.

To Be Continued Brass Band is now playing Wednesday nights at Ray’s Boom Boom Room, a relatively new club on Frenchman Street.

New Orleans civic leaders have started a new venture called the Fleur-de-lis Ambassadors Program.

This is exactly what the ciy needs. Thanks to media manipulation on the part of the Bush administration, New Orleans has been painted with a very negative brush…crime-ridden, corrupt, people can’t help themselves, the city is in the wrong place etc.

Why the negative campaign?

Bush & Co. had to distract people from two undeniable facts:

1. The catastrophe in New Orleans was caused by the failure of the levee system which was the sole responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency.

2. The Homeland Security response was one of the most disgraceful failures of the federal government in American history and was caused by unprecedented levels of corruption, incompetence, and sheer callousness within the Bush administration.

How to remedy this?

There’s really only one way: to tell the real story of New Orleans, including its many positive features, over and over again to all the people who are willing to listen.

And that’s what the Fleur-de-lis Ambassadors Program is all about.

FoodMusicJustice’s mission too.

Here are the aid and rebuilding groups that the Gambit Weekly recognized in its 2007 Big Easy Music Awards:

- American Federation of Musicians

- Arabi Wrecking Krewe

- Habitat for Humanity

- Jazz Foundation of America

- Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans

- New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Foundation

- New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic

- New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund

- Tipitina’s Foundation

- WWOZ 90.2 FM

When you visit New Orleans, make sure you pick up a copy of the Gambit Weekly. It’s a free news and entertainment magazine that’s available just about everywhere in the city.

Last week, Gambit Weekly announced the nominees for their 2007 Big Easy Music Awards.

Here are the nominations in my favorite categories: (more…)

New Orleans never ceases to amaze me.

On St. Patrick’s Day, paraders throw beads - and cabbages, onions and carrots. Real cabbages, onions and carrots. And many people take them home and cook them.

St. Joseph’s Day, which comes a few days later, is an Italian holiday. Part of the observance involves the creation of elaborate altars with food which at the end of the festival period is distributed to the needy.
Here’s some more information about the St. Joseph’s Day Altars of New Orleans.

Dave Bartholomew on the role of New Orleans in American music:

“There is no, no, no, no place like New Orleans for music. The pioneers are here. We built the house. You can redecorate it, but we laid the foundation.”

- Dave Bartholomew. Trumpeter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Member. Bartholomew worked as a producer, arranger, and writer for Fats Domino.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day. One of my favorite days of the year.

Last week, I said that, Lord willing, I’d be in New Orleans for it this year. I guess he wasn’t willing. Thursday night a friend wrote telling me she cancelled her trip back east because of the big storm. “What big storm?” Then I looked at the weather news.

But hope spring eternal.

At 4 PM yesterday, my friend Bettina was driving me to the train station to get to the city to get to the plane to get to New Orleans. We were going at about 5 mph and if it wasn’t a total white out, it was a near one. Common sense prevailed and we turned around and headed back to Tivoli and sure enough as soon as I got back and checked the Internet, the flight had been cancelled.

Next year…

Meanwhile, click here to see St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans.

New Orleans probably has more social clubs, neighborhood groups, art and music collectives per capita than any other place on earth (or certainly in the US.)

Here’s some informal footage shot of one of these groups by filmmaker Lily Keber. It’s the 9th Ward Marching Band in rehearsal and marching on Mardis Gras in 2007.

Click here for more about the 9th Ward Marching Band

Would you believe there are children in New Orleans who want to learn music who can’t get instruments?

How can this be!?!

Here is a very detailed article on the state of the music education infrastructure in New Orleans written by Antonio J. Garcia, originally published in abbreviated form in the print version of the Jazz Education Journal.

Maybe I’m too simple minded, but if every church and school in America sent just one instrument to New Orleans, wouldn’t that solve the problem overnight? What’s the hang up?

Click here to read Jazz Education in New Orleans, Post-Katrina.