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Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo
By KIRK JOHNSON
New York Times: Published: September 15, 2005
LAFAYETTE, La., Sept. 10 - The rich musical culture of New Orleans, where so
much of American music finds its taproot in the African-inspired sounds of jazz,
blues and rock, has been tossed to the four winds. Some musicians, many of whom
fled Hurricane Katrina without so much as their instruments, have headed west to
Austin, Tex., or Los Angeles, others have gone north to Chicago, New York or
Atlanta.
And many are landing here, nearer to home, in a place with its own deep musical
traditions, anchored in the accordion-driven two-step Cajun sound called zydeco
that harks back to 18th-century Nova Scotia. No one knows what will come of the
dispersal of New Orleans's artistic life, or whether the thousands of musical
transients will become transplants. Like so much else in the aftermath of the
hurricane, the question is unresolved.
But here in Lafayette, where Cajun French can still be heard in the street, the
signs are bilingual and old French Canada is the musical touchstone, musicians -
locals and evacuees - are expecting a flowering of creativity. The things that
have shaped musical expression since the first minor chord was plucked -
longing, an aching for home, the need for paying gigs - are stronger now than
ever, they say.
"There's a difference between New Orleans music and Lafayette music - this will
erase that boundary line," said Dickie Landry, a veteran saxophone player who
lives here and was waiting backstage to jam with a band playing at an outdoor
fund-raising concert for Hurricane Katrina victims in the center of town on
Saturday. "The gumbo is going to get thicker," he said.
Other musicians say that whatever happens here or in recording studios in Los
Angeles or Nashville, the old musical life of New Orleans will never be the
same.
Many of the displaced musicians say that what made New Orleans special was the
unbroken tradition of its musical heritage, extending back to the days before
the Civil War, when slaves would gather on Sundays in places like Congo Square
to play music in celebration or in mourning. Some people will no doubt return to
a rebuilt, restored New Orleans, they say, and some will not, but no New Orleans
musician will be quite the same after the experience of the hurricane, and
neither will the "New Orleans sound" that many musicians say was steeped in
their bones.
"It's Armageddon for the culture," David Torkanowsky, a New Orleans pianist who
lost just about everything he owns in the storm. "Never before in the history of
this music has there been a complete and utter dispersal."
Mr. Torkanowsky is staying near Lafayette with a friend, Zachary Richard, who
lives here and in Montreal and sings traditional Cajun music in French and
English. They performed together here at Saturday night's benefit, with Mr.
Torkanowsky accompanying Mr. Richard (pronounced ree-SHARD) on his song "Big
River," written long before Hurricane Katrina, about a devastating flood on the
Mississippi.
"Standing on the levee with the river raging," Mr. Richard sang to a hushed
crowd, "I've got nothing left to lose."
When the song was over, the two men embraced and the audience roared.
Other musicians are more hopeful. Eddie Bo, a mainstay of rhythm and blues piano
for half a century in New Orleans, was flying home from a tour date in Paris on
the day the storm struck. Now he and two members of his band - the saxophone
player Red Morgan and the drummer Dwayne Nelson - are together in exile, staying
with friends near Lafayette. The band's guitarist is in Lafayette. The bass
player is in Chicago.
Mr. Bo said he thought that much of New Orleans musical life would stay as close
as it could to that city in the months ahead because going farther would be too
jarring in a time of grief and loss, even if the opportunities were better
elsewhere. As for the music, he said, it will no doubt evolve and change along
the way, as it always has.
"Something good has got to come from this disaster," he said. "That's God's
plan." Then he added: "And you can tell people we're available and looking for
work."
****
Where Musical Refugees Can Thicken the Gumbo
*
Published: September 15, 2005
(Page 2 of 2)
At least one New Orleans native, Lenny McDaniel, has already decided to stay in
Lafayette permanently. Mr. McDaniel, who said he managed to get out of New
Orleans with his best guitar and his best piano, has taken an apartment here and
plans to sell his house in New Orleans. It was not severely damaged by the
hurricane, he said, but he thinks the city will never be the same.
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"I'm a survivor," he said. "I don't have a lot of anything, but I've got my life
and my dog. I think I'm going to do really well here."
Some of the shift to Lafayette, a city of 110,000 about two hours west of New
Orleans, is coincidental: a healthcare organization for New Orleans musicians,
called the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, took up temporary residence here after
the storm and has been reaching out to members. The clinic is sharing space with
a sister organization called Health Care for Musicians.
The clinic's executive director, Michelle Gegenheimer, said she had no idea how
many of New Orleans's 3,000 to 5,000 full-time musicians were here, but that
more than 100 came by last week when she set up a booth downtown. At an
impromptu jam session in a downtown club earlier in the week, all eight
musicians onstage were from New Orleans.
Programs specifically aimed at helping displaced musicians are being set up as
well. Music Maker Relief Foundation, a nonprofit musician-support organization
in Hillsborough, N.C., has started the New Orleans Musicians Fund (information
at musicmaker.org), and is sending money to help the clinic here in Lafayette.
Radio station WWOZ, an anchor of New Orleans musical culture, has set up a list
on its Web site (wwoz.org), so that displaced musicians and fans can find one
another in the post-hurricane diaspora.
What will happen to the music is anybody's guess. Some musicians say they think
horn sections, which have fallen out of fashion in Cajun music in the last
generation or so, could make a comeback through New Orleans horn players,
ushering in a new era of Cajun funk. Others say that urban soul and country
Cajun exuberance could spawn some new child altogether.
Mr. Morgan, who has played saxophone in Mr. Bo's band for 40 years, said
everyone has embarked on a new journey since the hurricane. But improvisation,
he said, is the same: a musician marching off into the unknown, hoping for the
best.
The issue is where you come out at the end, he said, and whether a path can be
found to resolve the musical line you are on in a way that works.
"You wind up being right because of how you resolve it," he said. "You just have
to know inside you that the place can be found."
