Preservation Hall Jazz Band swings in for Katrina relief

Benefit concert set tonight at McCarter

By: David Campbell
   McCarter Theatre Center and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans — with the cooperation of several area businesses — are teaming up for a live jazz performance tonight on McCarter’s main stage to raise money for New Orleans musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina.
   All proceeds from ticket sales for the benefit concert by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, scheduled to start at 8 p.m. in the center’s Matthews Theatre, will be donated to the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund.
   Preservation Hall established the fund in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to give financial support to New Orleans musicians affected by the disaster, and thereby help preserve and foster the Big Easy’s greatest cultural export — music.
   Located in New Orleans’ French Quarter, Preservation Hall has been bringing the sound and spirit of New Orleans jazz to audiences for almost half a century since it first opened its doors as a jazz venue in 1961.
   In addition to its nightly performances in the quarter, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band tours the world for about five months out of each year.
   The hall, which marks its 45th anniversary this year, was shut down when the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
   But two weekends ago, during the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, eight months after the hurricane swept through the city, Preservation Hall celebrated its grand reopening and 45th anniversary.
   "Many members of the band lost their homes because of the hurricane," said William W. Lockwood Jr., special programming director at McCarter Theatre who brought the legendary jazz band to McCarter for tonight’s benefit concert.
   "The band has been touring almost steadily since the hurricane, because they tour incessantly, but also because they didn’t have any place to go back to," Mr. Lockwood continued. "Which is why the Preservation Hall fund was established, to provide support to New Orleans jazz musicians. I thought it was important in some way to pay tribute to New Orleans jazz, and to Preservation Hall’s relationship with McCarter."
   That relationship goes back to the late 1960s, when Mr. Lockwood first invited the jazz band to perform at McCarter. It returned about every other year through the 1970s and 1980s. The last performance at McCarter was in 1991.
   Sandra and Allan Jaffee, who founded Preservation Hall, were good friends of Mr. Lockwood’s, he said. Mr. Jaffee died several years ago and his son, Benjamin Jaffee, now runs the hall.
   "I remember Ben running around backstage many, many times, as he grew up from a toddler to a teenager," Mr. Lockwood said.
   He said the recent grand reopening of the hall was an especially emotional event. "Preservation Hall stands for New Orleans jazz," he said.
   Tonight’s concert will be a benefit concert in the truest sense, because virtually all the money that is brought in through ticket sales will be donated to the relief fund — including money that typically would go toward overhead costs like hotel accommodations for the performers, catering and other services.
   This is being made possible by participating businesses waiving their customary fees, thereby donating their services for tonight’s performance.
   Those businesses are Business Bistro Catering, Hyatt Regency Princeton, Press Room and WXPN. Princeton University’s Council of the Humanities, Music Department and Program in Theater and Dance also donated their services, McCarter said.
   Mr. Lockwood said tickets for tonight’s performance are close to being sold out, but said that any tickets still available can be bought up to the 8 p.m. start of the show at McCarter’s box office. "Essentially everybody who buys a ticket is contributing," he said. "All the receipts are going toward the fund, for the community of musicians."
   He said that serendipity also contributed to tonight’s benefit concert.
   "We all have been talking about what McCarter can do in any way to show our support for jazz, and particularly for the musicians of New Orleans," Mr. Lockwood said. "I said, I wonder if we could possibly get the Preservation Hall Jazz Band here, because they really stand for New Orleans jazz.
   "It just happened," he continued. "We were lucky the band was available on a night McCarter was available. It was serendipity."