Jazz, R&B, Rock and roll, funk - it’s what America is known and loved for, and it all came out of New Orleans.
In New Orleans, it’s hard to imagine a more fertile musical garden than the neighborhood called the Treme, just across Rampart Street from the French Quarter.
So why is the New Orleans police department arresting people there for singing?
Read Larry Blumenfeld’s report: Band on the Run
A lot of housing is being torn down in New Orleans.
Some of it needs to be, but much of it could be saved.
Unfortunately, post-flood it’s become much easier for property owners to demolish historically important structures.
This site, SquanderedHeritage.com, is tracking the phenomenon with before and after pictures.
The people of New Orleans were kept captive in the city after the levee collapses.
It’s a shocking claim, but it’s absolutely true and well documented.
At any time after the levee collapses, people who made it to the Convention Center or the sports stadium could have walked out of the city.
Why didn’t they?
They were prevented at gunpoint and forced to stay behind without food, water, medical care, or public safety.
It’s a fact that have never been dealt with.
Two other inconvenient facts:
1. The federal government withheld information they had about the levee failures from local officials for twelve hours.
2. FEMA and Homeland Security scrapped a perfectly workable evacuation plan drawn up by experts and replaced it with a non-plan by a Bush supporter that cost the taxpayers $500,000 - and was never even drafted, let alone delivered.
We’re reprinting this news item from our good friends at Offbeat Magazine (you do subscribe don’t you?):
“In light of last month’s arrests of Derrick Tabb and Glen David Andrews for being a part of an impromptu second line, the tradition is on people’s minds. Thursday night at 7 p.m., there will be a discussion at the Sound Cafe (on Chartres in the Bywater) on “Rebuilding New Orleans: The Second Line Model.”
Participants include Tamara Jackson, president of VIP Ladies Social and Pleasure Club and the New Orleans Social and Pleasure Club Task Force; Waldorf “Gip” Gibson, vice president of the Young Men Olympia and president of the Furious Five; Ronald W. Lewis, president of the Big Nine Social and Pleasure Club and director of House of Dance and Feathers Museum; and Bennie Pete, leader of the Hot 8 Brass Band.”
I neglect hip hop on this blog which is a mistake because in addition to all its other contributions to world music, New Orleans is home to a very creative and productive hip hop community.
These guys are doing a great job of telling the story. Link: 2-Cent.com
I came across this interview with Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Blackwater, which is owned by right-wing “good Christian” nuts who’ve contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Bush campaigns, reached New Orleans before FEMA and the Red Cross - and were paid lavishly by the Bush Administration.
——
Blackwater in New Orleans
Maass: YOU WERE probably the first journalist to discover that Blackwater was on the scene in New Orleans, in the days right after Hurricane Katrina struck. How did you come across them?
Scahill: BLACKWATER’S MEN actually beat the federal government, FEMA, the Red Cross and all these organizations to the hurricane zone.
In fact, I interviewed Cofer Black–the former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, and now one of the top people at Blackwater–at a mercenary conference, and he told me that (more…)
Fats Domino is like New Orleans itself: laid back, prodidgously creative, often copied, and underrated.
Vanguard just released a tribute album featuring Paul McCartney, Elton John, Neil Young, Robert Plant, John Lennon (courtesy of Yoko Ono), Willie Nelson…you get the idea.
The Big Guns of rock and roll know who made the music happen. Fats’ influence deeper than most people realize… (more…)
Katy Reckdahl of the Time-Picayune wrote:
Monday, at about 8 p.m., nearly 20 police cars swarmed to a Treme corner, breaking up a memorial procession and taking away two well-known neighborhood musicians in handcuffs.
The brothers, snare drummer Derrick Tabb and trombonist Glen David Andrews, were in a group of two dozen musicians playing a spontaneous parade for tuba player Kerwin James, who died last week of complications from a stroke he had suffered after Hurricane Katrina.
The confrontation spurred cries in the neighborhood about the over-reaction and disproportionate enforcement by police, who had often turned a blind eye to the traditional memorial ceremonies. Still others say the incident is a sign of a greater attack on the cultural history of the old city neighborhood by well-heeled newcomers attracted to Treme by the very history they seem to threaten.
Join us and every time we have a new article or video about New Orleans, we'll let you know.
Search this blog
You are currently browsing the FoodMusicJustice.com weblog archives for October, 2007.