New Orleans

I lived in French Quarter for almost a year. $450.00 for a dilapidated one bedroom apt. I had no TV because it seemed ridiculous to watch TV when just out my window was a ticking clockwork of ravenous human drama. Don’t need no stink’n network stories when Storyville is around the corner.

Ahh Storyville, where the gutter met the glitz. To me that is what makes New Orleans unique, it’s a witches brew in the bayou, of high and low brow. You can taste the concoction when they blow those low-down blues through shiny high-and-mighty French horns. And Second-line drums lay the beat for unspeakable acts above on Spanish wrought-iron balconies. Alas, not nearly enough of those acts happened in my humble abode, but just to backup my theme here, my place was only a block away from the mansion that Nicholas Cage lives in today. The Vieux carre is a commune of the high-life. In this town, even the prostitutes eat exquisitely. When people meet you, they don’t ask what you do for work, they inquire as to your tastes. Culture pervades.

“There were all kinds of thrills for me in Storyville. On every corner I could hear music. And such a good music! The music I wanted to hear! It was worth my salary – the little I did get – just to go into Storyville. It seemed as though all the bands were shooting at each other with those hot riffs. And that man Joe Oliver! My, my, that man kept me spellbound with that horn of his…Storyville!”
-Louis Armstrong “SATCHMO My life in New Orleans”

Even more than Congo Square, the story of Storyville is the story of New Orleans. People confronted with Faustian deals on every corner. A den of sin and pleasure, and each soul playing out individual dramas of indulgence and will. Heaven and hell may be different places but it turns out the soundtrack is the same.

The locals say that New Orleans is the most northern Caribbean Island because it is surrounded by water on three sides. New Orleans is not part of Louisiana, (although Louisiana and it’s Cajun influence is part of the New Orleans). It has it’s own etiquette, and it has it’s own heroes. The aforementioned King Oliver, but also Buddy Bolden, Buck Johnson, Professor Longhair, Jelly Roll Morton, and (still kicking ass today) Kermit Ruffins.

Thank you for this program and the incite into the Diaspora. We could talk about this for weeks. I had the pleasure of visiting Brazil during Carnival and I will always remember those drums – the beat of which echoes of eons. It’s as if the African Rhythm is a bush and each one of these locations of the Diaspora (Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, New Orleans, ext) have carved out their own image in that bush.

In New Orleans they are still carving, and I can’t wait to go down there and dance to the new beat.