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The Jaffes Of Preservation Hall |
Sadly, Sandra Jaffe passed through the Departure Lounge in December. I have never been to Preservation Hall in New Orleans, but I know a number of readers have. The story of Sandra and Allan Jaffe is told on the Preservation Hall website:
'The Jaffes arrived in New Orleans in 1960, on an extended honeymoon from Mexico City. During their visit, they conversed with a few jazz musicians in Jackson Square who were on their way to “Mr. Larry’s Gallery.” As avid fans of New Orleans jazz, the honeymooners followed the musicians and were introduced to Borenstein (the proprietor, Larry Borenstein) along with a number of living jazz greats that had gathered that evening for a jam session. Needless to say, they were enraptured by what they saw and heard. The music was pure and unaffected by the 
swaying of popular music. Most of these musicians were elderly, many of whom were contemporaries of Buddy Bolden and other early jazz practitioners. The Jaffes knew they happened upon something special and soon after moved to New Orleans permanently......
....... Shortly after the Jaffes returned to New Orleans, Borenstein passed the nightly operations of the hall to Allan Jaffe on a profit-or-loss basis, and Preservation Hall was born.
Operating as a family business, Preservation Hall supported the unique culture of traditional jazz in New Orleans, which developed in the local melting pot of African, Caribbean, and European musical traditions at the turn of the 20th Century. Preservation Hall was a rare space in the South where racially-integrated bands and audiences shared music together during the Jim Crow era. At the center of that family business, the Jaffe’s became involved in the southern Civil Rights Movement (and were even persecuted) as heads of an integrated venue in a time of cruelly-policed racial segregation.......
........As time went on, Allan believed the success of both the Hall and its mission of preservation would require these bands to tour, and in 1963, he organized the newly minted Preservation Hall Jazz Band for a string of performances in the Midwest.
True to Jaffe’s estimation, the tour was a success and interest in the band and the rediscovery of New Orleans music stretched as far as Japan. The following decades found the band traveling and featured on a wide array of performances, from The Filmore West with the Grateful Dead to the palace of the King of Thailand (who sat in on alto sax). Following Allan Jaffe’s untimely passing in 1987, Preservation Hall and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band now operate under the leadership of the Jaffe’s second son, Benjamin.'
Here's a video of Sweet Emma Barrett with the Tuxedo Jazz Band playing Bill Bailey at Preservation Hall in 1970.
William Carter has explored the story of Preservation Hall in his book, Preservation Hall : Music From The Heart.
'Is it the climate? New Orleans does have its halcyon days, often in October. The music, too, has its sweet and gentle passages. And in one way or another the jazzmen on tour, confirmed that such humbugs are common:
"They squabble all the time about nothing. There's nobody in the world like New Orleans musicians. The way they play - the way they put their personalities over - it's like shit or bust. The people always love them, because everything's up front, all out in front for the world to see, including all the squabbling and nonsense. King Oliver once told my trombone player, Clyde Burnhart, "Look, man. The biggest tip I'm ever gonna give you: don't ever hire more than two New Orleans musicians in a band at the same time. If you get a third one in there, they'll be fighting and squabbling and God knows what."
I saw one of them at Preservation Hall the other day cussing the audience out. Only in New Orleans would you find it. In New York, or in Chicago, when you hire a band, they never open their mouth; they just play what they got to do. That's what makes New Orleans music so great. To hell with the techniques and all that; it's a human emotion. Everything's out in front with them. They get contrary - goofy. So many crazy things happened in Europe. And in Preservation Hall, this one drummer got in an argument with the bass player, and so he turned all his drums to face the carriageway, so he wouldn't look at him. Went to all that trouble! Who cares, you know? Another drummer got mad one night with people looking in the window, and started cussing at the people, shaking his fist at them. People outside? What the hell, they ain't hurtin' nothing." .......
......I asked Allan Jaffe what the attitude of the New Orleans jazz 'establishment' was when Preservation Hall opened up. "About the same as it is today," he replied, with something resembling a grimace, implying that the attitude had not always been too friendly. "When Sweet Emma started playing at the Hall," he said, "someone in the New Orleans Jazz Club told her that it would ruin her reputation. And when David Brinkley was down here, doing his program on New Orleans jazz, early in 1962, he went to the Jazz Club, and everyone told him that they were the ones who were saving jazz, and that none else was interested in saving it. So Brinkley asked them, "What about Preservation Hall?" It had only been going for a few months then. Do you know what Dr Edmond Souchon, who was the most important man in the club then, told Brinkley? He told him that we were Communists!"......
From Preservation Hall: Music From The Heart by William Carter.
A short documentary about Preservation Hall with contributions from the Jaffe family.
Preservaion Hall
Photograph by Darren Cowley
Visit some of our other pages:
Al Capone and Fats Waller
Down In The Jungles
Sidney Bechet Coming Of Age
Times At Plunketts
