As its name suggests, Preservation Hall Jazz Band is committed to preserving the culture and musical heritage of its native New Orleans. In addition to regular performances at its own Preservation Hall in the French Quarter, the ensemble has served as ambassadors for the Big Easy through appearances at festivals and shows across the country. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Preservation Hall Jazz Band appeared at numerous benefits for the city, including gigs at Radio City Music Hall and Bonnaroo.
Earlier this year the group released the all-star benefit collection Preservation, which features collaborations with the likes of Pete Seeger, Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, Dr. John, Steve Earle, Blind Boys of Alabama, Merle Haggard, Richie Havens, Jason Isbell and Jim James, as well as an archival recording by Louis Armstrong. The group supported the project by touring with My Morning Jacket and playing modern music festival such as the Hangout. Below, Preservation Hall Jazz Band tuba player/spokesman Ben Jaffe—whose father Allan Jaffe led the group for years—discusses the band’s future plans and current collaborations.
This summer Preservation Hall Jazz Band recorded the single “Ain’t My Fault” with Lenny Kravitz, Mos Def, Trombone Shorty and Tim Robbins to benefit those affected by the oil spill. Can you start by telling us a little about the genesis of that song in particular?
I contacted Mos Def and I asked him if he was as angry as I was, and he said yes. And I said, “Hey, how about the idea of a Most Def/Preservation Hall track to an old New Orleans R&B classic called ‘It Ain’t My Fault’?” And he wrote me back “absolutely.” And in the text message he actually wrote the first two lines of the rap—he texted me back the first two lines of the rap. And I wrote him back the response, and he wrote me back “Exactly, let’s talk over lunch.” We met for lunch and by 2 PM that afternoon we were writing the song, and by 11 PM that night we were in Preservation Hall setting up the track and getting to record, and we debuted it at Gulf Aid in New Orleans.
The description “ambassador” is often tossed around when describing Preservation Hall. Do you feel this is a role the band has more readily embraced post-Katrina?
We, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, participated in a lot of benefit projects right after Hurricane Katrina. We’ve been a huge advocate for the rebuilding of New Orleans, not just the physical rebuilding of the city, but the protection of our community, and our culture and our history. I feel like that’s what preservation means―it means to protect. And that’s something Preservation Hall has done for decades, is really protect and honor the musical tradition of New Orleans, an amazing jazz tradition.
Your new album Preserved finds Preservation Hall performing with numerous musicians across genre lines. Besides introducing some new years to New Orleans music, what was your specific goal for that project?
When we were asked to participate in some sort of benefit project―we were asked by our record label, actually our distribution company which is called RED, to come out with a project, and instead of being a Katrina project I really felt that it was time for us to address something that is fragile and intangible and undocumented and that’s a lot of our musical traditions, and parade traditions, and dancing traditions.
That’s what I really wanted to bring awareness to. And I found that when I started reaching out to musicians, a lot of them had the same concern; they understand that there’s a lot of new traditions in the world that are undocumented, a lot of our funeral traditions. There’s no manual anywhere that says, you know, “This is how you play at a jazz funeral, these are the songs you play, this is the tempo you play, this is the order you play them in.” It was amazing that we had such an overwhelming response we couldn’t even accommodate all the people that we wanted to on the project, everybody from Steve Earl, Andrew Bird, Richie Havens, Pete Seeger and Ani DiFranco to Tom Waits, and everyone came to New Orleans and spent a couple days with us making music and in that very special place, Preservation Hall in New Orleans.
Though most of the record was recorded at Preservation Hall for this album, you do use one archival track, right?
Actually, all of the recordings we did for this project, for Preservation, were recorded over the past two years, specifically for this project. The only track on there that was recorded earlier were the vocals that we used—Louis Armstrong’s vocals from a Newport Jazz performance he did in the 1960s with his band—we were given permission to use those vocals to create a new track. And it’s actually amazing ‘cause it’s not the first time that Preservation Hall has performed with Louis Armstrong so it was really special to us. It was the first time that I got a chance to play with him.
Of all the collaborations on Preservation, My Morning Jacket’s seems to have developed into the most three-dimensional. Not only did Jim James play on two tracks for the album, but MMJ took Preservation Hall out on tour this spring and invited members of the band out during its New Orleans Jazz Festival show. MMJ also played a tiny Preservation Hall show in April that was filmed as part of a movie on the entire project.
Jim’s been a huge supporter of New Orleans—he’s worked with bringing more attention to the wetlands and their situation, which is completely changed now that we’re facing this devastating oil spill. He’s also been involved with some cultural activity in New Orleans. He came to New Orleans a while back and met Al “Carnival Time” Johnson and he met Ernie K-Doe over at the Mother-In-Law Lounge, so when we asked if he would do a track with us he said yes immediately. He came to New Orleans―it was his first time visiting Preservation Hall. And it’s not too often you meet people in your life where you have an immediate connection. As soon as I met him, I knew immediately that he understood what Preservation Hall symbolized and what Preservation Hall means to our community and to the world. Jim walked in and we really didn’t say much to each other ‘cause really, it was magical the way that we just knew what each other was experiencing and it was his first time visiting Preservation Hall.
We had a wonderful experience walking around. He uncovered an old amplifier that I forgot we even had. It was the old, original Preservation Hall amplifier probably from the 1940s and we ended up using that on the recording session. He ended up singing through it on the session… it was a magical, magical experience. I mean he had a real powerful experience the night before the session as well. We went out, and it was the one night a year that the Mardi Gras Indians come out, besides Mardi Gras time. It’s called St. Joseph’s night, and he and I went up there and got to experience them together, emerging from all the little clubs. And it was a beautiful thing for me to watch someone else experience something for the first time, something that I’ve been experiencing my whole life. I can’t even tell you when the first time I saw a Mardi Gras Indian, I can’t tell you the first time I ever heard jazz, or saw a Mardi Gras parade or a second line dance or a funeral. I honestly can’t remember because it’s been so much a part of who I am, so for me to witness someone else experience New Orleans for the first time was not only one of the most beautiful things about my relationship with Jim but my relationships with all of the artists. For a lot of them it was their first introduction to the center of New Orleans.
The night before he recorded his tracks at Preservation Hall he had this very lucid dream where he was in a hotel room and this sphere was engulfing him. Then he came to Preservation Hall and, without knowing it, we handed him a megaphone for him to sing through [which resembled the sphere].
You made a last minute appearance at the Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. During your set you invited out Warren Haynes and Grace Potter, as well as members of the Blind Boys. How did you get involved with that festival in particular?
I got involved with The Hangout Festival a few months ago when I found out that a friend of mine was involved in their online marketing campaign, at Creative Allies―this was before the oil disaster in the gulf, and we were just talking about ways to promote the festival in New Orleans and a couple weeks later we had this catastrophe take place in the Gulf of Mexico and we were asked to participate in an event in New Orleans the same weekend as Hangout. So, Gulf Aid was taking place in New Orleans, Hangout’s taking place in Gulf Shores and I asked my friend Greg if there was a way for us to combine the two events together for one common cause, one common message, and a way for us to show solidarity because we’re all going to suffer from the repercussions of this spill. And we’ve just been working and acting as a goodwill ambassador from New Orleans to come over and play Hangout and tomorrow we’re going to go back and play the Gulf Aid event in New Orleans with Mos Def and Lenny Kravitz.
