If it makes you feel any better, PJ Morton's music is so generic that I forget it as I listen to it. I would be offended NOT being blocked by him.
That said, being a member of Maroon 5 isn't exactly something I would brag about. That's like being a top-selling item at Wal*Mart. It's music for people who don't like music.
This lack of respect for music landmarks in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana is nothing new. The neglect of this property and the others mentioned here is a demonstration of the lack of care of its musical heritage that characterizes New Orleans and the state as a whole. In five words: These people do not get it. More people outside the city care about New Orleans and Louisiana music than the people who actually live here. However, New Orleans is a very poor city and unless someone with some money and concern for our music historical heritage steps up to the plate, I don't feel as though things will ever change here. IMO, the Greater St. Stephens Church/Morton family is primarily to blame for the Bolden house. They have owned the property and have done nothing to at least keep it from deteriorating. Owners of the Karnofsky property, Perserverance Hall, etc. also obviously did not value the properties' historical and cultural value. This has been going on for decades and decades. No care or appreciation. Personally, I think that the best guardian of these important landmarks would be a non-profit entity that would identify, catalog and be responsible for preserving—and marketing the importance of—all of these properties. The Jazz & Heritage Foundation would be ideal, but am waiting to see the day. Again, this lack of respect for our musical heritage is always top of mind for me. I've railed against it for years in OffBeat, and we've written about it so many times. for example: https://www.offbeat.com/articles/armstrongs-new-orleans/
This hit me so hard!! I lived in New Orleans for 6 years. I moved there in my early 20s very starry eyed. I met amazing people and danced a lot no doubt, but as a jazz lover (and really coming into my jazz loving later in my adulthood) I was always disappointed in the representation and preservation of jazz in the very city that birthed it, the city I lived in!! There is something tragic and poetic about the dissolve and disintegration of the history way down there in the south - stories that happened not even 100 years ago are almost told as if they were mythical legends because there is no physical evidence of their existence - just a few banged up brass instruments on display in the New Orleans Museum of Jazz down at the end of the French Quarter... that big unwelcoming brick building people don't even know if they're allowed to enter. I love New Orleans. SO much. But she just always leaves you wishing she could do better, but you also understand why it is has gotten so hard. Thanks for this post. xx
Thanks for this update, disheartening as it is. Do you have any information regarding potential purchase price, estimated cost of essential repairs etc? I’d be happy to contribute some time and energy to sourcing potential sponsors. Had anyone approached NEA, Doris Duke Foundation etc? Feel free to contact me via the website, here or LinkedIn or FB. Buddy’s home had to be saved!
That's some passionate truth-telling there, Ted. Good work! I too had an idealistic view of New Orleans when I moved there in 1993. Over the next three years I saw up close and personal the dark, dysfunctional underbelly of The City That Care Forgot. Glad I got out when I did.
What a depressing story. Thank goodness for people like Bill Russell who archived and saved so much important historical material before the predatory commercialization of the music and the musicians. What about the folks at the Tulane Jazz Archives? Are they doing anything to preserve what's left? They certainly should.
There is no single entity protecting Jazz Heritage in New Orleans, and the litany of sins you lay out happened over a long period. Armstrong's Jane Alley house fell in 1964.
Lots of good Jazz things are happening, building Preservation not so much. Both the Karnofsky residence and Perseverance Hall were owned by smallish groups who were/are doing what they can. That there is blight enforcement on the Bolden house is a good sign. Let's hope for a substantial partner to step forward to buy the house. Meanwhile, the NPS and the City need to get back together on the National Jazz Park in Armstrong Park/Congo Square.
Ted, a friend from NOLA read this and commented thus:
Well this is interesting. For the almost 20 years I have been living in New Orleans, I have been waiting for the restoration of the Eagle Saloon. The site of the Eagle Saloon is a handsome building that appears to be intact, awaiting restoration. It should be a moneymaker, like the popular bar/restaurant Walk On's around the corner on Poydras or the more upscale Copper Vine just across the street and unlike the historic homes of jazz musicians, which no one but a few dedicated out-of-town jazz buffs care to visit. Every few years a new proposal emerges for the restoration of the saloon, but none of them ever come to fruition.
Mr. Gioia is scandalized, and perhaps rightly so, by the neglect of New Orleans's jazz heritage sites. Part of the problem is that much of the re-development of the city is controlled by out-of-town corporations that are insensitive to the details of its cultural history. When Nancy and I lived downtown on Common Street, a corporate consortium comprised of Minneapolis developers, Hilton Hotels and others tried to destroy several historic properties, including the sites of early Black-owned and women-owned businesses, just across the street. The current Mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, then a City Council member, was the political cat's paw of the out-of-town consortium, which was defeated only because our next-door neighbor was a wealthy and politically connected shipyard owner who had the ear of the then-mayor, Mitch Landrieu. There are local villains too, like the eminent trumpet player Irvin Mayfield, director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and former chair of the board for the city's public library system, who used his position to embezzle almost a million and a half dollars from the libraries. He spent his ill-gotten gains on indulgences like a gold-plated trumpet and a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in New York, including a $1500 breakfast. Two-thirds of a million went to build the New Orleans Jazz Market, an event venue and headquarters for the Jazz Orchestra. It contains the Buddy Bolden Bar, so at least he is memorialized in corruption.
Mr. Gioia doesn't mention the larger corruption and neglect of New Orleans. I am not talking about neglected buildings but rather neglected people, especially young people. The city is once again topping the charts for murder per capita, as well as other violent crime, much of it both targeted on and perpetrated by young people. I am sorry to say that the director of the juvenile justice system appointed by Mayor Cantrell, my old friend and ally Dr. Kyshun Webster, did a terrible job, focusing on side projects and no-showing for work. The system devolved into endemic chaos and violence. He is gone now, after a stint as a lavishly paid consultant to our incompetent and secretive "progressive" sheriff Susan Hutson. The latest solution is the transfer of the most dangerous juvenile inmates to Angola State Prison (yes, the very same institution cited in James Booker's "Junco Partner" and a myriad earlier versions called Junker's Blues or something like). There they should receive a graduate-school education in crime and violence. But this is only the tip of a very dirty iceberg. The kids of New Orleans are getting nothing, or very little. The schools are marginally improved since they went to a public-charter system after Katrina, but you would not send kids you care about to 90% of them. Families are badly disrupted and broken. A promising initiative to organize churches and other faith communities citywide to invest in kids and act in loco parentis was betrayed and destroyed by Mayor Landrieu and has not been revived under Mayor Cantrell, who can't get potholes filled or traffic signals fixed, let alone launch effective youth programs. The nonprofit sector has neither the resources nor the will to take this on, though it tries. I would ask Gioia this: how can a city that cares so little for its future be expected to care for its past?
Always depressing to hear of more authentic Americana ground to dust in the wheels of capitalism. I'm glad my sole visit to New Orleans was in 1996, and it's those memories I'll keep.
If it makes you feel any better, PJ Morton's music is so generic that I forget it as I listen to it. I would be offended NOT being blocked by him.
That said, being a member of Maroon 5 isn't exactly something I would brag about. That's like being a top-selling item at Wal*Mart. It's music for people who don't like music.
This lack of respect for music landmarks in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana is nothing new. The neglect of this property and the others mentioned here is a demonstration of the lack of care of its musical heritage that characterizes New Orleans and the state as a whole. In five words: These people do not get it. More people outside the city care about New Orleans and Louisiana music than the people who actually live here. However, New Orleans is a very poor city and unless someone with some money and concern for our music historical heritage steps up to the plate, I don't feel as though things will ever change here. IMO, the Greater St. Stephens Church/Morton family is primarily to blame for the Bolden house. They have owned the property and have done nothing to at least keep it from deteriorating. Owners of the Karnofsky property, Perserverance Hall, etc. also obviously did not value the properties' historical and cultural value. This has been going on for decades and decades. No care or appreciation. Personally, I think that the best guardian of these important landmarks would be a non-profit entity that would identify, catalog and be responsible for preserving—and marketing the importance of—all of these properties. The Jazz & Heritage Foundation would be ideal, but am waiting to see the day. Again, this lack of respect for our musical heritage is always top of mind for me. I've railed against it for years in OffBeat, and we've written about it so many times. for example: https://www.offbeat.com/articles/armstrongs-new-orleans/
This hit me so hard!! I lived in New Orleans for 6 years. I moved there in my early 20s very starry eyed. I met amazing people and danced a lot no doubt, but as a jazz lover (and really coming into my jazz loving later in my adulthood) I was always disappointed in the representation and preservation of jazz in the very city that birthed it, the city I lived in!! There is something tragic and poetic about the dissolve and disintegration of the history way down there in the south - stories that happened not even 100 years ago are almost told as if they were mythical legends because there is no physical evidence of their existence - just a few banged up brass instruments on display in the New Orleans Museum of Jazz down at the end of the French Quarter... that big unwelcoming brick building people don't even know if they're allowed to enter. I love New Orleans. SO much. But she just always leaves you wishing she could do better, but you also understand why it is has gotten so hard. Thanks for this post. xx
If it's not shiny or trending on TikTok, it has no use in modern society. The death of civilization.
Joni Mitchell put it best: "Don't it always seem to go/That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone..."
Thanks for this update, disheartening as it is. Do you have any information regarding potential purchase price, estimated cost of essential repairs etc? I’d be happy to contribute some time and energy to sourcing potential sponsors. Had anyone approached NEA, Doris Duke Foundation etc? Feel free to contact me via the website, here or LinkedIn or FB. Buddy’s home had to be saved!
That's some passionate truth-telling there, Ted. Good work! I too had an idealistic view of New Orleans when I moved there in 1993. Over the next three years I saw up close and personal the dark, dysfunctional underbelly of The City That Care Forgot. Glad I got out when I did.
What a depressing story. Thank goodness for people like Bill Russell who archived and saved so much important historical material before the predatory commercialization of the music and the musicians. What about the folks at the Tulane Jazz Archives? Are they doing anything to preserve what's left? They certainly should.
There is no single entity protecting Jazz Heritage in New Orleans, and the litany of sins you lay out happened over a long period. Armstrong's Jane Alley house fell in 1964.
Lots of good Jazz things are happening, building Preservation not so much. Both the Karnofsky residence and Perseverance Hall were owned by smallish groups who were/are doing what they can. That there is blight enforcement on the Bolden house is a good sign. Let's hope for a substantial partner to step forward to buy the house. Meanwhile, the NPS and the City need to get back together on the National Jazz Park in Armstrong Park/Congo Square.
Ted, a friend from NOLA read this and commented thus:
Well this is interesting. For the almost 20 years I have been living in New Orleans, I have been waiting for the restoration of the Eagle Saloon. The site of the Eagle Saloon is a handsome building that appears to be intact, awaiting restoration. It should be a moneymaker, like the popular bar/restaurant Walk On's around the corner on Poydras or the more upscale Copper Vine just across the street and unlike the historic homes of jazz musicians, which no one but a few dedicated out-of-town jazz buffs care to visit. Every few years a new proposal emerges for the restoration of the saloon, but none of them ever come to fruition.
Mr. Gioia is scandalized, and perhaps rightly so, by the neglect of New Orleans's jazz heritage sites. Part of the problem is that much of the re-development of the city is controlled by out-of-town corporations that are insensitive to the details of its cultural history. When Nancy and I lived downtown on Common Street, a corporate consortium comprised of Minneapolis developers, Hilton Hotels and others tried to destroy several historic properties, including the sites of early Black-owned and women-owned businesses, just across the street. The current Mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, then a City Council member, was the political cat's paw of the out-of-town consortium, which was defeated only because our next-door neighbor was a wealthy and politically connected shipyard owner who had the ear of the then-mayor, Mitch Landrieu. There are local villains too, like the eminent trumpet player Irvin Mayfield, director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and former chair of the board for the city's public library system, who used his position to embezzle almost a million and a half dollars from the libraries. He spent his ill-gotten gains on indulgences like a gold-plated trumpet and a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in New York, including a $1500 breakfast. Two-thirds of a million went to build the New Orleans Jazz Market, an event venue and headquarters for the Jazz Orchestra. It contains the Buddy Bolden Bar, so at least he is memorialized in corruption.
Mr. Gioia doesn't mention the larger corruption and neglect of New Orleans. I am not talking about neglected buildings but rather neglected people, especially young people. The city is once again topping the charts for murder per capita, as well as other violent crime, much of it both targeted on and perpetrated by young people. I am sorry to say that the director of the juvenile justice system appointed by Mayor Cantrell, my old friend and ally Dr. Kyshun Webster, did a terrible job, focusing on side projects and no-showing for work. The system devolved into endemic chaos and violence. He is gone now, after a stint as a lavishly paid consultant to our incompetent and secretive "progressive" sheriff Susan Hutson. The latest solution is the transfer of the most dangerous juvenile inmates to Angola State Prison (yes, the very same institution cited in James Booker's "Junco Partner" and a myriad earlier versions called Junker's Blues or something like). There they should receive a graduate-school education in crime and violence. But this is only the tip of a very dirty iceberg. The kids of New Orleans are getting nothing, or very little. The schools are marginally improved since they went to a public-charter system after Katrina, but you would not send kids you care about to 90% of them. Families are badly disrupted and broken. A promising initiative to organize churches and other faith communities citywide to invest in kids and act in loco parentis was betrayed and destroyed by Mayor Landrieu and has not been revived under Mayor Cantrell, who can't get potholes filled or traffic signals fixed, let alone launch effective youth programs. The nonprofit sector has neither the resources nor the will to take this on, though it tries. I would ask Gioia this: how can a city that cares so little for its future be expected to care for its past?
I was last in NOLA in 2013, it was depressing.
I think city politics has a lot to do with all of these landmark buildings going to ruin.
There may still be hope for the Dew Drop Inn:
https://acloserwalknola.com/places/dew-drop-inn/
https://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2022/08/01/redevelopment-of-historic-dew-drop-inn-breaks-ground/
I'm sorry for your loss. For our losses. Thanks for the informative article and your passion.
Always depressing to hear of more authentic Americana ground to dust in the wheels of capitalism. I'm glad my sole visit to New Orleans was in 1996, and it's those memories I'll keep.
Like one of the most notoriously racist and corrupt states would care about preserving jazz lol