NOLA Journey '19: Ya Like Jazz? We do now.
“So, to quote the Haggadah: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” One word: jazz.”
Yesterday, I wrote on the importance of seeing not only the touristy aspects of NOLA, but getting deeper, and opening the book. We’ve done as such this journey: seen the poverty, the echoes of Katrina, the former bondage. And even today, we cleaned up a bayou (where I got stung by fire ants, ouch) and took a swamp boat tour (yes, our captain brought an alligator onboard, and yes, everyone left with the same amount of limbs they entered with). So, to quote the Haggadah: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” On this night, the Class of 2019 has been fully submerged into the language of a living, breathing city: jazz.
We had the opportunity to visit the infamous Preservation Hall and listen to some of the best jazz Louisiana has to offer. I can’t speak for everyone, but the extent of my live music experience has been a few pop music concerts here and there. So this, this was transformative.
Nestled on an offshoot of Bourbon Street lies the Hall, street-lamps casting shadows onto its tin metal exterior, corroded with rust. Notes, hollers, and choruses of claps spill out the half-open windows. We lined up outside not 15, 20, or even 30 minutes prior, but a whole hour. Clearly, this was the real deal.
(3) Pee-breaks, (2) voodoo shop visits, and (1) beignet later, we filed into a room that’s probably the size of the JCHS admissions office. String lights dotted the entry, illuminating a CD here and a drumstick there. Its walls were an ashy gray color, clearly old, exuding a smell that hinted of wood dust and alcohol. The three or four benches were already crammed with eager audience members, so the Class of 2019 took to the floor pads in the very front.
The men of the band emerged to our rousing applause. I didn’t know what to expect, as my musical knowledge is limited to Ariana Grande and company. But as the saxophone player just 10 inches from my shoes inhaled, and exhaled into melody, my expectations were null and void. I was in the here and now, swaying to the music that had no end and no beginning, only a rolling middle we basked in.
I watched each player carefully pluck, strum, and clang up all the hairs on my body. I could see each intentional gesture and vocal altercation that seemed so casual, and almost in disarray, but blended cohesively, magically. Locked eyes and smiles with strangers I’d never talk to, strangers strung together by this primordial sensation.
This was the New Orleans I’d hoped for, behind the beignets, past the wooden front of popular culture. I take back my one-word description of the city I claimed in yesterday’s post. Sure, NOLA is full of juxtapositions. But that would mean nothing if this city weren’t so alive. Alive, that’s it. Alive is what I felt sitting on a floor pad in a room, in a city, in a county that’s not Jewish, with no recycling, equality in the cue not on stage. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever felt my soul more than tonight, sitting with my friends in this magical place.
And hey, I guess the old adage is true. Dreams do come true in New Orleans!
