The Memphis Scene

Glenn Reynolds has a couple of links to Commercial Appeal stories about efforts to help displaced New Orleans musicians. Go, us ...

From Billboard ...

NASHVILLE — New Orleans’ premiere music event, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest), will return next year, according to Randy Phillips of AEG Live, co-producers of Jazz Fest with Festival Productions Inc. (FPI).

“We are going to do a Jazz Fest in ‘06,” Phillips tells Billboard.com. “Where, how, with what infrastructure, will all be worked out.” Phillips says the event may take place in New Orleans, depending on the progress of recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or in a nearby market such as Baton Rouge.

Goner Records and Shangri-La Records are sponsoring a record swap for Hurricane Katrina relief Sunday afternoon at Shangri-La on Madison. Records, CDs, books and other collectibles will be available, along with live music by displaced New Orleans musicians and a bake sale.

From Michael Novak.

If you add together the 26,000 female householders with children under 18, no husband present, and the 18,000 householders more than 65 years old and living alone, that is an estimated 40,000 female-headed households. That explains the pictures we are seeing on television, which are overwhelming female, most often with young children. The chances of persons in this demographic being employed full-time, year round, and with a good income, are not high. The chances of them living in poverty, and without an automobile, are exceedingly high.

* One of my most anticipated shows of the summer arrives Wednesday night with a definite New Orleans connection. Music festival favorites the Rebirth Brass Band play Young Avenue Deli, opening for one of my all-time favorite guitarists, Charlie Hunter, and his trio. With heavy hearts from the devastation in their home town, Rebirth will make sure the show goes on. This reminds me of a quote about the city from New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival producer Quint Davis:

“It’s survived slavery. It’s survived everything so far. ... I don’t think you can stop the dance. I don’t think you can drown the dance. We dance at funerals, and now we have to dance at our own funeral.”

You can't dance at anybody's funeral without a brass band, of course. Even without the disaster angle, this is a can't-miss show. Hunter is a bad, bad man, handling comping, melody and bass line by himself on his eight-string guitar. Rebirth is the youngest and most contemporary-sounding of the well-known brass bands. You never know quite what they'll put out. (Doors at 8; $15)

Please note that I've added a Hurricane Katrina category for your quick reference needs.

This hadn't occurred to me, but then I've never had to scrape by with a family on one check a month ...

[Former Atlanta mayor and UN ambassador Andrew] Young says that what played out in New Orleans this past week is the result of decisions made as long ago as the 1940s when farm work became scarce and many poor black families moved to urban America. “That’s true in almost every major city. We gave farmers money not to grow food and fiber. But we didn’t give any resources to the people who’d been living on those lands. And they crowded into cities without adequate education,” he says.

Many came to depend on city services, public transportation, and government subsidies. So when the government— with all its authority— told them to go the Superdome, they did, if they could.

Add to that an accident of the calendar: Katrina struck New Orleans on the 29th of the month.

“The first of the month in America is a very important date,” says Rep. Maxine Waters (R-Calif.) “Not only do you have pension checks, welfare checks, other kinds of resources basically for poor people, by the 29th you don’t have any money. You’re out.”

Forgive me. I was in college in the late '90s.

I'm back from a few days off during which I of course stayed close to the CNN and NPR, but also was spared having to produce the Hurricane Katrina coverage at work. Big, tragic stories like these wear me down mentally and emotionally even when I'm just covering them in the office over our wire services. Well, now I'm back in the thick of it, though we seem to have turned a corner from the Hobbesian nightmare of last week. Here are some things to check out, since this will be foremost in all of our minds for a long time to come.

* Autoegocrat has a long list of options to contribute time, money and supplies to the relief effort (via HalfBakered). I'm finding all the organizations and charities a bit overwhelming, but I hope to figure out a volunteer opportunity or two this week, along with a few choice places to send checks to.

* Alex Chilton made it out of New Orleans. Note the picture of Chilton is from last year in Austin. A bunch of New Orleans-based musicians doubtless will end up there. The Iguanas, including my brother-in-law Doug, among them.

* Mr. Roboto, like me in the odd spot of having a blog about fun in the midst of catastrophic disaster, offers his thoughts as a man of The Law.

* Finally, take a break from all the bitching and hysterics from all sides of the blogosphere, and check out deep thoughts from Niall Ferguson and Dennis Byrne.

I'll be back tomorrow with a recap of the Montreux Jazz Festival in Atlanta. Please feel free to post in the comments anything related to helping out, relief-wise. Please refrain from comments involving Kanye West or empty school buses. I'm depressed enough as it is.

I stopped by The Flying Saucer tonight after a long night of wall-to-wall Tropical Storm Katrina coverage, partly because I wasn't looking forward to driving 20 minutes home in the driving rain. I ended up rapping with a couple of New Orleans refugees who fully expect to have lost everything. On the bright side, though, they both make their living on the road, so at least they don't have to worry about the office being flooded beyond repair.

'Alabama' Dave Waldrop is a drummer, most recently with zydeco act Clifton Chenier. 'Wild' Bill Dykes is a comedian who says his stock went way up after 9/11 since now he can play up his quarter-Arab ancestry (Maronite Christian Lebanese, in fact). Dave told me that he was accosted by one of our ubiquitous "hey, mang, gimme sum chaynj!" types, and told him, "Look, man, everything I own is floating up the Mississippi River right now," whereby Dude rescinded the change request and paid his regrets.

The interesting part is that these guys were roommates in New Orleans a year ago, but hadn't seen each other since then. Then they ran into each other while wandering on Beale Street. Neither shows much interest in returning to New Orleans, natch. ...

And, oh yeah, the drive home was vastly funkier at 2 a.m. than it would have been at midnight.

I spent most of my Sunday producing our coverage of Hurricane Katrina, as I have spent pretty much every August of the past seven years covering one storm or another. I even got to flee to obscure corners of southeast Georgia along with our "storm team" when I worked for the newspaper on Hilton Head Island, S.C., and we were in the path of Hurricane Floyd back in '99. But I've never gotten the awful feeling of impending doom that I've gotten with the past two days' coverage of Katrina. When the word "Atlantis" gets bandied about one of our most historic and beloved cities, you know it's serious. And I mean "serious" with perspective, not "serious" as in Anderson Cooper's out there being an idiot in 70-mph winds, trying to chase down a metal sign. This is freakin' Noah's Ark territory. I'm relieved that my sister and her family have evacuated up here from tha NO, but I'm also praying that they and hundreds of thousands of others have something to go back home to. God bless to all the Louisiana folks who sought refuge up here (which apparently was a much better bet than heading west toward Houston on I-10), and may the mighty hand of Jehovah swat that big ol' storm out to sea.