[78-L] NOLA - Sights and Sounds

[Cary Ginell]

NOLA Sights and Sounds

 

Everyone at ARSC has their own impressions of New Orleans, but here are mine. I spent just about the whole time in the French Quarter; didn't get to go downtown, take a streetcar anywhere, or even catch more than a glimpse of the Mississippi. There was too much else to take in. Bourbon Street has basically descended into being one big decadent frat party. It's almost like Storyville never died - just the music changed. It's pretty empty and non-threatening during the daytime, but at night, it's what Stan Freberg called The El Sodom and the Rancho Gomorrah rolled into one. Loud, raucous music comes out of bars that have "traditional jazz" markers on their marquees. Celebrants and hookers chuck Mardi Gras beads down on strollers from the 2nd story ballustrades. It's noisy and crowded until who knows when - the street is closed to traffic at sundown and the safest place to walk without being accosted from some doorway is down the middle of the street. What's odd is that if you walk any distance away from Bourbon Street, the atmosphere dissipates instantly. None of it filters over into neighboring streets, even the cross streets are relatively tame. 

 

The rest of the French Quarter ranges from quaint and colorful to dismal and run down. Fresh coats of pastel paint give some of the residences a charming quality. I photographed a bronze plaque on the front of one of these homes, just so I could blow up the image and read it (I couldn't physically get closer because of the locked wrought-iron gates). The plaque read: "On this site in 1897, Nothing Happened." 

 

The buskers came out on Saturday and Sunday: magicians, jugglers, and all kinds of musical acts. The most interesting was a guy playing Cajun tunes on a fiddle while balancing himself on one foot on a rope suspended between two light posts. I watched him for 10 minutes and he never fell nor even switched feet, keeping up the music. 

 

In the morning, all is quiet, the shops are closed, and it was a good time to take pictures. It's funny that I didn't hear (or notice) too many Louisiana or Southern accents from the locals. 

 

I only ventured away from the Quarter to visit Frenchmen Street at night and in the daytime to see the old Roosevelt Hotel where Decca had a field session in March 1936 (it was the site of Milton Brown's last session, when he recorded 49 sides in three days). I also tried to find 327 Baronne Street, where Bunk Johnson was recorded by Jazz Man in June 1942. I found 329 Baronne, on a corner, a four-story building that could have been the site. Johnson recorded on the third floor. 

 

Although the French Quarter is still mostly quaint shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, and residences, I was glad to find that there was virtually no influx of chain stores and fast food joints. There was a Walgreen's drug store, but that was about it. Canal Street, on the western border of the quarter, is a different story. Very tourist-oriented, with IHOPs, McDonalds, and all the rest that you see everywhere in the U.S. 

 

Cary Ginell
 
 		 	   		  
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