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Literature and Art (therapeutic use of arts) Victoria

Victoria Bryan — Oct 1, 2006 - 3:29pm

The Therapeutic use of Art and Literature in New Orleans

Art and Literature Topic: Culture and Education Research Group

Victoria Bryan

Visual expression has been used for healing throughout history. By mid-20^th century, hospitals, clinics, and rehabilitation centers increasingly began to include art therapy programs along with traditional "talk therapies," underscoring the recognition that the creative process of art enhanced recovery, health, and wellness.[1] Similarly, storytelling and literature became recognized therapeutic modalities during the 20th century after centuries of therapeutic use. Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1751 and employed many ancillary treatments for mental patients, including reading, writing and publishing of their writings. [2]

This acknowledgment of art’s healing properties underpins many current arts projects in New Orleans. The Arts Council of New Orleans offers grants for individual and group arts projects, including those designed to help people recover after Katrina. The Arts Council will make $218,000 available to Orleans Parish in 2006 through three grants programs: Operating Support, Technical Assistance ($500 - $3000 grants), and Project Support ($2,000 - $6,000 grants). An example of an upcoming Arts Council-funded project is an installation planned in a 9^th Ward house, which will include interviews from local residents and provide a forum for community revitalization.

Grant-writing is a labor-intensive, risky process. When successful, grants are typically small and, at best, only cover a project’s direct costs. Of all funders whose guidelines encompass arts projects within New Orleans, The Arts Council is perhaps the best equipped to make grants which will benefit the city and its residents for they know their constituents better than any other funding source. Unfortunately, as with many regranting agencies, their resources are pitifully small. The Arts Council’s funds come from individuals, corporations, foundations, and grants from the Louisiana State Arts Council, Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Office of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and from the National Endowment for the Arts. In the 2006 annual funding cycle, $465,000 will be distributed to artists in the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines, and the Arts Council’s guidelines state that it expects most applications will receive only partial funding due to the high volume of grant requests.[3]

Many New Orleans artists want to create work that promotes the recovery of the city, and we know that the arts can heal in ways unduplicated by other modalities. There exists a strong infrastructure for selecting and managing arts and culture grants recipients, so it appears that the stage is set to effect positive change through the arts, if more resources can be generated. Instead of expecting artists and already overburdened non-profits to write more grants, the Arts Council is positioned to step up its own grantseeking and grantmaking activities significantly. If, for example, the Arts Council can increase its income tenfold in the next year, it could pass on the resources to artists who it already knows to be viable recipients. Large funding institutions will be understandably hesitant to give directly to New Orleans artists but could be persuaded by an appeal from the Arts Council to give in an area where they perhaps have never given before, or have only given small amounts. And, if not now, when would this be more likely to happen?

As of August 30, 2006, The Rockefeller Foundation has given $6.5 million to the New Orleans recovery fund for infrastructure planning and reconstruction, to be administered by the New Orleans Community Support Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation has a very significant national Arts and Culture Funding program and in one of their recent national funding initiatives, announced grants to arts organizations totaling $1 million. Two New Orleans companies were among the list of 43 recipients. Southern Repertory Theatre received $25,000 and Junebug Productions received $20,000.[4] Both companies are well established and worked extremely hard to secure those funds. Not many artists or organizations are eligible or staffed to be able to even approach a funder like the Rockefeller Foundation, yet the Foundation is an example of the many philanthropic resources that exist who are committed to funding the types of arts programs that are so needed by New Orleans. By initiating a bold, unprecedented request to sources such as The Rockefeller Foundation, The Arts Council Board and Staff are uniquely positioned to increase resources for arts programs in New Orleans, which will take their own grants programs to another level of effectiveness in the rebuilding of the city. If they maintain their current level of funding, they will continue to eke out their limited resources, losing out on the potential for the arts to create positive change in Katrina’s aftermath.

[1] The American Association of Art Therapy website: http://www.arttherapy.org

[2] The American Poetry Therapy Association: http://www.poetrytherapy.org

[3] Arts Council of New Orleans: http://www.mygroupweb.com/cgi-bin/groupweb-view.cgi?VIEW,1-5

[4] Funding information from The Rockefeller Foundation’s website: http://www.rockfound.org

Literature and Art (therapeutic use of arts) Victoria

Victoria Bryan — Oct 1, 2006 - 3:28pm

The Therapeutic use of Art and Literature in New Orleans

Art and Literature Topic: Culture and Education Research Group

Victoria Bryan

[1] The American Association of Art Therapy website: http://www.arttherapy.org

[2] The American Poetry Therapy Association: http://www.poetrytherapy.org

[3] Arts Council of New Orleans: http://www.mygroupweb.com/cgi-bin/groupweb-view.cgi?VIEW,1-5

[4] Funding information from The Rockefeller Foundation’s website: http://www.rockfound.org

Literature and Art (therapeutic use of arts) Victoria

Victoria Bryan — Oct 1, 2006 - 3:28pm

The Therapeutic use of Art and Literature in New Orleans

Art and Literature Topic: Culture and Education Research Group

Victoria Bryan

[1] The American Association of Art Therapy website: http://www.arttherapy.org

[2] The American Poetry Therapy Association: http://www.poetrytherapy.org

[3] Arts Council of New Orleans: http://www.mygroupweb.com/cgi-bin/groupweb-view.cgi?VIEW,1-5

[4] Funding information from The Rockefeller Foundation’s website: http://www.rockfound.org

Literature and Art (therapeutic use of arts) Victoria

Victoria Bryan — Oct 1, 2006 - 3:27pm

The Therapeutic use of Art and Literature in New Orleans

Art and Literature Research Repor: Culture and Education Research Group

Victoria Bryan

[1] The American Association of Art Therapy website: http://www.arttherapy.org

[2] The American Poetry Therapy Association: http://www.poetrytherapy.org

[3] Arts Council of New Orleans: http://www.mygroupweb.com/cgi-bin/groupweb-view.cgi?VIEW,1-5

[4] Funding information from The Rockefeller Foundation’s website: http://www.rockfound.org

Music Final Report

Victoria Bryan — Sep 25, 2006 - 12:01pm

Research Group: Culture and Education

Music in New Orleans

Preserving Musical Roots While Fostering New Sounds for Future Generations “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that all music came from New Orleans,” said local character Ernie K. Doe, the self-dubbed “Emperor of the Universe,” who would bristle if referred to as a one-hit wonder, but who is best known for his hit "Mother in Law." He exaggerates, but not by much. Given that the roots of jazz are found in New Orleans’ Congo Square, where first slaves and then free people of color would go on Sundays to play the rhythms of their own, suppressed culture, and that that music was heard by the nearby Storyville Madams, who brought some of those men (most notably, Jelly Roll Morton, and a very, very young Louis Armstrong) over to entertain at their houses, and that nearly all modern music sprouted off from jazz, it’s perhaps not as an audacious claim as all that.

New Orleans is a sensual city, in that it engages all of one’s senses. It’s difficult to imagine the city looking any different, smelling any different, tasting any different, and still being New Orleans. But you could almost do without any of those sooner than you could do without the sounds. Music isn’t just a tourist commodity; it’s a way of life, it’s the fabric of New Orleans. Here, little kids get trumpets and learn to revere Louis Armstrong, and then they become teenagers, and they follow along when the brass bands play, those combos that provide the soundtrack to jazz funerals and parades, heading the second line that leads from the cemetery after the former is finished, announcing the commencement of the joy that comes in the morning. As the kids get older, they tootle along with the bands a bit more seriously, and maybe they even join one, or start one. The Rebirth Brass Band was started by just such a collection of early teens, and soon grew into one of the staples of the New Orleans club scene, adding their own touches of modern funk, R&B and jazz to their roots-influenced sounds. Their nominal leader, Kermit Ruffins, split off to become one of the hardest working solo acts in the city, as Kermit regularly channels Satchmo through his trumpet and his gravely voice. In turn, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andews, grandson of Jessie Hill (who had a hit with “Ooh Poo Pah Doo”), and his brother James, products of the long time African-American Treme district (one of the most culturally rich, and poorest economically, in the city), began playing as kids, and now barely out of their teens, they have developed a style and following of their own. Kids sometimes start with the Mardi Gras Indians, who are themselves the continuation of a line of music and beats, using chants that go back two centuries, and who sometimes record with brass bands backing them. The Neville Brothers got their start in part by playing with the Wild Tchoupitoulas Mardi Gras Indians. The Indians often let little kids, who can barely bang a tambourine, much less play along in time, stand on stage and hang out, to get the feel of performing, and of the music. That’s how it is all over town; musicians play on their doorsteps, or wander down the street carrying a tuba, looking for someone to jam with. And it’s perfectly acceptable; no guy carrying a brass instrument is considered a sissy. In this way, from brother to brother, father to son, neighbor to neighbor, Marsalis to Marsalis, Neville to Neville, tradition is passed along.

Historical Considerations: Why New Orleans is Important to Music In order to keep the historic spirit of jazz fully alive, it is necessary to keep New Orleans and its rich music tradition alive. The city is inextricably linked with jazz—the rhythmic, varied, colorful, expressive, and often improvisatory style which was born in the city. As a historic center for jazz, New Orleans is unprecedented in the world. For musicians, visiting or playing in a historic place where specific music was created and performed is often a multi-layered, inspiring learning experience. Classical musicians travel from all over the world to visit cities like Vienna, Paris, and Venice. What these cities are to classical music, New Orleans is to jazz. Music is a form of communication that embodies some of the most important concepts about life and cultures. These cities help keep their music alive in the hearts of audiences and artists and also help answer specific questions about performance issues such as venue acoustics, cultural settings, and parallel artistic styles. In order to more fully understand music, it is necessary to understand the place, time, and society in which it was created. Historic places such as New Orleans, places where artists worked under specific environmental and cultural conditions, cannot be duplicated elsewhere. Some Historical Background About New Orleans MusiciansThe city of New Orleans contained many musicians who competed with each other. This in itself probably aided in jazz development. Grove Music Online paints a vivid musical picture: Many early black jazz musicians received their musical training in the various black brass bands that paraded for social and religious occasions, such as funerals, while others began in the ‘string bands’: small ensembles with violins and double bass, which played for dancing. Thus, the first recognized ‘jazz’ band, led by the legendary cornettist Buddy Bolden [1877-1971], was a combination of both these sources, playing a repertory of written marches and freely improvised blues and ragtime themes. Bolden's powerful playing, colourful personality and popularity earned him the title of ‘king’ and established a highly competitive spirit among New Orleans musicians, particularly cornet players. Early jazz bands often challenged each other to musical duels when touring the city on open wagons to advertise a function. Later cornet ‘kings’ included Freddie Keppard, King Oliver and Kid René, along with other notable cornettists such as Buddy Petit, Chris Kelly, Mutt Carey, Bunk Johnson and, of course, Louis Armstrong. Their expressive, almost vocal tones, harmonies around a written lead and use of mutes created a distinctive style that was identified with the city [[1]]. The Crescent City was and is the home of many world class musicians. An example of such a person is one whose name is literally synonymous with the birth of jazz: Louis Armstrong. He was born in New Orleans. As stated in Grove Music Online, “Almost all aspects of jazz technique and style, whether played or sung, were influenced directly by Armstrong’s innovations of the 1920s” [[2]]. Armstrong was artistically inspired by his environment early in his life. Grove Music Online states that, “[…]the family lived in poverty in New Orleans, near the saloons and dance halls whose music, along with what he heard and sang in church, was his first musical influence”[[3]]. Armstrong’s friend and early teacher, the one who also gave him his first cornet, was Joe ‘King’ Oliver (1838-1938) [[4]]. Joe ‘King’ Oliver, as stated by Grove Online, “From about 1909 […] played in brass bands and dance bands and in various small groups in New Orleans bars and cabarets […]” [[5]]. Armstrong left New Orleans so that he could play in ‘King’ Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens, Chicago [[6]]. Grove Online says that Armstrong, “[…] maintained that he would have left New Orleans for no-one else […]” [[7]]. New Orleans as a Center for Music Innovation Understandably, then, in virtually every discussion of New Orleans’ post-Katrina future, the word “preservation” is certain to be heard perhaps more than any other. However, it is easy to ignore, in all the talk about ensuring that New Orleans does not lose its soul, the very real possibility that the city might be failing to gain quite a lot: specifically, a continually vital role in the evolution of art forms it originally gave to the world. Nearly a century after the first records by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, New Orleans remains virtually the only city that continues to spawn professional level Dixieland groups and brass bands. And by no means has the Dixieland tradition remained static: the incorporation of soul and hip hop into the music by groups such as the Rebirth and Dirty Dozen Brass Bands testifies to the continuing vitality and flexibility of this original style of jazz. Still, in many ways, the city hasn't been a hub of jazz origination since Louis Armstrong left town. From that point on, successive stylistic breakthroughs, from the Swing Era through Kansas City, Bebop, Cool the Third Stream, all the way through to Free, passed New Orleans by. Even more worrisome, New Orleans didn’t seem to care that much. For example, Kidd Jordan, arguably the city’s only major contribution to the Free Jazz movement, often speaks of having been forced to relocate to Chicago in order to find gigs performing the kind of music he wanted to play (he has now returned to his birth city as a professor at Southern University). Likewise, forward-looking but mainstream musicians such as Terence Blanchard and Branford Marsalis ply their trade elsewhere. Why has New Orleans failed to keep pace as a city jazz lovers turn to for clues on the future identity of the music? Unfortunately, many of its most prominent musicians have notoriously belittled newer musical movements that proved to be anything but “passing fancies.” While it is certainly wonderful that children in New Orleans continue to idolize Louis Armstrong, his dismissal of bebop, the first major stylistic revolution in jazz in which Satchmo was not personally involved, seems to have set a regretful tone of aloofness that persists to this day in the Crescent City: “Well, you oughta know, pops, you’ve been around long enough. Look at the legit composers always going back to folk tunes, the simple things, where it all comes from. So they’ll come back to us when all the shouting about bop and science is over, because they can’t make up their own tunes, and all they can do is embroider it so much you can’t see the design no more…It can’t last. They always say “Jazz is dead” and then they always come back to jazz.” (“‘Bop Will Kill Business Unless It Kills Itself First’ – Louis Armstrong,” Down Beat, April 7, 1948, pp.2-3)

Sixty years after Armstrong’s comment quoted above, virtually no aspiring jazz musicians from other parts of the country view New Orleans as the city to hone their craft or test their mettle. The irony could not be more clear: Jazz was born in New Orleans precisely because the city was open to sounds coming in form elsewhere. Nowhere else could African and Latin rhythms blend with French fanfares and the instrumental virtuosity Creoles had picked up in the concert hall. It is therefore all the more tragic that the city has proven itself so closed to ideas of jazz emanating from other corners of the world.

Beyond taking the obvious steps to ensure that the New Orleans jazz scene is preserved, while also striving to make it an inclusive catalyst for innovation, it is also essential that cultural and municipal stakeholders embrace other musical genres as they conceptualize the new sounds of the Crescent City. While the focus on preserving the jazz tradition is certainly understandable, it is unfortunate that newer musical forms also conceived in New Orleans, such as “bounce” and other Southern hip-hop infused styles, have largely been ignored. While jazz may tell New Orleans’ storied history, hip-hop chronicles the tales of the city’s mean streets in a manner that not even jazz can replicate. Out of the Crescent City’s notorious ghettos have emerged such stars as Lil Wayne, Master P, Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, B. G., Mystikal and many others. Though some elitists may be quick to dismiss the merit of interfacing jazz with hip-hop (or other seemingly disparate genres) more open-minded musicologists would be quick to point out the obvious evolutionary links from one musical tradition to the next. Consider the “brass bands in the synthesizers, drum lines in the rattling beats, Mardi Gras Indians in the sing-song lyrics” [8] that modern-day hip-hop artists fuse into their songs—a veritable passing of the musical torch from one genre to another. With these thoughts in mind, it seems clear that any discussion about the future of New Orleans music should contemplate the links between its legacy music—namely jazz—and its intentional and unintentional offspring. 8. K. Sanneh. New York Times, April 23, 2006 Music, a Major Part of the City’s Economy Music remains vital for the city economically as well as historically and socially. With few major corporations calling New Orleans home, tourism is the lifeblood of the city’s economy. Anchoring the tourism industry, the twin attractions of music and food are often the primary reason for visitors to make the trip to the Crescent City. Pre-Katrina, in 2004, tourism brought 10.1 million visitors to New Orleans, where they spent $4.9 million. Post-Katrina, business owners estimate that only 30% of those tourists have come back to the city [[8]] . During 2006, it has been the major, music-based events that have drawn visitors to New Orleans. The 23^rd Annual French Quarter Festival, April 21-23, offered 250 hours of free entertainment featuring more than 150 musical performances on fifteen stages, nearly 60 food and beverage booths, the "World's Largest Jazz Brunch." New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, April 28 to May 7, welcomed in excess of 350,000 attendees and more than 350 music acts—including Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Fats Domino, Irma Thomas and Pete Fountain. The sixth annual Satchmo SummerFest, August 3-6, dedicated to the memory of Louis Armstrong, was moved from its original U.S. Mint venue, due to storm damage, but played successfully on its new French Market stages [[9]].

Most of the musicians who play at the large events are imported, but, if music-based tourism is to continue its rebirth, festivals, clubs, restaurants, and other local venues need access to the key resource – locally available musicians. In January, 2006, the Mayor's Bring New Orleans Back Commission estimated that fewer than 10 percent of the city's musicians had returned [[10]]. Marquee names such as Aaron and Cyril Neville and Henry Butler moved away, along with scores of lesser-known musicians who previously populated stages from Bourbon Street to Oak Street.

Housing for Musicians

Consequently, there has to be a dual effort with regards to the city's music scene; preservation and generation. Musicians, old and new, first and foremost, have to come back. Gigs aren't a problem; most clubs have reopened, but with limited hours, as they do not have enough performers to fill bills 24/7. The major stumbling block is housing. Habitat for Humanity, working with Harry Connick Jr., and Branford Marsalis, honorary chairs of Operation Home Delivery, are seeking to change this through plans to build a Musicians' Village. Conceived by Connick and Marsalis, the village will consist of 81 Habitat-constructed homes for displaced New Orleans musicians. Its centerpiece will be the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, dedicated to the education and development of homeowners and others who will live nearby. On January 9, 2006, the project acquired eight acres of land in the Upper 9th Ward where the Musicians' Village will be located. In addition to the homes in the tract, plans call for building at least 150 other homes in the surrounding area [[11]]. Although construction of housing is well underway, by July 30, 2006, only six musicians had qualified to move in because of problems with the Habitat for Humanity-required credit check and income verification needed to secure a no-interest loan on each house[12]. With, at best, freelance gigs, musicians are not an easy fit with standardized measures of financial stability. Habitat, then, while justly lauded for its overall efforts, must be encouraged to reconfigure its usual model to fit the needs of this particular group. Further, many of these same musicians lost their instruments to the flood. Groups like the Tipitiana Foundation (www.tipitinasfoundation.org) are dedicated to getting instruments back in the hands of musicians and public school children alike, but as a non-profit, it is only as successful as the size of its funding. Finally, city government must demonstrate its own awareness of the crucial role music plays in the cultural and economic fabric, and prevent such blunders as certain past attempts to limit the street musicians in the Quarter, a move that would snuff out a tradition as old as the Quarter itself.

Decisions that Need to be Made: Ways to Keep New Orleans Music Alive But that addresses preservation. Indeed, as cultural tourism will continue to play a large role in New Orleans’ recovery, the city must ensure that it draws visitors who seek not only to experience the city’s past, but also to witness the kind of unpredictability and musical innovation they know they can find in New York and Los Angeles. How, then, can such a sense of experimentation be instilled not instead of New Orleans’ deep sense of tradition, but as a natural extension of it? An obvious step would be in the creation of a new conservatory in the city, one with a range of professors specializing in a wide range of musical genres ranging from classical to jazz to rock to hip-hop. There are plans for a $120 million National Jazz Center, as part of a $715 million renovation and reconstruction plan for the Hyatt Jazz District, spearheaded by Strategic Hotels (whose Hyatt was the hotel that sustained the worst damage from Katrina), which will include, in addition to office space and parks, performance spaces and a jazz archive, a 60,000 square foot education space for children. (http://www.thenojo.com/news/story.cfm?ID=11) But this ambitious project is years away from groundbreaking, much less taking active form. A more practical, and perhaps even immediate, model can be seen in the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. Founded in Los Angeles in 2001 by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, this non-profit offers scholarships, fee music lessons and instruments to qualifying young people, but also is open to adult students as well, and provides lessons in everything from classical piano to jazz trumpet to rock guitar and even theramin. A similar establishment in New Orleans would likely attract an even larger pool of musicians, both to help fund it and to offer instruction. Such an institution could either be created from scratch, or, perhaps, as an affiliate of already prestigious institutions such as Juilliard or Thornton, which could relocate to the Crescent City their programs in improvised musical forms. New Orleans would be seen by young musicians from all over the country as a city where they could not only master very specific folk forms from a bygone era of American history, but also meet their forward-thinking peers from all over the world. And when those students ventured out into the city for nighttime gigs, the possibilities of cross-fertilization would be endless. Such a school could be situated in abandoned buildings in or around the neighborhoods in the city where jazz was born; though few of the major landmarks from the great era of jazz still remain, the Eagle Saloon at 401-403 South Rampart (a major gathering spot for the jazz musicians who played at the Odd Fellows Ballroom on the third floor), the African-American Iroquois Theater (413-415 South Rampart) and Karnofsky’s Store (427 S. Rampart) where Louis Armstrong worked as a boy, are still standing, and awaiting such refurbishment. There had been plans to utilize these buildings in the past (http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20020422p) but momentum never got going. This area is adjacent to the proposed Hyatt Jazz District, and as such, could link up tidily should that plan be actualized. The time seems right for such a move, which would send a clear symbolic message that the Crescent City’s homegrown music was coming back, as it were, to revitalize the city through its own artistic progress. Faculty could be drawn both from local masters and the music’s national and international heavyweights. While the former would give the school legitimacy and prevent it from being seen within the city as a “foreign institution,” the latter would help attract aspiring musicians from around the world who otherwise would have pursued their formal training at the more established East Coast academies. Recruiting “stars” from around the country would hardly be difficult, since virtually all jazz musicians would leap at the chance to play a role in the renaissance of the city where their art form was born. The free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd, for example, who began his career in a Dixieland ensemble at Yale University, would probably relish the opportunity to instruct up-and-coming musicians in the earliest roots of their modern, avant-garde music. The same is true for Dutch percussionist Han Bennink, who, though known for his renegade assault of the trap kit, also famously cites Baby Dodds’ “Talking and Drum Solos” as his favorite jazz record. Young musicians who might have otherwise passed New Orleans by or visited simply to witness what once was, will instead be tempted to begin their careers and prove themselves in the clubs of the Crescent City, rather than the Big Apple. Music Cost-Benefit Analysis and Ethics Rebuilding Project: The creation of a conservatory in New Orleans that would provide opportunities for young musicians to learn and master their art, with the long-range goal of preserving New Orleans’ musical heritage while simultaneously opening the city’s musicians to outside influences. Assumptions:

The participation of New Orleans musicians, who have a long history of informal training, as both students and faculty.
The cooperation of owners and managers of venues.
The ability to raise the funds needed to make this venture possible, including both the cost of the conservatory and the scholarships and other financial assistance needed to make the school affordable for even the most economically challenged demographic in the city.

Constraints:

Many New Orleans musicians lost their homes, instruments, and other gear and equipment after Katrina. Before committing to the projected conservatory as students or teachers, the most basic needs of the musicians must be met.
With many of the city’s music venues closed or damaged places for students and faculty to meet are necessary. At least initially the conservatory will not be housed in permanent facilities but will meet at different local venues.

Feasible Alternatives:

The Silverlake Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles presents a potential financial model that does not rely on government or corporate funding. A single wealthy individual or small group of wealthy individuals may be persuaded to offset initial start-up cost or endow scholarships.

To avoid overhead expenses, the conservatory could begin by meeting in existing music venues, studios, churches, and even homes.
An existing conservatory may be persuaded to subsidize the New Orleans conservatory.

Cost Analysis: Non-recurring Costs:

Assisting potential faculty in relocating to New Orleans
Repair and replacement of instruments for instructors

Recurring Costs:

Compensation of faculty
Scholarships and support for students in need
Compensation of owners of facilities where classes are held
Travel and lodging expenses for visiting faculty
Advertising and Recruitment

Tangible Benefits:

Increased regular professional (paid teaching) jobs for musicians in New Orleans, which will allow them to return to the city and live there
Expanded market of music students who will choose New Orleans as the place to study
Replacement of musicians who have permanently relocated by younger musicians
Increased tourism by helping refill New Orleans’ streets, bars, and restaurants with music
Increased employment and revenue for New Orleans residents through ancillary services for the conservatory: administration, facilities management, housing, food, instrument purchase and repair. Although modest at first, revenue will grow to keep pace with the expanding conservatory

Intangible Benefits:

Preservation of cultural heritage
Creation of a musical renaissance by cross-fertilization of styles
Return of musicians who have left the city to work in places such as Chicago and New York

Comparison of Costs and Benefits:

If one or more benefactors agree to cover start-up costs, the conservatory should be financially feasible in its early years as a “virtual” conservatory using existing venues. Once a reputation is earned, the school will be expected to support itself through student tuition and traditional fundraising.
Tangible benefits, including the return of tourist dollars to the city and work for musicians, are overshadowed by the intangible benefits of returning to New Orleans a culture and reputation as a city of musical progress and cross-fertilization of styles and genres.
Low start-up costs and the intangible benefits are primary factors in our belief that a music conservatory is a feasible proposition for New Orleans.

Ethical Considerations: It is our belief that the reputation of New Orleans as a center for good music is far more meaningful and important than the role it plays as a tourist magnet. From the Mardi Gras Indians to jazz funerals, Louis Armstrong to Terence Blanchard, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival to street corner saxophonists and the emerging hip-hop scene, music is an intrinsic and fundamental element of the city’s cultural and ethnic identity. To allow that identity to be lost or transformed beyond recognition through an unwillingness to protect it would be unconscionable. The city’s current and future musicians should be given the tools and knowledge they need to continue and expand what is not only a primary facet of their own heritage but an internationally recognized American contribution to art. The New Orleans musicians who left the city after Katrina include players from across the spectrum of reputation and experience. In developing mechanisms for musician support, employment, and input into the rebuilding process, it is important to seek diverse response and not limit the interaction to well-established, successful musicians. This diversity will be key to meeting the goals of economic rebuilding through increased tourism, as well as preservation of New Orleans’ unique culture, without sacrificing one for the other. Without careful consideration, the drive towards economic re-growth will outweigh the less tangible benefits of authentic cultural preservation and musical renaissance. New Orleans’ success as a tourist destination has been built, at least partly, on the skill and heart of the city’s musicians. Even successful musicians typically work freelance, from gig to gig, making it difficult for them to access a system that often uses permanent employment as a prerequisite for benefits, such as loans, housing, and subsidy. In order to serve the stated beneficiaries of support programs for New Orleans’ musicians, it will be necessary to reengineer the bureaucratic framework of the programs so they don’t preclude the people they are intended to help, or require them to change who they are and what they do in order to fit guidelines for support.

[1]. John Joyce. “New Orleans”. Grove Music Online. Ed. L. Macy (accessed September 16, 2006).

[2]. James Dapongny. “Armstrong, Louis”. Grove Music Online. Ed. L. Macy (accessed September 16, 2006).

[3]. James Dapongny. “Armstrong, Louis”.

[4]. Ibid.

[5]. Lawrence Gushee. “Oliver, King”. Grove Music Online. Ed. L. Macy (accessed September 16, 2006).

[6]. James Dapongny. “Armstrong, Louis”.

[7]. Ibid.

9. Russell McCulley, “Will Bourbon Street Bring the Tourist Back to New Orleans?”, Time Magazine, August 26, 2006.

10. September 2006 - New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau Issues State of the City Report, available online: http://www.neworleanscvb.com/articles/index.cfm/action/view/articleID/640/typeID/1.

11. Available online at: http://bringneworleansback.org/.

12. Habitat for Humanity: http://www.habitat-nola.org/projects/musicians_village.php.

13. WWOZ Street Talk, cultural news service: http://wwozstreettalk.blogspot.com/2006/07/habitat-for-humanitys-musicians.html.

Jonathan Matz Music draft Sept 21 10 45pm

Victoria Bryan — Sep 22, 2006 - 10:15am

In virtually every discussion of New Orleans’ post-Katrina future, the word “preservation” is certain to be heard perhaps more than any other. The cultural history of the Crescent City is unassailable, and the country would indisputably lose one of its last real connections to its past were grand public works and futuristic architecture to so dominate the rebuilding of New Orleans that the oldest neighborhoods be turned into quaint relics. However, it is easy to ignore, in all the talk about ensuring that New Orleans does not lose its soul, the very real possibility that the Big Easy might be failing to gain quite a lot: specifically, a continually vital role in the evolution of art forms it originally gave to the world.

Culinary students notwithstanding, few would dispute that New Orleans’ greatest contribution to world culture is the music known as jazz. The instrumental and vocal styling of Louis Armstrong had reverberations in the classical realm and laid the foundations for Rock and Roll and even the syncopated rhythms of Hip Hop. Indeed, nearly a century after the first records by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, New Orleans remains virtually the only city that continues to spawn professional level Dixieland groups and brass bands. And by no means has the Dixieland tradition remained static: the incorporation of soul and hip hop into the music by groups such as the Rebirth and Dirty Dozen Brass Bands testifies to the continuing vitality and flexibility of this original style of jazz.

Still, talk of maintaining New Orleans as a world jazz hub only begs the question of why, in many ways, the Big Easy hasn’t actually been one since Louis Armstrong sailed upriver and introduced the world to jazz…from his newfound hubs in Chicago and New York. From that point on, successive stylistic breakthroughs, from the Swing Era through Kansas City, Bebop, Cool the Third Stream, all the way through to Free, passed New Orleans by. Even more worrisome, New Orleans didn’t seem to care that much. For example, Kidd Jordan, arguably the city’s only major contribution to the Free Jazz movement, often speaks of having been forced to relocate to Chicago in order to find gigs performing the kind of music he wanted to play (he has now returned to his birth city as a professor at Southern University.) Likewise, forward-looking but mainstream musicians such as Terence Blanchard and Branford Marsalis ply their trade elsewhere.

Why has New Orleans failed to keep pace as a city jazz lovers turn to for clues on the future identity of the music? Unfortunately, many of its most prominent musicians have notoriously belittled newer musical movements that proved to be anything but “passing fancies.” While it is certainly wonderful that children in New Orleans continue to idolize Louis Armstrong, his dismissal of bebop, the first major stylistic revolution in jazz in which Satchmo was not personally involved, seems to have set a regretful tone of aloofness that persists to this day in the Crescent City:

“Well, you oughta know, pops, you’ve been around long enough. Look at the legit composers always going back to folk tunes, the simple things, where it all comes from. So they’ll come back to us when all the shouting about bop and science is over, because they can’t make up their own tunes, and all they can do is embroider it so much you can’t see the design no more…It can’t last. They always say “Jazz is dead” and then they always come back to jazz.” (“‘Bop Will Kill Business Unless It Kills Itself First’ – Louis Armstrong,” Down Beat, April 7, 1948, pp.2-3)

Sixty years after Armstrong’s comment quoted above, not only is Charlie Parker still revered, but the innovations of bebop have themselves been used as material for further experiments and breakthroughs. Much well deserved praise is heaped on New Orleans’ century-old tradition of passing down its musical traditions from generation to generation. Yet often left unsaid is the fact that virtually no aspiring jazz musicians from other parts of the country view New Orleans as the city to hone their craft or test their mettle. The irony could not be more clear: Jazz was born in New Orleans precisely because the city was open to sounds coming in form elsewhere. Nowhere else could African and Latin rhythms blend with French fanfares and the instrumental virtuosity Creoles had picked up in the concert hall. It is therefore all the more tragic that the city has proven itself so closed to ideas of jazz emanating from other corners of the world. It is not difficult, moreover, to understand the symbolic importance of this failure to embrace virtually every post-war jazz form: whereas New Orleans was once rivaled only by New York as a magnet for immigration, long gone are the times when strivers from around the world and country settled in the Crescent City to stake their chances on a better future. Indeed, while cultural tourism will undoubtedly play a vital role in New Orleans’ recovery, the city must ensure that it draws visitors who seek not only to experience the city’s past, but also to witness the kind of unpredictability and musical innovation they know they can find in New York and Los Angeles. How, then, can such a sense of experimentation be instilled not instead of New Orleans’ deep sense of tradition, but as a natural extension of it? An obvious step would be in the creation of a new conservatory in the city, one with a range of professors specializing in all forms of classical, jazz and Latin music. Such an institution could either be created from scratch, or, perhaps, as an affiliate of already prestigious institutions such as Juilliard or Thornton, which could relocate to the Crescent City their programs in improvised musical forms. New Orleans would suddenly be seen by young musicians from all over the country as a city where they could not only master very specific folk forms from a bygone era of American history, but also meet their forward-thinking peers from all over the world. And when those students ventured out into the city for nighttime gigs, the possibilities of cross-fertilization would be endless. Such a school could be situated in abandoned buildings in or around the neighborhoods in the city where jazz was born [Mary, insert here the buildings you were talking about in class]; such a move would send a clear symbolic message that the Crescent City’s homegrown music was coming back, as it were, to revitalize the city through its own artistic progress. Faculty could be drawn both from local masters and the music’s national and international heavyweights. While the former would give the school legitimacy and prevent it from being seen within the city as a “foreign institution”, the latter would help attract aspiring musicians from around the world who otherwise would have pursued their formal training at the more established East Coast academies. Recruiting “stars” from around the country would hardly be difficult, since virtually all jazz musicians would leap at the chance to play a role in the renaissance of the city where their art form was born. The free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd, for example, who began his career in a Dixieland ensemble at Yale University, would probably relish the opportunity to instruct up-and-coming musicians in the earliest roots of their modern, avant-garde music. The same is true for Dutch percussionist Han Bennink, who, though known for his renegade assault of the trap kit, also famously cites Baby Dodds’ “Talking and Drum Solos” as his favorite jazz record. Young musicians who might have otherwise passed New Orleans by or visited simply to witness what once was, will instead be tempted to begin their careers and prove themselves in the clubs of the Big Easy, rather than the Big Apple.

Music Tourism and Marketing notes

Victoria Bryan — Sep 15, 2006 - 4:38pm

With few major corporations calling New Orleans home, tourism is the lifeblood of the city’s economy. Anchoring the tourism industry, the twin attractions of music and food are often the primary reason for visitors to make the trip to the Crescent City. Pre-Katrina, in 2004, tourism brought 10.1 million visitors to New Orleans, where they spent $4.9 million. Post-Katrina, business owners estimate that only 30% of those tourists have come back to the city.[1]

During 2006, it has been the major, music-based events that have drawn visitors to New Orleans. Mardi Gras 2006 drew approximately 700,000 revelers. The 23^rd Annual French Quarter Festival, April 21 – 23, offered 250 hours of free entertainment featuring more than 150 musical performances on fifteen stages, nearly 60 food and beverage booths, the "World's Largest Jazz Brunch." New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, April 28 to May 7, welcomed over 350,000 attendees and more than 350 music acts - including Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Fats Domino, Irma Thomas and Pete Fountain. The sixth annual Satchmo SummerFest, August 3-6, dedicated to the memory of Louis Armstrong, was moved from its original US Mint venue, due to storm damage, but played successfully on its new French Market stages.[2]

Most of the musicians who play at the large events are imported but if music-based tourism is to continue its rebirth, festivals, clubs, restaurants, and other local venues need access to the key resource – locally available musicians. In January, 2006, the Mayor's Bring New Orleans Back Commission estimated that fewer than 10 percent of the city's musicians had returned.[3] Marquee names such as Aaron and Cyril Neville and Henry Butler moved away, along with scores of lesser-known musicians who previously populated stages from Bourbon Street to Oak Street.

Habitat for Humanity, working with Harry Connick Jr., and Branford Marsalis, honorary chairs of Operation Home Delivery, are seeking to change this through plans to build a Musicians' Village, conceived by Connick and Marsalis, which will consist of 81 Habitat-constructed homes for displaced New Orleans musicians. Its centerpiece will be the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, dedicated to the education and development of homeowners and others who will live nearby. On January 9, 2006 the project acquired eight acres of land in the Upper 9th Ward where the Musicians' Village will be located. In addition to the homes in the tract, plans call for building at least 150 other homes in the surrounding area.[4] Although construction of housing is well underway, by July 30, 2006 only 6 musicians had qualified to move in because of problems with the Habitat for Humanity-required credit check and income verification needed to secure a no-interest loan on each house.[5] With, at best, free-lance gigs, musicians are not an easy fit with standardized measures of financial stability.

[1] Russell McCulley, “Will Bourbon Street Bring the Tourist Back to New Orleans?”, Time Magazine, August 26, 2006.

[2] September 2006 - New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau Issues State of the City Report, available online: http://www.neworleanscvb.com/articles/index.cfm/action/view/articleID/640/typeID/1

[3] Available online at: http://bringneworleansback.org/

[4] Habitat for Humanity: http://www.habitat-nola.org/projects/musicians_village.php

[5] WWOZ Street Talk, cultural news service: http://wwozstreettalk.blogspot.com/2006/07/habitat-for-humanitys-musicians.html

Media and Communications Cost Benefit Analysis and Ethical Choices

Victoria Bryan — Sep 12, 2006 - 1:43pm

Media and Communications Cost Benefit Analysis

Rebuilding Project: Wi-Fi communication system and access to technology needs to be made available to residents, businesses, and institutions in New Orleans

Assumptions: This analysis is based on Mayor Nagin’s November 2005 pledge to provide free Wi-Fi to the city. The system is being built on an existing Tropos metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh network originally used for city functions, including police surveillance. Part of the network will be secured so that it can be used exclusively by the city to provide communications for municipal agencies like police, fire, and building inspection departments. The additional bandwidth on the network will be opened to the public to provide free Internet access to all citizens. In addition to Internet access, the system will also be able to deliver phone service, local media access (newspaper, television, radio), national, state and city information/services, and access to voting for the New Orleans diaspora.

Constraints:

Phone companies, such as BellSouth, are fighting the plan, invoking laws that limit municipalities’ abilities to offer free Wi-Fi service, except in a state of emergency. These legal issues will need to be addressed or an agreement must be reached with a commercial provider.
In the event of power failure, alternative power sources are needed to keep the system running during an emergency.

Conditions:

In order for Wi-Fi to be useful in New Orleans’ recovery, the digital divide must be bridged. Potential users of the system will need access to free equipment and training, and, in some cases, a warm invitation to join the online community.
To insure maximum beneficial use of the system, a commission will be convened with representative stakeholders from throughout the city. This group will develop the long-term strategic plan for on-going use of the Wi-Fi system by New Orleans residents, groups, and institutions, during the second and subsequent years of the program. The communications plan will address not only the immediate needs of recovery after Katrina, but also seek to address problems of education, poverty, housing, and inequality that existed long before Katrina.

Cost Analysis:

Nonrecurring Costs

· Tropos system completion to cover whole city

· Development of back-up power source for emergency use

· Legal costs: defense against phone company litigation to prevent delivery of free Wi-Fi.

· Integration of phone, local media, and government services, including elections, into the system

· Purchase hardware

Recurring costs

· System operation and maintenance

· Development of on-line sites to facilitate communication for and provide services to New Orleans residents, both resident and dispersed

· Identification and development of community sites for computer access: schools, libraries, churches, colleges, community centers, etc.

· Hardware and software maintenance

· Outreach to potential users

· Training for users

· Supplies

· Convene commission for strategic planning process

Benefit Analysis

Tangible Benefits	cost of government will be simplified and reduced improved computer skills for workers and students economic recovery will be spurred the digital divide will be diminished improved emergency information and response system dispersed residents will be included in elections and rebuilding decisions
Intangible Benefits	families and communities will be rebuilt a more inclusive, more complex history will be told more diverse voices will contribute to the rebuilding process improved psychological health improved accountability in news reporting

Comparison of costs and benefits:

The major nonrecurring costs of developing a free, city-wide Wi-Fi system are significantly reduced by using the Tropos system that already exists in New Orleans. The city had invested in the hardware and planned to support the maintenance of the system for its own police surveillance program, so the benefits of expanding the system to offer an infrastructure to the recovery process appear to outweigh the costs.

Similarly, the system can build on existing community sites to develop a comprehensive network of access to computers for residents. Libraries, schools, colleges, and other community sites (with or without existing computer banks) can be integrated into the citywide access system.

The cost of settling litigation with the phone companies that object to New Orleans’ plan to offer free Wi-Fi service will be an incremental expense of the proposed plan. If the city believes that this cost outweighs the benefit of administering the system internally, it may be mitigated through an agreement with a phone company to provide some part of the services. In that case, the city would incur an additional cost if they subsidize the phone company’s fees in order to continue to provide the service at no cost to residents.

Ethical Choices: Media and Communications

As headlines turned rumors into facts, news reporting during Katrina exposed the dangers of reporting stories that were not substantiated before going to press. Providing accurate coverage of the New Orleans rebuilding process is a daunting task for even the most talented and principled media professionals. Untangling the web of agendas and concerns, which have ensnared so many New Orleans rebuilding efforts thus far, is, indeed, essential to ensuring that the Crescent City is rebuilt in the most equitable and thoughtful fashion possible. And that’s where the Fourth Estate—a new 21^st century breed of multimedia professionals—is morally obligated to give voices to the voiceless while fishing Red Herrings and obvious conflicts of interest out of the diverse gumbo of powerful stakeholders and powerless citizens seeking to retool and restore their New Orleans.

More than half of the previous residents of New Orleans have not returned back to the city after Katrina. Many of those dispersed by the storm are poor and African American, making New Orleans demographically a whiter, wealthier, and some are suggesting, a more Republican city. Should the voices of dispersed residents be heard in the rebuilding process? How can that be accomplished?

Who is to be responsible for running the communications system, including Wi-Fi?

There is heated discussion of whether the city’s Wi-Fi should be run by either the mayor’s office or by a commercial broadband provider. If New Orleans is to reinvent itself through a digital support system, all stakeholders in the city must be vested in the new infrastructure. A coalition of leaders drawn from neighborhood organizations, business, local, state, and federal government, health, education, communications, and the media will need to form a multivalent structure to develop and administer the Wi-Fi network and address the questions of use and access for all residents, across the digital divide.

Media and Communications Cost Benefit Analysis and Ethical Choices

Victoria Bryan — Sep 12, 2006 - 1:43pm

Media and Communications Cost Benefit Analysis

Rebuilding Project: Wi-Fi communication system and access to technology needs to be made available to residents, businesses, and institutions in New Orleans

Constraints:

Phone companies, such as BellSouth, are fighting the plan, invoking laws that limit municipalities’ abilities to offer free Wi-Fi service, except in a state of emergency. These legal issues will need to be addressed or an agreement must be reached with a commercial provider.
In the event of power failure, alternative power sources are needed to keep the system running during an emergency.

Conditions:

In order for Wi-Fi to be useful in New Orleans’ recovery, the digital divide must be bridged. Potential users of the system will need access to free equipment and training, and, in some cases, a warm invitation to join the online community.
To insure maximum beneficial use of the system, a commission will be convened with representative stakeholders from throughout the city. This group will develop the long-term strategic plan for on-going use of the Wi-Fi system by New Orleans residents, groups, and institutions, during the second and subsequent years of the program. The communications plan will address not only the immediate needs of recovery after Katrina, but also seek to address problems of education, poverty, housing, and inequality that existed long before Katrina.

Cost Analysis:

Nonrecurring Costs

· Tropos system completion to cover whole city

· Development of back-up power source for emergency use

· Legal costs: defense against phone company litigation to prevent delivery of free Wi-Fi.

· Integration of phone, local media, and government services, including elections, into the system

· Purchase hardware

Recurring costs

· System operation and maintenance

· Development of on-line sites to facilitate communication for and provide services to New Orleans residents, both resident and dispersed

· Identification and development of community sites for computer access: schools, libraries, churches, colleges, community centers, etc.

· Hardware and software maintenance

· Outreach to potential users

· Training for users

· Supplies

· Convene commission for strategic planning process

Benefit Analysis

Tangible Benefits	cost of government will be simplified and reduced improved computer skills for workers and students economic recovery will be spurred the digital divide will be diminished improved emergency information and response system dispersed residents will be included in elections and rebuilding decisions
Intangible Benefits	families and communities will be rebuilt a more inclusive, more complex history will be told more diverse voices will contribute to the rebuilding process improved psychological health improved accountability in news reporting

Comparison of costs and benefits:

The major nonrecurring costs of developing a free, city-wide Wi-Fi system are significantly reduced by using the Tropos system that already exists in New Orleans. The city had invested in the hardware and planned to support the maintenance of the system for its own police surveillance program, so the benefits of expanding the system to offer an infrastructure to the recovery process appear to outweigh the costs.

Similarly, the system can build on existing community sites to develop a comprehensive network of access to computers for residents. Libraries, schools, colleges, and other community sites (with or without existing computer banks) can be integrated into the citywide access system.

The cost of settling litigation with the phone companies that object to New Orleans’ plan to offer free Wi-Fi service will be an incremental expense of the proposed plan. If the city believes that this cost outweighs the benefit of administering the system internally, it may be mitigated through an agreement with a phone company to provide some part of the services. In that case, the city would incur an additional cost if they subsidize the phone company’s fees in order to continue to provide the service at no cost to residents.

Ethical Choices: Media and Communications

Who is to be responsible for running the communications system, including Wi-Fi?

Media Communications Draft 1

Victoria Bryan — Sep 10, 2006 - 7:36am

A Multivalent Media Solution To Foster A More Functional Rebuilding Process In The Crescent City

Providing accurate coverage of the New Orleans rebuilding process is a daunting task for even the most talented and principled media professionals. Competing issues and storylines run the gamut from racial and political representation to economic and social justice to urban and environmental sustainability issues. Untangling that web of agendas and concerns, which have ensnared so many New Orleans rebuilding efforts thus far, is, indeed, essential to ensuring that the Crescent City is rebuilt in the most equitable and thoughtful fashion possible. And that’s where the Fourth Estate—a new 21^st century breed of multimedia professionals—is morally obligated to give voices to the voiceless while fishing Red Herrings and obvious conflicts of interest out of the diverse gumbo of powerful stakeholders and powerless citizens seeking to retool and restore their New Orleans.

The Un-representational Rub

There is widespread agreement that New Orleans should be rebuilt in a manner that honors its cultural roots, which drive deep into the American pantheon of art and ideas. And who should be responsible for making the many decisions to direct such a process? The answer may, at first blush, seem obvious. An individual unfamiliar with the well documented political and social upheavals occurring in the wake of Hurricane Katrina could likely opine that the city’s reconstruction should adhere to a process that addresses the needs of its diverse citizenry—approximately 460,000 residents before the levees failed. But such an assertion belies the reality that one year after Katrina, only half of New Orleans’ residents have returned.[1] Moreover, some of the city’s below-sea-level communities may never be rebuilt due to possible safety concerns and inadequate funding and government assistance, which some press reports and civil liberties groups claim to be racially motivated.

Further compounding matters is that many of New Orleans’ approximately 230,000 displaced residents—a sizeable amount of them African Americans who have called the Big Easy home for generations—can’t go home. Members of this black Diaspora scattered throughout the country face the grim prospect of losing all representation over decisions related to the mending of their beloved bayou city. Roughly one year after Katrina, the New Orleans population is, by almost all accounts, whiter than it was prior to the storm. (Given the city’s new demographics, some would go so far as to call the Big Easy an emerging republican stronghold.) African American neighborhoods like Gentilly and the Lower Ninth Ward are unpopulated apparitions of their pre-hurricane occupancy levels, making those communities prime targets for demolition via eminent domain to redevelop into park space.[2] The Urban Land Institute, in concert with other urban planners and developers, contends low-lying sections of New Orleans, such as the Lower Ninth Ward, are unfit for redevelopment given their likelihood for future flooding. Such views, however, fail to address the cultural and racial drain on the New Orleans legacy through bulldozing communities that have anchored the city’s African American backbone for decades. Just ask Fats Domino. He’s proudly called the Lower Ninth Ward home for years.

Racial concerns are, without question, confusing and complicating the already monolithic challenge of rebuilding New Orleans. If urban planners, engineers and scientists were assigned the challenge of rebuilding the city without concern for its rich racial and cultural legacies, they would simply embark on a process of building and fortifying levees (capable of withstanding category five or greater storms) and then redesigning the bayou metropolis according to an environmental logic that would only permit new construction and restoration of existing structures on sites that would not be susceptible to chronic flooding in the event of a future hurricane. But any attempts to extract the cultural and racial elements from the rebuilding process are at best Pollyannaish and at worst racist. Simply put, New Orleans without its rich multicultural fabric would no longer resemble the city people round the world have loved for centuries.

Connecting the Disparate Dots Through Katrina’s Lessons

Faced with the dire conditions created by Hurricane Katrina, media professionals were forced to innovate and adapt in unforeseen ways. The Times-Picayune, a local daily newspaper published since 1837, redefined itself when it transmitted online news coverage as a proxy for its print coverage that was impossible to produce in the days following Katrina’s destruction.[3] The Times-Picayune website www.nola.com contained forums where people who were dispersed to different parts of the country could post messages in hopes of communicating with family, neighbors, and friends. The website also provided forums for missing persons, an “I’m OK” forum, pet rescue and other online tools related to the hurricane recovery. The website was undoubtedly very helpful to individuals recovering from the storm—providing a point of reference in a time when most forms of communication were unavailable. It’s important to note that pages on NOLA.com that averaged 80,000 page hits a day before the storm, averaged 30 million hits a day after Katrina. It became the local newspaper for the world as people round the world felt themselves drawn into a community through images of extraordinary suffering.

Indeed, out of the chaos of the storm surfaced two essential journalistic and communications tools that could now serve as vital elements in the New Orleans rebuilding process: local media and the Internet. Old and new knitted together a web of information to link people even as the storm severed families and communities. That same web of technology, filtered through local and national connections, also holds the potential of providing the infrastructure needed to ensure that all constituent groups—who call New Orleans home regardless of where they live now—can weigh in on how their city is rebuilt.

Though he was referring to the Times-Picayune, for which he serves as editor, Jim Amoss offered up a comment that applies to all media: “[… it] now has unusual dual roles; to cover the news about the devastation and reconstruction, yes, but also to heal the cities soul and advocate on its behalf”[4].

The potential for small scale, local interaction through the largest communications tool ever available was foregrounded during Katrina. Rumors became stories and were challenged in the blogosphere, leading to speedy, public self-assessment and correction by writers in all media.[5] There was no “fixed” truth of the situation; readers were forced to continually compare stories and evaluate their relative accuracy and the agendas that fueled them. Out of this dizzying cycle of reporting and revision it became clear that the Internet is the only tool capable of communicating the complexity of a city struggling to re-form on this scale. Mayor Nagin announced in November 2005 that his office would deliver city-wide free wi-fi to residents and city agencies within a year. Despite protests from the local broadband provider, that plan is still in effect. In contradiction of state law, the city was able to offer free wi-fi to some areas immediately after the storm, under the terms of the state of emergency in effect since Katrina, but will have to resolve the legal issues in order to continue to provide free Wi-Fi access to the city. Online continuation of classes, reconnection of lost family members and friends, public safety announcements, news reporting, information about access to public services, as well as emotional and spiritual comfort are among the uses of the internet as New Orleans moves towards recovery, not just to the level of August 28, 2005, but to tackle longer-term issues that surfaced into national consciousness after the hurricane.

Free wi-fi can create a digital infrastructure to help citizens, businesses, schools, hospitals, and community organizations rebuild; it can also address the city’s problems of education, poverty, housing, and inequality that existed long before Katrina tore away some of the cultural and marketing myths that covered those sores. No one person or agency can or should be responsible for managing the digital infrastructure. It must not be stagnated by bureaucracy or commodified out of the reach for some residents. There is heated discussion of whether the city’s wi-fi should be run by either the mayor’s office or by the local broadband provider. The answer lies between those polar positions; if New Orleans is to reinvent itself through a digital support system, all stakeholders in the city must be vested in the new infrastructure. A coalition of leaders drawn from neighborhood organizations, business, local, state, and federal government, health, education, communications, and the media will need to form a multivalent structure to develop and administer the wi-fi network and address the attendant questions of hardware resources, education and training, and integration of local television and radio media into the system to reach demographic sectors cut off from the internet by factors such as preference, age or physical ability.

Despite the offer of free wi-fi, there are those who will still be left out of the loop when it comes to contributing ideas to the rebuilding process. For many of the poorest citizens, a web-enabled computer is a luxury item they may not be able to afford. Others may have lost computers in the storm, and many, particularly elderly, residents may have no prior knowledge of computers or the internet. For these residents, free wi-fi offers little access to public debates on rebuilding. There are, however, many steps that can be taken to insure the widest possible access to information and debate.

Corporate sponsorship could be called upon to either provide individual citizens with PCs or web-enabled devices or to establish neighborhood computer banks in businesses, schools, churches, or other designated community centers. Such a move would not be unprecedented. In the days immediately after Katrina, AMD provided personal internet communicators to evacuees in Texas shelters.[6] Volunteers could be enlisted to educate anyone unfamiliar with computers and the web. The benefit may even extend well beyond the immediate rebuilding period if established computer banks, along with city’s free wi-fi, remained in communities to assist returning residents in finding jobs, filing insurance claims, locating former neighbors, and even in acquiring or extending an education.

Similar steps could be taken to form satellite communities in places with large concentrations of Katrina evacuees, such as Houston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. The same technology that has allowed Iraqi and Mexican citizens living in the United States to participate in their national elections could give displaced Katrina victims a voice in decisions concerning the rebuilding of New Orleans. [7]

Katrina showed us a model, an understanding of the beginnings of a system with which New Orleanians can communicate with each other and with the outside world, to:

Rebuild families and communities
Spur economic recovery
Allow a more inclusive, more complex history to be told
Simplify and reduce the cost of government, and
Help overcome the digital divide

[1] Benassi, F. (2006) “Can the Crescent City Come Back?” in Business Week Online, August 30

[2] Davis, M. (2006) “Who Is Killing New Orleans?” The Nation, April 4

[3] Ibid.

[4]Online Newshour: The New Orleans Times-Picayune Changes its Image […].

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june06/neworleans_3-37.html.

Accessed September 2, 2006.

[5] For more description of this pocess, see Brian Thevenot,, “Myth-Making in New Orleans,” American Journalism Review 27 No 6 (December 2005): 30-37

[6] Business Wire Sept. 7, 2005.

[7] See “The Disenfranchisement of Katrina Survivors” Scoop. March 1, 2006 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0603/S00016.htm