Here's a photo of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, taken in the French Quarter. Something to be dirt proud about is the fact that the birthplace of jazz is the United States of America, and the heart's home for jazz is New Orleans!
Last night, I attended a concert by Terence Blanchard and his band. Mr. Blanchard is a famous jazz trumpeter trained at the New Orleans Center of Creative Arts. His studied with Donald Harrison and they eventually replaced Wynton and Branford Marsalis in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Blanchard has had an illustrious career, producing wonderful music and scoring and composing for countless films, especially Mr. Spike Lee's! Some movies he scored or composed for that I love are Malcolm X, Eve's Bayou, Four Little Girls, Mo' Better Blues, and Random Hearts.
And I am grateful that he composed for Spike Lee's documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Last night, he and his group played selections from that documentary's songs, as well as a few other songs about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. I was glad to be in the audience and hear and see it live. Bless Mr. Blanchard's work, and the work of the Cuban (Fabian Almazan, piano), Texan (Kendrick Scott, drums), Arizonan (Brice Winston, tenor sax), and Pennsylvanian (Derrick Hodge, bass) that travel making music with him! Mr. Winston's 94 year-old grandparents were in the audience that night and that made the event even more special!
http://www.terenceblanchard.com/
or
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/
or
http://www.alternativereel.com/streams-of-consciousness/New_Orleans.html