Dear Listener,

Anyone who has ever had a soul-pulsing New Orleans music experience at a second line, in a night club, on a street corner, or even on someone’s porch will want to pay close attention to the city's most recent attempt to regulate live music. The Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, a 684-page document that proposes to change the way we experience live music, has been adopted by the City Planning Commission. The City Council will hold a hearing this Friday, October 24 to vote on these changes. It’s not clear whether they will move to adopt the whole thing, or parts of the ordinance, or simply place it on the record as something that needs to be resolved in the near or not-so-near future. People in the know tell me the public commentary period will be much longer. But no one really knows. The process, to say the least, is confused.

The desire to balance support for live music with workable noise regulation is totally understandable. It’s a tension that has existed in this city for at least 230 years, and exists in other American cities. The difference is that our musical culture stems historically from New Orleans’ earliest days when enslaved people of color danced, drummed and chanted in the city's various market places on Sundays (later restricted to Congo Square). The newly-arriving American population, meanwhile, complained about the “extraordinary noise.".

If you want to truly understand how we got to where we are, just read Treat It Gentle, written by iconic jazz saxophonist Sidney Bechet. You’ll understand why New Orleans is unlike any other city in the world. As a visitor told me just last week, “Nowhere else can you find real musicians playing wherever you turn. We don’t have this in Rome or anywhere else in Italy, nor Manhattan, nowhere but this beautiful city.”

So the business of regulating music is not the same here as it is anywhere else. Yes, there are legitimate quality-of-life issues around sound levels and congestion, as there are everywhere else. This issue is about to reach a tipping point, as more and more demand is made on our water-encroached land mass to satisfy the influx of visitors and new residents, a situation exacerbated by the devastation wrought on the traditional incubators of our wonderful culture: our neighborhoods. The CZO’s proposal to create relatively small areas where music can flourish (four Cultural and Artistic Overlay Zones) will likely accelerate the death of spontaneous culture in New Orleans. These zones may appear to be good for tourism, but this kind of tourism is definitely not good for preserving our city’s identity.

If we wish to retain the distinct living musical tradition, which is at the core of our identity, then our decision makers will need many more tools than the ordinary political/planning apparatus provides. You can’t institute our kind of authenticity, an authenticity that some promoters of “cultural tourism” seem to take for granted. That authenticity is the goose that lays the golden egg for our entire tourism economy. A thoughtful, intentional approach to regulating noise/congestion issues would involve the wisdom of, say, cultural anthropologists and social scientists, as much as attorneys and land use specialists.

There is a long history in American cities of artists bringing value to  neighborhoods, only to be driven out by others who pay well for the privilege of enjoying the creativity, but complain of the degradation of their property values. People are escaping from all over America to New Orleans because of this. The last phase of the Americanization of New Orleans will be marked by the end of our living music culture.

Yours in guarding the groove before making a move,

Yours in XXXX and XXXX,

David Freedman
General Manager

WWOZ's Fall Membership Drive—AKA, the Pledge Party—happens from November 4-14. This year we're placing a special focus on the Women of New Orleans Culture, including a special membership premium: a calendar featuring Mardi Gras Indian Queens. Tune in and catch one-of-a-kind performances by the brightest stars in the New Orleans music universe. We need your support in order to keep on as Guardians of the Groove! Help keep the greatest station in the nation serving up a musical feast for the ears.

» Please support WWOZ

The Treme Creole Gumbo Festival returns to Louis Armstrong Park on November 8 & 9 for a seventh edition, with a feast for your ears and your tummy: smokin' tunes and steaming gumbo. This year's festival features the Soul Rebels, TBC, Hot 8, Pinettes, a vegan gumbo contest, an art market and much more.

» All about the Treme Creole Gumbo Fest

WWOZ and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation will host the first annual Brass Menagerie Parade and Brass Ball fund raising party on Saturday, November 8. The Brass Menagerie Parade, which the public is invited to join, will feature ten New Orleans brass bands, including the Free Agents and the Lagniappe Brass Band, as well as ten of your favorite marching krewes. Brass Ball performers include Big Sam's Funky Nation and DJ Brice Nice.

» Presenting the Brass Menagerie Parade and Brass Ball

Once again, WWOZ will be live broadcasting the Jazz Foundation of America's "A Great Night in Harlem" from the Apollo Theater on October 24 at 8:30 Eastern/7:30 Central. This event features some of the world's finest musicians, working together to raise money for the JFA's Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund. Herbie Hancock will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.

» "A Great Night in Harlem" details

Props to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation for another great Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival. WWOZ's video unit live-streamed a number of acts from the St. Charles Avenue Stage. Check out complete sets from five of those acts (Bobby Rush, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Vasti Jackson, Papa Mali, and Denise LaSalle), over 5 hours of video in total.

 » Blues & BBQ Fest Video Highlights

The Voodoo Music & Arts Experience is celebrating its 15th birthday this year, October 31-November 2. The lineup not only features national artists like the Foo Fighters and Skrillex, but also includes and some of the best acts New Orleans has to offer, such as Trombone Shorty, Rebirth, Bonerama, Big Freedia and over a dozen more.

 » Experience Voodoo

Mahalia Jackson's Birthday Celebration is an inaugural event at the French Market, in partnership with the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. It happens October 25 from noon-4p and will include live music, film screenings, and lectures celebrating the internationally acclaimed gospel singer and civil rights activist.

 » Mahalia Jackson Birthday Celebration at the French Market

When the air gets a little colder it's always nice to keep warm by the heat of a hot kitchen stove. This month we celebrate unexpected spices, a hearty meal, and some unworldly smoked tomato butter sauce. This recipe uses New Orleans famous Zapp's chips to crust a fish fillet and is brilliantly complimented by some fresh garden vegetable hash.

» Recipe: Zapps-crusted Cobia with Garden Vegetable Hash