Preservation Hall Jazz Band deeply rooted in the Big Easy

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city of New Orleans in 2005, musicians such as Allen Toussaint and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band became ambassadors for the Big Easy’s revival.

In the aftermath of the city’s devastation, they got on television, played benefits and became advocates for rebuilding the city and helping those displaced by the hurricane.

Toussaint had made his name as a writer, producer, composer and arranger, spending most of his working life in the studio. But after Katrina he felt compelled to get up and sing and play piano in front of live audiences.

“The surge of energy and getting on the stage and performing was relatively new for me, and it’s due to Katrina,” Toussaint said during a phone interview while on a bus ride from Cleveland to Buffalo, N.Y., last month. “It’s been one of the brightest things that’s ever happened in my life ... When we’re out on the stage, the feedback is impeccable, it’s the best way to present music.

“A good audience makes the music better. The audience has everything to do with what you’re doing.”

Toussaint said he’s especially enjoying performing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band because the band is so deeply rooted in New Orleans music.

The collaborative show, which comes to Santa Rosa’s Wells Fargo Center on Nov. 18, starts with a short Preservation Hall set, then Toussaint joins them. After that, Toussaint performs his own set and then is re-joined by Preservation Hall to conclude the evening.

Preservation Hall creative director and tuba player Ben Jaffe is thrilled to be touring with Toussaint, whom he’s known since he was a kid. Jaffe’s father joined the Preservation Hall band in his 20s, so Jaffe grew up around Toussaint and other New Orleans luminaries.

“He’s a legend; there’s no one even comparable to him,” Jaffe said of Toussaint. “Allen is very much the patron saint of New Orleans. For me to play with him, it’s a coming-of-age moment.”

Even if you can’t name many Toussaint songs, you’ve probably heard his music. He wrote “Working in the Coal Mine” popularized by Lee Dorsey in 1966, and “Southern Nights” which Glen Campbell transformed from a soulful ballad into a country song and was a huge hit in the mid-1970s.

Asked if it feels odd to see the musician who performs his song get the credit, Toussaint said: “That feels absolutely wonderful because that’s what they do. Arranging and producing, that’s what I do. And I think it’s just right when that happens. That makes both of us a success.”

Toussaint’s songs have been covered by Bonnie Raitt, Ringo Starr, Jerry Garcia, Otis Redding and the Rolling Stones. But his proudest moment came in 2012 when he received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama.

“It was just marvelous,” Toussaint said. “To meet President Obama, that was very special because he is historic, and he is a wonderful, intelligent man. He’s very present when you’re with him; he’s really there.”

A true gentleman, Toussaint has a slow, easy way of speaking and is always gracious and inclusive. At his shows, he makes you feel like he’s invited you into his home for a shared evening of warm conversation and music.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a New Orleans institution since 1961, also became a leading voice for the city after the hurricane, Jaffe said.

Many people had an image of New Orleans as just a place for wild partying, he said, but the band helped show the city’s true colors as a place of traditional jazz, second-line parades and historic churches.

Since Katrina, Preservation Hall has performed more than 1,500 shows, and pushed its boundaries to record with artists ranging from Pete Seeger to Tom Waits.

“The band has just been breaking down wall after wall,” Jaffe said during an interview while on tour in Philadelphia last month. “It’s amazing to be a part of it and to witness it.”

In 2012, Preservation Hall celebrated its 50th anniversary at New York’s Carnegie Hall with a guest list that included Toussaint, Steve Earle, the Blind Boys of Alabama and Trombone Shorty.

“It was a testament to the spectrum of artists touched by New Orleans music,” Jaffe said in a short documentary about the band. Jaffe, 43, said he used to get some questions about why he (a white musician) is in the predominantly African-American band.

The simple answer is his family owned and operated the Preservation Hall venue near Bourbon Street, and that the band is a reflection of the entire New Orleans music scene.

“My dad was the custodian of this band, and now I’ve become custodian of this tradition,” he said. “And believe me it’s not easy being a young, white, Jewish kid who is responsible for this hundred-year-old, African-American tradition.”

Jaffe noted that the Preservation Hall band is made up of “legacy musicians” who grew up in musical families in New Orleans. They feel a responsibility to carry on jazz traditions, but Jaffe notes they’re not stuck in the past.

“We are not preservationists in the sense that something is a certain way and it remains that way forever,” he said. “I believe traditions grow and evolve, and that the great traditions always retain their soul.”

Michael Shapiro, author of “A Sense of Place,” writes about entertainment for The Press Democrat. Contact him through his site: www.michaelshapiro.net.