Blue Notes: Jazz on the Ropes in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 18, 2007 — -- It's Saturday night on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, on Mardi Gras weekend, and there's not a single jazz musician in sight.

Visitors, like David Nauss and David Gruzinski, sense something missing too.

"It's not like the past," they say almost in unison. "There used to be a lot more street musicians."

Gone Since the Storm

Like many of the city's residents, the jazz musicians who once performed on street corners are no longer here.

The floods destroyed their homes and instruments. Many of them will never return.

Music and New Orleans have gone hand-in-hand for decades, but now the silence is deafening.

"You take it for granted," says Dennis Schulingkamp Jr., in the French Quarter. "You take the little things in life for granted, like walking down the street and seeing a jazz musician. The little things in life are what you miss."

Changing Tastes

There are a few clubs that still feature the live, unplugged and uniquely American art form that has made this city famous. But these days, they are literally begging for customers with free admission and free booze.

It may not be enough.

Tourists are voting with their feet, and clearly prefer rock and roll.

Artists are Hurting

It hurts artists like Sean Venet.

"Most people will pay their money for 'Sweet Home Alabama,'" Venet says. "They won't pay for 'Sweet Georgia Brown.'"

Venet plays clarinet and is the leader of the Panorama Jazz Band. The group now performs outside of the city's French Quarter in one of the handful of clubs that still hire bands and musicians.

Plans to subsidize housing for musicians and other artists in the city have never fully materialized. The musicians say they sometimes feel unsupported and disheartened. But they sing and play on.