Preservation Hall Jazz Band Biography
The long-running Preservation Hall Jazz Band is a New Orleans jazz institution. With an instrumental lineup that combines trumpet, trombone, clarinet, banjo, piano, bass, drums, the venerable group continues its mission of preserving the Crescent City’s still-vital jazz traditions.
The group first came into being in 1961, when local art dealer and jazz fan Larry Borenstein, who had regularly hosted informal jam sessions, opened a no-frills venue in a historic building in the French Quarter. That venue, Preservation Hall, became the home base for a group of local jazz musicians, many of them veterans who had performed with such New Orleans jazz pioneers as Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton and Bunk Johnson. In 1963, Allan Jaffe, the young tuba player who managed the hall, began organizing tours for the musicians who performed there, naming the band after the venue.
As they continued to perform around the world, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band emerged as ambassadors of international musical goodwill. When the Preservation Hall was temporarily closed after Hurricane Katrina, the band spent much of 2005 and 2006 on the road. Nearly half a century after its formation, the group’s current incarnation (now under the direction of original organizer Allan Jaffe’s son Ben, who’s also the group’s bassist) is still going strong, performing regularly at their home base while continuing to tour internationally.
Recent Comments