2008 State of New Orleans’ Music Community Report

Copyright page Date, etc.

Sweet Home New Orleans Board of Sweet Home New Orleans Staff Directors • Ali Abdin, Case Manager • Kim Foreman • Kate Benson, Program Director • Bethany Bultman

• Aimee Bussells • Kat Dobson, Communications Director • Tamar Shapiro • Helene Greece, MSW, Social Worker • “Deacon” John Moore • Armand Richardson • Klara Hammer, Financial Director

• Cherice Harrison-Nelson • Jordan Hirsch, Executive Director • Reid Wick • Lauren Anderson • James Morris, GSW, Director of Social Services

• Scott Aiges • Lynn O’Shea, MNM, Director of Organizational • Tamara Jackson Development

• Lauren Cangelosi • Joe Stern, Case Manager • David Freedman • Paige Royer (please alphabetize board list)

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This report represents the culmination of three years of our direct service to New Orleans’ music community. Renew Our Music, founded as New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund, began issuing relief checks to New Orleans artists while floodwaters still covered parts of the city. Sweet Home New Orleans evolved in 2006 to provide case management and housing assistance to the musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, and Social Aid & Pleasure Club members struggling to return to their neighborhoods. In 2008, these agencies merged to form a holistic service center for the music community, assisting with everything from home renovations to instrument repair.

As of the third anniversary of the storm, we have distributed $2,000,000 directly to more than 2,000 of New Orleans’ cultural tradition bearers. Our case workers assess clients’ individual needs to determine how our resources, and those of our partnering agencies, can most effectively assist them in perpetuating our city’s unique music culture. This is a new model for local support of this community, and, with the guidance of Frederick Weil of Louisiana State University, it has enabled a new level of analysis of New Orleans’ tradition bearers.

The following report is a summary of our initial findings that we will use to direct resources to our clients as effectively as possible. We hope that it will help you see how far we’ve come in three years, and what remains to be done to ensure that the networks of cultural transmission in New Orleans are fully repaired, and our music community returns stronger than ever. Sweet Home will continue to serve the city’s music community, and share information about its progress.

Jordan Hirsch Kim Foreman

Executive Director SHNO Board President

At the time of the storm, approximately 4,500 musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, and Social Aid & Pleasure Club members lived in neighborhoods throughout New Orleans. Many of these cultural tradition bearers, the source of the city’s unique rhythms and rituals, learned their craft from friends and family in their homes, as well as churches, clubs, and schools in their area.

While these traditions inspired people all over the world, they served a local social function, uniting and strengthening communities.

New Generation Social Aid & Pleasure Club second lining prior to Hurricane Katrina Pre-Katrina Distribution of Tradition Bearers New Orleans’ music culture helped drive the city’s all-important hospitality industry, attracting crowds at festivals, conventions, and special events. Indigenous artists served as ambassadors for New Orleans, and were held up as symbols of our civic identity. While this status was rarely tantamount to financial comfort, many artists subsisted thanks to affordable housing and involvement in neighborhood-based social support networks. Despite economic challenges, tradition bearers had succeeded for generations in perpetuating the city’s unique culture.

Pre-Katrina Residences of SHNO Clients

Extent of Flooding

The flood following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated the affordable housing stock and scattered the support networks in many of these communities.

Displacement of New Orleans Tradition Bearers After the Flood

In the aftermath of the flood, music communities across the country welcomed members of New Orleans’ diaspora. Our organization distributed nearly $400,000 in cash assistance between October and December of 2005 to help sustain nearly 700 of these men and women while they were unable to return to their homes.

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With its residential neighborhoods devastated, the source of New Orleans’ traditions, and the future of a unique American culture were in question.

Joseph Allen, Second Chief of the Red White, & Blue Mardi Gras Indians Photo © Erika Goldring In 2006, second line parades brought flashes of life to decimated neighborhoods and Mardi Gras Indians attracted crowds in the streets lined with debris. Some returned to the city just long enough to participate in these rituals before returning to temporary lodging outside the area. Sweet Home started developing our collaborative case management system to help these tradition bearers return home where their art could continue to unite and strengthen their communities, as it had for generations before the flood.

Rebirth Brass Band Photo © Erika Goldring,

In January 15, 2006, we helped make possible the largest second line parade in history. Throughout the year, we served mor than 550 new clients, and began underwriting live performances in New Orleans.

Sweet Home’s intake center opened in the Treme neighborhood in June 2007, steps from Congo Square, the historic cradle of New Orleans music. At that time, we estimated that two-thirds of the city’s tradition bearers had returned to the metro area, and that at least 1,500 of them had yet to secure stable housing. Since then, Sweet Home has served more than 400 clients, leveraging almost $1,000,000 in direct assistance for z in resources from our partners and in-kind services. In so doing, we developed a detailed profile of the community.

Photo of Kid Simmons Band

SHNO Current Client Residences (Sample) Since Sweet Home New Orleans opened its intake center, musicians have returned to New Orleans at more than double the rate of the general public. When the waters receded, we faced the question, Will New Orleans Returned to Pre-Katrina Residence music survive? Three years after the flood, with help from SHNO, 75% of musicians are back in town and have Moved to New Location answered Yes. Uninhabited Pre-Katrina Residence

Extent of Flooding

Resettlement Patterns of New Orleans Tradition Bearers

Current Residence We are progressing to a Uninhabited Pre-Katrina Residence new phase in the recovery of our music Jefferson Numbers community. While a Northshore Numbers critical mass of artists West Bank Numbers has returned to the metro area, many neighborhoods that have been incubators of homegrown talent are still struggling to rebuild. In heavily flooded parts of the 8th and 9th wards for example, tradition bearers have retained only 29% of their pre- Katrina residences. Because the transmission of our indigenous art forms is tied to specific neighborhoods, these patterns represent a challenge to the ultural continuity of the city. Ensuring Cultural Continuity

To facilitate artists’ return to their traditional neighborhoods, Sweet Home New Orleans will offer hundreds of thousands of dollars in housing assistance to our clients in the next year. We will also invest in grassroots cultural education efforts, such as Mardi Gras Indian sewing classes held in clients’ homes, to create more opportunities for the post-Katrina generation to learn from community elders.

Young Guardians of the Flame, including Craig and Tevis Jones, Queen Nadia Robinson, and Chief Kevin Cooley, Jr. Photo © Eric Waters Financial Levels of Sweet Home New Orleans Clients in the Greater New Orleans Area

New Orleans Musicians’ Earnings Effects of the Post-Katrina Economy Results of a Follow-Up Survey on New Orleans Musicians

Before Katrina Now Gigs Per Month 10.5 5.7 Average Earned Per Gig $131 $108 Portion of Income from 70% 58% Music Earnings Per Month $1,323 $1,034 Expenses Per Month $1,100 $1,207

New Orleans artists generally lived at subsistence levels in the pre-Katrina economy, earning most of their income from live performances. Today, with fewer residents, conventions, and tourists in town audiences are scarce and gigs pay less money. The cost of living in New Orleans is up but the music community’s income is down; earning a livelihood though music is harder than ever.

Annual Household Income Annual Expenses

Number of Clients Number of Clients

Annual Income Per Client Balance: Income minus Expenses

Number of Clients Number of Clients

To help offset this imbalance and give artists opportunities to build new audiences, we will continue to underwrite live local performances and help clients pay for the instruments and materials they need to generate income. We also plan to connect qualified tradition bearers with paid teaching positions to help them supplement their earnings while educating young artists.

Photos of Tommy Singleton, Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, and Herreast Harrison

Sweet Home New Orleans has succeeded in helping New Orleans’ music community return to the metro area. Our task now is to expand our tradition bearers’ opportunities to earn a living and share their cultural knowledge with the post-Katrina generation. We intend to accomplish this by continuing to provide direct assistance to those in need and expanding the reach of our case management system. In the coming year, we will give our clients access to free legal counsel, and streamline their access to financial literacy training and a variety of professional development services offered by partnering agencies. This culture is not waiting for a savior; it is an agent of New Orleans’ salvation. By supporting the men and women who practice it, we can advance our city’s economic and social recovery. Sweet Home New Orleans is determined to empower our tradition bearers to help rebuild our city, and we invite you to join the effort. Treme Brass Band with Eric “EJ” Calhoun

1201 Saint Philip St, New Orleans, LA 70116 Office: 504.596.6496 Fax: 504.596.6497 [email protected] www.SweetHomeNewOrleans.org

Thank You

All of us here at Sweet Home New Orleans would like to thank Dr. Rick Weil, without whom this report would not have been possible. Rick Weil is an LSU sociology professor researching New Orleans’ overall recovery. Besides assisting Sweet Home, he is working with Derrick Tabb of the Rebirth Brass Band to establish an after-school music program for middle-school children throughout New Orleans (“The Roots of Music”); conducting and analyzing surveys for communities and organizations to assist in recovery planning – beginning with the Jewish Federation, and now including dozens more; and analyzing the contributions of the energetic young newcomers to the city, the NOLA YURPs (“Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals”), for their professional networking website, nolayurp.org.

We would also like to thank all of our generous donors and volunteers who allow us to continue to provide direct assistance to New Orleans’ musicians every day.

Thank you especially to the following organizations:

Sweet Home New Orleans Founding Organizations American Federation of Musicians Local 174-496 (member of the AFL-CIO) Arabi Wrecking Krewe Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame Neighborhood Housing Services New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation New Orleans Musicians Clinic New Orleans Social Aid & Pleasure Club Task Force Tipitina’s Foundation WWOZ radio

Sweet Home New Orleans Partner Organizations The Actors Fund of America Jazz Foundation of America MusiCares Society of Singers

Photo of Wardell Quezergue and Marva Wright