Like most New Orleans-born-and-bred musicians, Ben Jaffe understands music not as a byproduct of the human experience but as a heart-deep part of that experience itself. Jaffe—tuba player, bassist and current leader/co-composer for the venerable Preservation Hall Jazz Band—comes by it honest, as they say. In 1961, his parents founded the Preservation Hall venue, a performance space especially notable during the Jim Crow era for being one of a handful in New Orleans open to both white and black players. What started as the venue’s de facto house band is now a pillar of the city’s musical history: a live performance, recording and educational outreach project 55 years strong and counting. PHJB’s new album, So It Is, continues the band’s longstanding custom of preserving and contributing new material to traditional New Orleans acoustic music. Jaffe will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our feature on the band.
Jaffe: It’s not that we take live music in New Orleans for granted—we absolutely don’t—but we are used to hearing it every day. Our days are filled with passing parades, street bands, parties, festivals, concerts and going to church and funerals. Not a day goes by that I don’t stumble upon a live band. Perhaps this is how it should be everywhere. Music is who we are; it is essential to us, like food or air. It nourishes our soul. And the music of New Orleans is popping! From the young brass bands like TBC and Young Fellas to the rapper 5th Ward Weebie to the experimentalist Quintron, New Orleans has more going on than anywhere else in the world!
