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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzaiX_x5uCs
Jaffe: There is an amazing school of the arts in New Orleans: the New Orleans Center For Creative Arts. I am an alum of that school, and so are six members of the Preservation Hall Collective. The very first professor of jazz at NOCCA was Ellis Marsalis. Some of the graduates include Terence Blanchard, Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick, Wynton Marsalis and hundreds of others who are now playing music, dancing, acting, painting, recording and writing all over the world. We need more schools like NOCCA.
