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: The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is an important book by French author Georges Polti. The book outlines every conceivable dramatic or tragic plot line going back to Ancient Greece. It’s an essential guidebook for any storyteller or writer. Some of my favourite situations are:
· Fatal imprudence
· Involuntary crimes of love
· Slaying of kin unrecognized
· Self-sacrifice for an ideal
· Self-sacrifice for kin
· All sacrificed for passion
· Necessity of sacrificing loved ones
