Preservation Hall Jazz Band Reassembles

Scattered by Hurricane, New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band Reunites in New York City

John Brunious flew in from an evacuation center in Arkansas, wearing donated clothes and carrying a borrowed trumpet, his voice shot from swallowing polluted floodwater.

The 64-year-old leader of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band went straight from the plane to a Manhattan TV studio for a reunion with the world's ambassadors of New Orleans jazz. The musicians could play only one tune that night. Everyone agreed it should be "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"

"I was so happy to see that the others were OK, because I knew what I had just come from," said Brunious, 64, who was treated for dehydration at an Arkansas hospital after enduring days without food and water at the horrific New Orleans Convention Center.

"I was very emotional because I really wanted to sing that song to let the world know that we do know what it means to miss New Orleans."

For more than 40 years, the Preservation Hall musicians have spread their infectious, joyful rhythms from African villagers to British royalty, from the White House to the former Soviet Union.

Jazz lovers from around the world have made the pilgrimage to pass through Preservation Hall's wrought-iron gates at 726 St. Peter Street. Inside the dimly lit hall with no air conditioning, fans sat on benches or cushions spread on the rough wooden floor as they listened to pure, unadulterated, traditional New Orleans jazz.

Despite their worldwide renown, the Preservation Hall musicians remain deeply rooted in their local neighborhoods, where such legends as Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong created jazz nearly a century ago.

"I think the band is one of the most honest reflections of New Orleans," said bassist Benjamin Jaffe, 34, Preservation Hall's director. "We don't live in an ivory tower. We live with our communities and care for our communities.

"We all feel that we were down and then we got kicked, and that's a terrible place to feel right now," he said during an interview at the Manhattan office of the distributor for the Preservation Hall Recordings label, where his staff is working until they can return home....

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By CHARLES J. GANS Associated Press Writer

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