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Saxophonist/clarinetist Chris Kohl (The Hot Club of New Orleans, Frank Zappatistas) says people ask him all the time where to find the avant-garde jazz in New Orleans. They go to Vaughn's, Donna's, Joe's Cozy Corner and find tremendous brass band music, stuff they can't find anywhere else. Sweet Lorraine's and Snug Harbor have modern jazz, but for the outside stuff,there have been only the Hi Ho (with the late lamented Gilgamesh playing way outside) and the Mermaid's much-missed Jazz Wednesdays. For modern,"cutting edge" music, these folks are at a loss.
It was the same for transplants to New Orleans. Like hockey fans before the Brass, people who moved here from Chicago or New York thought they had to kiss avant-garde jazz goodbye. Until the past few months at Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Art Center, there was very little avant-garde jazz to be found in New Orleans. But due to the energy and enthusiasm of Janna Saslaw, Jimbo Walsh, Rob Cambre, Andrew McLean, Zeitgeist director Rene Broussard,and others, there has been a venue for new music in an old New Orleans street.
The first annual Zeitgeist Creative Music Festival has been running evenings and afternoons concurrently with the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This weekend the festival concluded with ten bands, with music beginning in the early evening and continuing until around midnight. Ranging from blues with Joe Krown, John Sinclair's Blues Scholars, & Lenny McDaniel to the avant fusion of 3Now4 and festival organizer Janna Saslaw's Improvisational Arts Council, Zeitgeist has pushed the walls back to reveal amazing music that a lot of people will tell you simply doesn't exist in the Crescent City.
The other thing people tell Chris Kohl is that even if they've heard of Zeitgeist, they don't know how to get there, or they're concerned about safety. Take the #14 bus (Jackson) from St. Charles at Jackson, or Canal Street. You'll see Zeitgeist & its neighbor, the Ashe Cultural Center, in the 1700 block. If you have a car and you're near the French Quarter, take Rampart uptown. When you cross under I-10, the street changes to Oretha Castle Haley. Call a cab, & if the driver doesn't know where Oretha Castle Haley is, tell him "formerly Dryades street." It's just a couple blocks from the United Cab dispatcher, so they ought to know! If you're on a bike, like me, you can bring your bike into the theater.
Regarding safety: the Living Witness Mission, two blocks up from Zeitgeist, provided friendly security for the duration of the festival. But in all my time going there, I have never had a problem. Zeitgeist director Rene Broussard tells me the only time he's had to call the police was when someone was being harrassed on the street two blocks down. There is also ample off-street parking in two lots near the building, and also plenty of curbside parking directly in front of Zeitgeist. The top two floors of the building are occupied by a fancy yuppie condominium, and theatergoers haven't had any trouble with them either.
Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard used to be called Dryades and it was the center of African American business in New Orleans until the mid-Sixties. Now, after 35 years of ghost-town status, it is beginning to revive. Appropriately, the street is named for a prominent (and still living) New Orleans civil rights activist. The Ashe Center, Zeitgeist, The Neighborhood Gallery, Cafe Reconcile, and the Living Witness Mission have all opened doors in the last couple of years. So you can find New Orleans' most modern and inventive music and help bring back a storied street in Central City.
Programming at Zeitgeist will re-commence after May 16. For schedules or
booking, see below:
Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Art Center
1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.
New Orleans 525-2767
zte@bellsouth.net
www.crosswinds.net/~zte
The first annual Zeitgeist Creative Music Festival was co-presented by anxious sounds Cafe Reconcile Ashe Cultural Center Barrister's Gallery & the Improvisational Arts Council
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last changed on 6 May 01 by