Just Announced: Photographer/Cinematographer Danny Clinch's "Silver & Brass" Exhibit @ Preservation Hall

Just announced - On Thursday, May 3rd at Midnight, Preservation Hall will be presenting "Silver & Brass," and Exhibit by Photographer/Cinematographer Danny Clinch. The exhibit will feature images from Danny's many visits to New Orleans and on the road with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band over the years. The opening will also feature Danny Clinch's Tangiers Blues Band alongside the Preservation Hall Horns.

"I have spent some more than memorable moments in New Orleans. These moments have been heightened after my acquaintance with Preservation Hall and those who embody its spirit. I will be presenting my photographs of these spirits at Preservation Hall on Thursday, May 3 at midnight.The Tangiers Blues Band will be joining up with the Preservation Hall horns to add a soundtrack to your viewing pleasure. Come celebrate"...Danny

 

Portraits will feature such artists as:

Dr. John

Ben Jaffe

Charlie Gabriel

Jim James

Bruce Springsteen

Tom Waits

and much more...

 

 PURCHASE TICKETS BY CLICKING HERE

Check out Danny's portfolio HERE

Neil Young inducts Tom Waits to the Rock'N'Roll Hall of Fame

Tom Waits with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on 78 - On Sale This FRIDAY at Preservation Hall!

 

For Sale This Friday at Preservation Hall,

726 St. Peter Street / NOLA 70116

from 10:00am - 5:00pm Central Standard Time

On Friday, this special recording, 

benefiting The Preservation Hall Junior Jazz and Heritage Brass Band, 

will be available for in-person purchase only.  

 

Please visit www.preservationhall.com/tomwaits78 for online sales

beginning at 12:01am CST on Saturday, October 20th.

At no time will we be accepting orders by phone!

This very special 78RPM recording will be available at two donation tiers:
$50 for the recording on its own,
~OR~
$200 for the recording packaged with a limited edition record player
celebrating Preservation Hall's 50th anniversary.
(turntable plays 78, 45, and 33 and features USB out)

 PLEASE NOTE:

While the 78s are signed and numbered by Ben Jaffe, we will not honor requests for specific numbers.  The numbered 78 you receive will be by luck of the draw, only.

Here it Comes: Preservation Hall to release LIMITED EDITION (504) 78RPM Format of Tom Waits / PHJB Collaboration!

On November 19th, 2010, Preservation Hall Recordings will release 504 LIMITED EDITION, hand numbered, 78rpm format vinyl records featuring two tracks by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with very special guest Tom Waits. The proceeds from the sales of this very special project will benefit the Preservation Hall Junior Jazz & Heritage Brass Band, the cornerstone of the Preservation Hall music outreach program in partnership with The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.

“In New Orleans, our musical traditions, are passed down from one generation to the next. I was very fortunate to grow up at the feet of so many masterful musicians.  It’s one of Preservation Hall’s missions to ensure the future of our musical heritage. Our music outreach program guarantees our musical legacy will live on through another generation.” says Creative Director of Preservation Hall and son of the Hall’s founders, Ben Jaffe.

Mr. Waits traveled to New Orleans to record two songs with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for the critically-acclaimed project PRESERVATION: An Album To Benefit Preservation Hall and the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program, “Tootie Ma Was A Big Fine Thing”  and “Corrine Died On The Battlefield”. Originally recorded by Danny Barker in 1947, these two selections are the earliest known recorded examples of Mardi Gras Indian chants.

Inspired by the original recordings, the two recently recorded tracks are being released in a beautifully designed, limited-edition 78 rpm format vinyl record, each signed and numbered by Preservation Hall Creative Director Ben Jaffe. The first one hundred records will be accompanied by a custom designed Preservation Hall 78rpm record player(also plays 33 1/3 & 45 rpm records, see specs beow) as part of a Deluxe Donation package. The remaining four hundred and four will be available as a standalone record for the Basic Donation package.

Both packages will be available for IN-PERSON PURCHASE at Preservation Hall in New Orleans on November 19, 2010 at 10:00am Central and for purchase online at http://www.preservationhall.com on November 20, 2010.  Packages will be limited to one per person.

-Deluxe Donation Tier: $200 – INCLUDES: Limited Edition 78rpm record
AND the limited edition, custom-made Preservation Hall 78 record player(#1-100)

-Basic Donation Tier: $50 – INCLUDES: Limited Edition 78rpm record only (#101-504)

-----------

Record Player Specifications:
USB Enabled For Connection to Windows Equipped PC and Mac
Software Suite For Ripping And Editing Audio Content
Belt Driven Turntable Mechanism
Plays 3 Speeds - 33 1/3, 45 And 78 RPM Records
Plays 7", 10" & 12" Records
Fully Automatic Return Tone Arm
Diamond Stylus Needle
Auxiliary Input
Adjustable Tone Control
Dynamic Full Range Stereo Speakers
Vinyl-Wrapped
Chrome Snap Closure
Corner Guards
Metal And Resin Handle

"PRESERVATION" in Offbeat Magazine!

PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND - THE A LIST
March 01, 2010 - by Alex Rawls

For its new album, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band made some high-profile friends, but who learned from who?

Since Preservation Hall opened in 1961, it has been the great name in traditional
jazz. The venue continues to let the music speak without amplification, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has been iconic, representing the city and music despite the inevitable lineup changes over the years. It’s the band that everybody knows in concept, but not in detail.

“I’d been to Preservation Hall to see their performances there,” Jason Isbell says. Isbell is just one of the guests on Preservation, the new album by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and his experience with the Hall and the band is more typical than not. He’d come to New Orleans and stopped in the hall as part of a trip. His awareness of it increased as he toured New Orleans with the Drive-By Truckers and his own 400 Unit. But, he admits, “I never knew much about the Preservation Hall. Once I got caught up on the history, I got more interested in it.”

Isbell, like guests including Paulo Nutini, Andrew Bird, Ani DiFranco, Tom Waits, Dr. John, Pete Seeger, Buddy Miller, Steve Earle and Amy LaVere came to Preservation Hall and cut a track live with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. It wasn’t Isbell’s first time cutting a track live, but it wasn’t common for him either. “You’ve got to have good musicians or it can take a really long time,” he says.

For Del McCoury, this was a significant change. “He goes back and plugs in all of his vocal tracks,” Hall director and tuba player Ben Jaffe says. “So for him to come into a room with seven musicians you’ve never met before and sing live over a jazz band, it’s intimidating. I was blown away with how he came in there and just did it.”

Since Jaffe took over as artistic director for Preservation Hall in 1993, the hall and the band have been modernized. Preservation continues in that vein, matching the band with guest artists and broadening the repertoire to introduce more people to the band. Not surprisingly, not everybody shares Jaffe’s vision equally. Preservation includes folk, blues and Western Swing, and their distance from Preservation Hall’s bread and butter concerned 78-year-old clarinetist Charlie Gabriel a little.

“We’re not doing the music the way the old musicians did it,” he says. “I think we might stray a little bit too far away from the source. But this is a good project; it’s geared to the education of the kids. It’s incorporating other folks’ music into traditional jazz music, which is a good intake. You’re incorporating bluegrass into jazz music, which is a good thing.”

Musically, the interaction between the guests and the hall band seems surprisingly easy on the album. In person, it added a dimension to the project. “I don’t think they had any idea (who I was),” Isbell says. “I thought Walter (Payton) was asleep until we counted off and started playing. He’d come to life at the last second.”

“Richie Havens was a very soulful individual,” Gabriel says. “He just sit right down, and started doing what he would do. Pete Seeger is a wonderful man. You feel good just being in his company. He was a soft-spoken man.”

My Morning Jacket’s Jim James embraced the project. “He came into the hall the night before,” Jaffe says. “I took him through the hall and it was his first time there. We went upstairs above the hall and we were walking through one of the old rooms upstairs and he saw an old amp in the corner with a microphone and he asked me about it. I told him that was Sweet Emma (Barrett)’s amplifier. She used to drag that around New Orleans and that’s what she sang out of.” The next day, James showed up in a suit and sang through her megaphone and amp.

“It was very surreal,” James says via email, “because I had a dream the night before we did the session where a spirit was breathed into my mouth through a hole in the floor. I carried the spirit for awhile, then when I put my lips to the bullhorn, I felt I was breathing that spirit back out into this world from the dream
world and into Preservation Hall. I felt Sweet Emma’s ghost howling through my heart.”

Preservation has already produced a number of small victories. The band got to work with member Clint Maedgen’s musical hero, Tom Waits, and My Morning Jacket is taking the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on tour with it this spring. “I think it will give the audience a deeper insight into where a lot of the music we enjoy comes from.”

Jason Isbell learned to play his song correctly—”there was one chord I was playing as a major 7th and it’s a minor 7th”—but he also learned something from the band. “It’s such a part of their life to create music that it wasn’t anything extraordinary for them, and I like that a lot. I think music should be like that sometimes without bells and whistles.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
PURCHASE "PRESERVATION"

"PRESERVATION" reviewed in All About Jazz!

Preservation Hall Jazz Band:
PRESERVATION
by Wade Liguet

What do you get when you cross America's best traditional jazz band with 20 emerging or legendary musical artists? You get a terrific collection of highly listenable traditional jazz performances by a highly improbable combination of musicians and vocalists. Who would have thought to have Del McCoury sing "After You've Gone" with his heavy country twang? Or Tom Waits' raspy voice on "Tootie Ma Was a Big Fine Thing"? If you are Ben Jaffe—tuba player, creative director and son of Preservation Hall founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe, and grew up in the hall—this might seem, as Jaffe states in the liner notes, a natural fit. For the rest of us, it is a surprise, and a real treat.

Jaffe made a wish-list of performers whom he hoped would come to New Orleans to play with the band. Surprisingly, they all agreed to do so. He showed them around the city and then brought them to the warm confines of Preservation Hall to record with the band. The result is an album that will have widespread appeal, as performers known by the young—Andrew Bird, Yim Yames, Jason Isbell, Ani DeFranco, Cory Chisel, Paolo Nutini, Angelique Kidjo, Brandi Carlisle and Amy LaVere—share the CD with performers known by folk and rock music fans—Waits, Pete Seeger, Dr. John, the Blind Boys of Alabama and Richie Havens. Country music fans are catered for too, by Merle Haggard, McCoury, Steve Earle and Buddy Miller. Louis Armstrong even makes an appearance with extracted voicings on "Rocking Chair." All the performers are accompanied by the incomparable Preservation Hall Jazz Band—a group of musicians who are, no doubt about it, the best New Orleans has to offer in the traditional music genre.

The album elicits feelings of both joy and bemusement. Joy because that is what traditional jazz creates when played by some of its greatest musicians, and bemusement because of the pairing of some great singers and musicians with the band. Andrew Bird brings his skillful violin playing, as well as a voice with great range, to "Shake It And Break It." Tom Waits' craggy voicings on the Mardi Gras-tinged "Tootie Ma Was A Big Fine Thing" is just plain fun. Merle Haggard's version of "Basin Street Blues" skillfully joins a country voice and jazz in a surprisingly pleasant rendition of this old standard. Richie Havens sings a hauntingly beautiful blues ballad on "Trouble in Mind" with banjo and the horn section playing beautifully in the background. Preservation Hall vocalist Clint Maedgen performs with the Blind Boys of Alabama on the fired-up gospel tune "There Is a Light" behind the powerful organ playing of the hall's pianist Rickie Monie. Each of the tunes on this album deserves a comment, but more than that, each deserves a listen.

Preservation is released as a benefit album to support Preservation Hall and its Music Outreach Program. The album will also benefit traditional jazz in general. As younger generations shun jazz for hip hop, country and independent music, how will jazz lure listeners? How will a century old (and counting) music form stay fresh? Ben Jaffe and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band have created something brilliant with this album. They have kept the jazz traditional, and have brought in popular artists to collaborate with them. This album will no doubt have cross-over appeal. It is something that both young and old listeners should enjoy, be they country, rock or jazz fans. In that sense, the disc, as the title implies, is a preservation of all that is good about traditional jazz, while at the same time being an ambassador to a new generation of fans.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE!

PURCHASE "PRESERVATION!"

"PRESERVATION": Reviewed by PASTE Magazine!

Hall of Champions: All-Star Musicians Team With Preservation Hall Jazz Band
by Alison Fensterstock
for Paste Magazine

The new album of surprising collaborations with Preservation Hall—New Orleans’ bastion of traditional jazz—started with Tom Waits and a sign from God. In that order.

In the early fall of 2005, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band shared a bill with Waits, among others, at a Hurricane Katrina benefit at Radio City Music Hall. During a lull backstage, Preservation Hall creative director Ben Jaffe and vocalist/reed man Clint Maedgen—both huge fans—noticed Waits alone, leaning against a wall.

“I had my tuba,” Jaffe says. “I said, OK, Clint, let’s go. This is never gonna happen again.” They chatted with Waits. They played him a song. They got a phone number. “Since then, for years, at least once a week Clint and I would have our conversation about what we were gonna do with Tom,” he says. Jaffe dug out an old song called “Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing,” which appeared as an extra track on a Baby Dodds Trio CD—the original 1940s vinyl was possibly the first commercial waxing of a Mardi Gras Indian street chant. That, they decided, would be the song they’d do someday with Waits. Jaffe sat on it until, one day, sifting through stacks of records at the Hall archive, the first album he pulled out was one of those rare original 78-RPM copies of “Tootie Ma.” He mailed it to Waits along with a 78 player and a note asking him if he’d like to record it at the Hall. Months passed before he finally got an email back: When were they available to record?

“I took it as a sign from God that Tom Waits was going to record ‘Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing’ with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band,” Jaffe says. “I thought, ‘This is the only thing that could possibly convince him—to give him the only copy I’ve ever seen in my life.’”

“Tootie Ma” is a standout on Preservation, the band’s new album, which also includes collaborations between the Hall band and a diverse assortment of artists including Andrew Bird, Brandi Carlile, Richie Havens, Pete Seeger, Del McCoury and Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Every track was recorded live at the Hall, and almost all the songs are traditional and public domain, done in the classic Hall style—acoustic hot jazz with banjo, clarinet and brass—that has remained New Orleans’ hallmark sound since the late 19th century.

Preservation Hall itself is a major tourist attraction, but it’s not touristy in the least. In a ramshackle wooden building in the French Quarter, elderly men in black suits and ties play the traditional New Orleans jazz they’ve played for half a century or more, music passed down to them from men who often had learned it the century before last. It’s the real deal. Jaffe, 39, took over stewardship of the Hall from his parents the week after graduating from Oberlin in 1993. As he updates it for the 21st century, he walks a line: keeping tradition sacred, but also relevant and exciting for a new generation.

“At 22, when I took over,” Jaffe says, “I was petrified that when the original Preservation Hall band passed away that we’d cease to exist. But by the late ’90s [as some original members were replaced] I began to see that people would still come see us for this very real New Orleans experience.”

The collaborators on Preservation seem to feel the same way. Carlile recorded the traditional hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” on a Sunday, with Hall guitarist/banjo player Carl LeBlanc, a veteran of the last incarnation of Sun Ra’s Arkestra. “The Preservation Hall band’s performance of these standards and their obvious passion and roots in New Orleans music sets the bar tremendously high for recording artists in any genre,” Carlile says. “I think the pairing of the performers with the Preservation Hall band bridges gaps in a really cool way.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE!

PURCHASE "PRESERVATION" HERE!

"PRESERVATION": A review by Sonic Boomers!

ALBUM OF THE WEEK:

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Preservation

Preservation Hall Recordings

By Phil Gallo for SonicBoomers.com

"The eight musicians who make up the current lineup of the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band have a tough road to plow. Perform with the spirit and integrity of their ancestors or fit the role of re-creationists to keep their battered French Quarter home filled with tourists. It's a balance they strike on Preservation, an album that partners the PHJB with 19 prominent rock, country and folk vocalists in a program of songs from the first half of the 20th century.



Not surprisingly, the more the vocalist works a tone that resonates with historical wear and tear, the better the recording. Richie Havens, Dr. John and Tom Waits are tops in this set, getting the band to sound their gritty best by plunging deep into ancient Louisiana blues. Waits digs his heels into the swamp on the earliest known Mardi Gras tune, the percussion-driven "Tootie Ma is Big Fine Thing"; Havens takes a funereal tone on "Trouble in Mind," a tune recorded by thousands but first by Louis Armstrong with Bertha "Chippie" Hill; and Dr. John brings out the gris-gris and incantations for Jelly Roll Morton's "Winin' Boy."



Better than the average benefit/tribute album, performances over most of the disc are the result of serious consideration and effort, a worthy addition to the Preservation Hall's recorded legacy. Proceeds from the album benefit educational efforts to mentor musicians under
the age of 18..."



FULL ARTICLE HERE!

PURCHASE "PRESERVATION!"

"PRESERVATION" Preview #13: Joining the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on their Upcoming Release - MR. TOM WAITS

February 16, 2010 - PRESERVATION: an album benefiting Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program hits the streets! (Best Mardi Gras Ever?) While we wait with baited breath, we share with you these previews of the 19 amazing tracks and special guests that make this latest offering from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band so very special. In this installment...

TOM WAITS
Tom Waits has built a career as varied as there are creative outlets—delving into cinema (both composing and acting), musical theater, opera, live performance, and literature—yet seamlessly interweaving a truly distinctive and fully-realized persona. The tools of his trade have included such things as the marimba, trombone, brake drum, metal aunglongs, banjo, bell plate, bullhorn, conga, accordion, optigon, mellotron, maracas, pump organ, basstarda, chamberlain, harmonium, viola, sticks, chairs, a musical saw, as well as the regular old guitar, bass, piano and drums and, of course, that trademark voice.

In a career that has spanned four decades, his music has taken adventurous turns, from confessional country-blues and jazz-flavored lounge, to primal rock and avant-garde musical theater. By turns tender and poignant, to strange and twisted, his songs tend to explore the dark, underbelly of society as he gives his uniquely human voice to adventurers both romantic and mercenary, drifters, con artists and those forgotten characters on the fringe and in the fray. Waits has expanded and drawn from a deep well of American song idioms: folk, blues, country, jazz ballads, polkas, waltzes, cabaret, swing, popular ballads, and a category that can only be described as Waitsian.

Named as one of VH-1’s “Most Influential Artists of All Time” it is no surprise that Waits’ body of work has long been covered (and coveted) by other musicians. Notable cover versions include: Bruce Springsteen (“Jersey Girl”), Rod Stewart and Everything But The Girl (“Downtown Train”), Marianne Faithfull (“Strange Weather”), The Ramones (“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”), 10,000 Maniacs (“I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You”), Bob Seger (“Blind Love”), Shawn Colvin (“The Heart Of Saturday Night”), plus Elvis Costello, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Johnny Cash, and many others. A diverse list of artists have cited Tom Waits as an inspiration, including Bob Dylan who has named him one of his “secret heroes.” And the adoration strikes a chord with a rabid fan following—there is even an annual celebration called “Waitstock” near Poughkeepsie, New York.

For more than 30 years now, Tom Waits has been creating music. He continues to inspire new generations of songwriters who have their own story to tell…and their own dark muse to follow.

SESSION PHOTOS BY CLINT MAEDGEN AND J. LLOYD MILLER

THE SONG:
"Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing"
Tom Waits with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band
(traditional)

Tom Waits - vocals
Mark Braud - trumpet
Charlie Gabriel - clarinet
Clint Maedgen - tenor sax
Lucien Barbarin - trombone
Rickie Monie - piano
Carl LeBlanc - banjo
Walter Payton - string bass
Ben Jaffe - tuba
Ernie Elly - drums

ANOTHER RECENT INTERPRETATION,
BY MEDESKI, SCOFIELD, MARTIN & WOOD:

"LIE TO ME" BY TOM WAITS - OFFICIAL VIDEO:

TOM WAITS - OFFICIAL WEBSITE
PRESERVATION HALL - OFFICIAL WEBSITE
LEARN MORE ABOUT "PRESERVATION"

Coming Mardi Gras, 2010 - PRESERVATION: A collaborative benefit album featuring Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, Merle Haggard and more!

PRESERVATION HALL AND

SONY RED DISTRIBUTION ANNOUNCE
PRESERVATION: AN ALBUM BENEFITING
PRESERVATION HALL AND ITS
MUSIC OUTREACH PROGRAM

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 16, 2010: Over the last year, more than 20 of American music's most exciting artists have traveled to Preservation Hall in New Orleans to collaborate with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on classic New Orleans repertoire. The end result is a timeless and joyous celebration of New Orleans music. Proceeds from the sale of the project will benefit Preservation Hall and The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program. The album is set for release on Fat Tuesday, February 16, 2010 in standard CD, deluxe edition, and double-LP collectible formats.

The mission of Preservation Hall, to showcase and nurture one of America's greatest indigenous, national, cultural treasures - New Orleans Jazz - is as important today as it was when Preservation Hall officially opened its doors in 1961.

"Our community is deeply rooted in a tradition of using music to rejoice, heal, and overcome adversity. We play music at our funerals to uplift our spirits during our deepest and darkest emotional moments," says producer Ben Jaffe, PHJB Creative Director and son of Preservation Hall founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe. "My goal on this project was to create new works steeped in the New Orleans Tradition with artists from diverse musical genres and backgrounds who all share a mutual admiration and deep appreciation for our cultural heritage."

From Brandi Carlile's take on the gospel classic "Old Rugged Cross" to Tom Waits' arrangement of the earliest known recorded Mardi Gras song, "Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing," each artist was able to perform their interpretation of these classics within the warm confines of Preservation Hall's famous performance space. Even New Orleans' own legendary Louis Armstrong, who once said, "Preservation Hall, now that's where you'll hear all the greats," is transported through the decades and can be heard trading licks and vocals on an updated version of his classic "Rockin' Chair."

The complete roster of artists includes: Louis Armstrong, Andrew Bird, Terence Blanchard, Pete Seeger, Dr. John, Blind Boys of Alabama, Brandi Carlile, Cory Chisel, Ani DiFranco, Steve Earle, Merle Haggard, Richie Havens, Jason Isbell, Jim James, Angelique Kidjo, Amy Lavere, Anita Briem, Del McCoury, Buddy Miller, Paolo Nutini, and Tom Waits.

Preservation Hall, located in the French Quarter just three blocks from the Mississippi River, remains the intimate veune it originally was when it opened in 1961 as a performance space dedicated to honoring, celebrating and perpetuating New Orleans jazz. Originally erected as a Spanish Tavern in the 1750s, Preservation Hall is a modest French Quarter structure. The building has no running water or air conditioning, and the only seating accomodations are six benches and a few cushions strewn about the worn wooden floor. Its raw and weather-beaten exterior remains unpainted.

A half-century later, Preservation Hall continues to ensure the cultural legacy and the future of this beautiful tradition by allowing young and old to collaborate together. in the spirit of New Orleans, legendary and emerging artists donated their time to travel to New Orleans to record this special compilation album benefiting Preservation Hall and the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program.

Preservation was spearheaded by RED Distribution, who approached Preservation Hall for their blessing and collaboration. "We're honored to be the driving force behind a tribute to this iconic body of music and the mission to restore the legendary Preservation Hall and its Music Outreach Program," said Bob Morelli, president, RED Distribution in announcing the album. "We hope this project continues to keep philanthropy at the forefront of the music industry, and restores faith that each of us can make a difference with just the purchase of a single CD. We thank all the wonderful artists who contributed their time and talent."