SHELTERING IN PLACE IN NEW ORLEANS

ALTHOUGH THE BARS ARE CLOSED AND THE FESTIVALS POSTPONED, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS AND LOVERS OF ITS MUSIC CAN STILL ENJOY THE CITY’S RICH LEGACY OF RECORDED MUSIC.

- JOHN SWENSON

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA –

As I write this, my city is locked down. To make sure of it, the National Guard is encamped in Louis Armstrong Park, site of Congo Square, where in former times enslaved Americans gathered to dance and play music, and tourists gathered to watch them. People still gather there when the city is not locked down; they gather at other places, too. No one’s gathering now.

The atmosphere now is eerily similar to how it was in September and October 2005, when the city was evacuated after Hurricane Katrina. Back then, when people started returning—around Halloween, to a city whose population was less than a third of what it had been before the storm— the key question on many people’s minds was, when this is all over, will the music return?

Today, people have not left the city. They’re huddled indoors, wondering when it will be safe to go outside and resume the social and cultural life that’s so uniquely central to this city.

With clubs and bars shut down and public gatherings banned, the question is posed again: Will the music return? Will people ever dance again, together in the street, to the rhythm of second-line parades, as music spills from bars? The city’s history suggests an answer— yes, it will return—but right now it doesn’t feel that way, and anyway, it won’t happen for quite some time.

A RICH RECORDED LEGACY