NEW ORLEANS - Step away from the strip clubs and tarot card readers of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, drive down a seemingly endless stretch of sleepy neighborhoods and you'll find one of the true gems of the New Orleans jazz scene-Vaughn's Lounge.
Vaughn's is the place to be on a Thursday night. That's when legendary trumpeter Kermit Ruffins brings his soulful, gritty jazz to the tiny Bywater club, packing it with scores of locals ready to get up and move their feet.
The atmosphere at Vaughn's is joyous. The people here come from all walks of life-bikers mingle with businessmen, truck drivers flirt with sorority girls-but everyone is dancing. One audience member smacks a tambourine. Another taps his beer bottle with a spoon. Outside, music and people pour out onto the streets, so even those who can't pay the $10 cover can join the party.
After a night at Vaughn's, it's hard to believe that only seven months ago this city was in shambles from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. But even though the recovery process has been slow, locals insist that the jazz is back in New Orleans.
"When we first reopened at the beginning of October, it was just the neighborhood people who were straggling back," said Janet Kenkel, a longtime bartender at Vaughn's. "Now pretty much everyone is back."
Vaughn's itself was spared the worst of Katrina's devastation-the building came away with only minor flooding. But just a few miles away, in the Lower Ninth Ward, there is still destruction as far as the eye can see. Houses sit twisted off their foundations, collapsed roofs lie in heaping piles of debris and rusty abandoned cars litter the streets.
Despite the physical destruction, the scene at Vaughn's ensures that at least the sounds of the city remain intact.
Jazz has always been a vital part of the cultural gumbo that is New Orleans. The city, which is often dubbed the birthplace of jazz, has long stood at the epicenter of musical vitality in the Deep South.
In the early 1900s, its black Creole subculture, combined with a heavy dose of Gospel church music, gave rise to ragtime, blues and Dixieland. The intermixing of these musical elements led to an explosion in the popularity of big band jazz music in the 1930s. Since then, jazz has remained a vital part of New Orleans culture.
"The recovery of this music scene is absolutely essential to revitalizing the spirit of New Orleans," said Bill Taylor, director of Tipitina's Foundation, an organization that provides relief to the city's musicians and is housed out of a jazz club of the same name. "You can't separate music from life in New Orleans."
In the immediate aftermath of the storm, this connection manifested in a new way.
"Tipitina's was a base camp for rescuing people after the storm," said Erin Hoyer, a Tipitina's employee.
The club's Uptown location was spared from flooding, allowing it to contribute to the relief effort.
"Employees went around in a canoe and saved people's lives," Taylor said. They even delivered a baby inside the club.
Through the foundation, the club remains an important source of assistance for musicians in New Orleans. Tipitina's offers replacement instruments, free legal and accounting seminars and a Music Co-op Office for musicians to use during the day. So far, the Tipitina's Foundation has given away more than $500,000 worth of new instruments and 240 musicians have used the co-op office.
The foundation has also tried to find ways to allow as many musicians as possible to return to New Orleans.
"Finding housing for musicians who have lost their homes has been the biggest challenge in rebuilding the music scene," Taylor said.
Although the jazz scene is steadily improving, Hoyer said there is still more work to be done.
"A lot of bands are still scared to come down here," she said, explaining that musicians may mistakenly think that clubs have yet to reopen their doors.
Some clubs, like Preservation Hall, however, remain closed. The world famous French Quarter venue that has been a staple in the New Orleans jazz scene for generations does not plan to reopen until April 28.
And there still aren't as many people coming out to see the shows, said Kutlay Guc, a New Orleans resident and a regular at Vaughn's. The real question, he said, is when the scene will return to the way it was pre-Katrina.
Willie Washington, Jr., a New Orleans-based musician who relocated to Memphis after the hurricane hit, said he's not as worried about the clubs as he is about the street traditions that used to take place in areas destroyed by Katrina.
"Underneath the interstate-where the black community used to celebrate Mardi Gras with big celebrations that usually had four stages of music-there are piles of abandoned cars," Washington said. Ten-mile jazz parades, called "second-lines," used to frequently go through the Ninth Ward, in an area that is now almost completely uninhabited.
Whether such traditions return will depend on the city's plan for rebuilding the neighborhoods, but signs of revitalization are surfacing.
Second-lines have been popping up here and there in the Ninth Ward, and brass bands circle the French Quarter almost every night. "People are dying to hear music in New Orleans right now," Taylor said.
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