Preservation Hall Jazz Band is living, breathing New Orleans music history. Named for the fabled venue in which the ever-evolving cast of musicians is based, the collective is at once deeply rooted in traditional jazz as it is a dynamic, boundary-stretching group. But let’s start in New Orleans in the 1950s, when traditional jazz had taken a backseat to the growing popularity of rock and roll and bebop. Larry Borenstein had an art gallery on St. Peter Street where he invited local musicians to jam. At the time, jazz music venues were few in the city, but the gallery on St. Peter Street had become a vibrant hub, attracting the city’s music-loving visitors, including, in 1960, Allan and Sandra Jaffe. Word of “Mr. Larry’s Gallery” brought the couple into a the world inhabited by New Orleans’ legendary practitioners of traditional jazz.
It wasn’t long until the Jaffe’s assumed management of the gallery space. Preservation Hall was born. The venue featured (and still does) music nearly-nightly and in 1963, Jaffe took a band on tour, spreading the rollicking Crescent City vibes around the world. Following Allan’s death, his son Benjamin assumed leadership of the collective and remains so today. And, like his papa, the younger Jaffe plays tuba in the band.
Which brings us to the PHJB’s newest record, “A Tuba to Cuba.” The album is the soundtrack to the band’s documentary about the band’s forays into Cuba to explore rich, musical history. The record is inflected with Latin rhythms and the sultry sounds of Havana. It’s an intoxicating musical journey that weaves two distinctive musical traditions in an unexpectedly intriguing way.
There is simply no better way to celebrate “New Orleans Day” in the park than with one of the fabled city’s greatest musical treasures playing for us.
