Preservation Hall

Front door of the Preservation Hall

Preservation Hall is a noted jazz performance hall located at 726 St. Peter Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It hosts nightly concerts featuring a rotating roster of bands. The bands of Preservation Hall typically perform jazz in the New Orleans style.

Despite the fame of the institution, admittance is affordable, being $15 as of May 2012. Because of limited seating, crowds typically begin lining up well in advance of a performance. No reservations are accepted and the line typically is quite long. Sometimes musicians will play for those waiting in line. Inside, a large portion of the audience must stand in back, behind a limited number of benches, chairs, and floor cushions.

The hall is not cleared forcibly between sets and an audience member can expect to stand in the dark with little or no view of the musicians for one set, stand with a good view for the next set, and find a seat for a third set. There is no dance floor and neither food nor drink is served. Smoking is not permitted, but outside drinks may be permitted, with decisions apparently based on safety and cleanliness.

History of the jazz hall

The Preservation Hall building is closed during the day

The origins of musical performances at Preservation Hall go back to the start of the 1960s along with the opening of an art gallery run by local entrepreneur Larry Borenstein. At that time, many older jazz musicians were employed only minimally. Borenstein arranged for some of them to play for tips there to help draw in potential customers to the gallery. More people began coming for the music than the art.

Allan Jaffe took over running of the Hall and made it into a famous institution, in part by ignoring the then prevalent ideas of what was needed for a successful music business—there was no dance floor and no food or drinks were served—the focus being just on the music. The only products sold were the recordings of Preservation Hall players and rare recordings of other New Orleans jazz musicians. Alan Jaffe's family continues to run the Hall.

In addition to playing in the French Quarter Hall, bands of New Orleans musicians tour the world under the Preservation Hall Jazz Band name.

In August 2005, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina forced Preservation Hall to close for several months, although the building remained intact. The first post-Katrina performance at Preservation Hall took place on April 27–28, 2006, commemorating its 45th Anniversary.

Historic building

Antoine Faisendieu bought a lot here from Guillermo Gros in 1803 and built a tavern, selling it in 1809 to Pierre and Barthelemy Jourdain.

A subsequent 1812 sale advertises a "house lately belonging to M. Faisendieu, $4000 cash and two years of notes." In 1816, when the Orleans Ballroom burned, this building also burned, and according to an act of sale, the architects Gurlie and Guillot bought the lot and rubble for $5000 in 1816, selling the property to Agathe Fanchon, femme de couleur libre, for $13,500 in November 1817.

Madame Fanchon owned the property until 1866. The service wing and patio were home and office to the photographer "Pop" Whitesell in the first half of the twentieth century.

The porte-cochere house appears to be Spanish colonial in style, simple and chaste in its anonymous facade, with a wrought iron balcony and the remnant of a terrace roof with tiles peeking out beyond the newer pitched roof. The facade even has the Spanish style banding bordering it. Like Madame John's Legacy, this building seems to have been rebuilt or renovated after the fire in the same manner it was originally built.

Further reading and references

• Preservation Hall by William Carter
• "Song for My Fathers" by Tom Sancton
• Historic Architecture of Preservation Hall
• Historic Architecture of Preservation Hall TV Interview

See also

• List of jazz clubs

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Preservation Hall

• Preservation Hall . com
• ART+ Interview with Ben Jaffe about Preservation Hall's new CD, Made in New Orleans (July, 2007)