Preservation Hall

For those of you who have never been to Preservation Hall at 726 St. Peter Street in the French Quarter, let me give you a quick description. Preservation Hall is not really a hall but more of a room in the front of the building. The building itself dates from 1750, and before Allan and Sandra Jaffe founded the club in 1961, it was used for a variety of other purposes. The limited seating is not comfortable, consisting of some benches and a few chairs, and many will need to sit on the floor. There is no air conditioning; no refreshments other than bottled water are sold (although you may bring in a drink); and there are no rest rooms. The reason people form a line down the street waiting to get in is the music, pure and simple. The Jaffes wanted a place where New Orleans musicians could play New Orleans jazz, and many of the first musicians who performed at Preservation Hall had played with some of the early jazz greats.

Please take a look at the cover story of the July 2007 issue of OffBEAT Magazine by associate editor Alex Rawls. The article looks at how the second generation of the Jaffe family, Ben Jaffe, is guiding Preservation Hall to stay true to his parents' desire to save the heritage of New Orleans jazz, while incorporating new ideas. http://offbeat.com/artman/publish/article_2335.shtml
Mr. Rawls is going to see that we have some copies of the July issue to give out at the AALL Hospitality Booth.

And take a look at the Preservation Hall website as well: http://www.preservationhall.com/

The two photos of Preservation Hall performances from the 1970's come from the collection of the State Library of Louisiana, and I thank them for making them available. You may wish to search for a number of interesting Preservation Hall photos at the LOUISiana Digital Library: http://louisdl.louislibraries.org/

I will post the July schedule on the blog as well.

So, I guess food is not always the most important thing in life to New Orleanians.


Georgia Chadwick
AALL Hospitality Committee