traditions Serious Business By Bob Weinberg Cradling a bright-orange handheld microphone, Mos Def shuffles and jukes across the well-scuffed wooden floor of Preservation Hall, spitting rhymes of frustration and anger about the seemingly endless gusher of oil flooding into the Gulf of Mexico. Behind the socially concerned rapper, singer and actor, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band lays down a slinky, sinuous groove that melds a century of New Orleans jazz tradition with up-tominute funk and hip-hop. The ensemble then intones the song’s title on the woeful chorus: “Awwww, it ain’t my fault.” “Oil and water don’t mix/Petroleum don’t go good with no fish,” Mos raps in his laconic, signature style. The dapper rapper goes on to equate the initials “BP” with “big pimpin’, big problem, bad president.” Gathered in the historic New Orleans performance space just weeks after the explosion of Deepwater Horizon, the band and its guests capture the immediacy of the situation. Lenny Kravitz is here, picking an insistent riff on guitar, as is actor and activist Tim Robbins, who lends his voice to the chorus. One of the city’s bright young talents, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, adds muscle to the brass. But it is 78-yearold Charlie Gabriel, Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s grand old man, whose sweet, wailing clarinet sets a sense of place like no other. This may not be your father’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band, but it is Ben Jaffe’s father’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The 39-year-old tuba player, bassist and band director literally grew up in the French Quarter institution that his father and mother founded in 1961. The younger Jaffe hustled to keep the Hall alive after Hurricane Katrina, to keep its musicians working and its profile high. A recent recording, Preservation, pairs the trad-jazz 38 fall 2010 jazziz “Injazz,wecanhavetheseconversationsabout thingsthatarehappeninginAmerica.That’swhywe improvise.It’samusicalconversation,butit’salso awaytorationallyorevenirrationallyexpressyour feelingsandpossiblyworkthemout.”—Jacob Duncan experts with a roster of rootsy all-stars including Tom Waits, Dr. John, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. It was a labor of love for all concerned. But the session with Mos Def was born out of Jaffe’s disgust with the horrific oil spill and BP’s — and the federal government’s — inability to staunch the flow. On the morning of May 12, Jaffe texted his rapper pal about collaborating on a song that would raise funds for Gulf Aid, a nonprofit set up in response to the spill. Within minutes, Mos replied with what would be the first two lines of “It Ain’t My Fault.” Some 12 hours later, Mos, Jaffe and his bandmates converged on the intimate performance space at 726 St. Peter Street. “There’s a lot of frustration,” Jaffe relates. “There’s also this feeling of total betrayal. We just feel that once again our government has let us down and that the voice of commerce is letting us down.” It’s déjà vu all over again for residents of the Big Easy. The apprehension they felt on the eve of Katrina has returned with the oil that is permeating sensitive wetlands and coating pelicans in toxic goo. What this means for the region’s future remains unknown. “We’re all environmentalists in New Orleans,” Jaffe says. “We’re very close to our water. We rely on our water. Could you imagine if you came to New Orleans and had to eat Chinese crawfish?” The frizzy-haired New Orleans native is among a growing tide of jazz artists who are speaking truth to power through their music. The Terence Blanchard Group’s 2009 release Choices threaded commentary from African-American scholar Cornel West amongst its musical tracks. The Mark Lomax Trio explores the existential experience of African-Americans on their recent release The State of Black America. And IndianAmerican drummer and composer Sunny Jain’s new recording, Taboo, tackles hostility toward homosexuality, violence visited upon women in South Asian communities