ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 8, 1996 TAG: 9611080006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
Some people know Preservation Hall as a jazz band.
Benjamin Jaffe knows it as home.
So do countless old-time New Orleans musicians who have played at the tiny spot in the French Quarter, blowing out the tunes of the early part of this century.
Jaffe's parents started Preservation Hall in 1961 as a haven for a fading breed of musicians in the land of chickory and crawfish.
"That's how my affiliation with it began," Jaffe said. "From birth."
Now 25, Jaffe helps his mother manage the club, where musicians of all ages play every night, except Mardi Gras. And for half the year - the half that requires air travel - Jaffe plays bass for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
James Prevost takes over when the band members take the bus, as they will when they bring a bit of the Crescent City to Danville on Saturday night and Radford on Monday. Prevost, who is in his late 70s, has been in the band since it started 25 years ago.
People call New Orleans jazz "happy music," in part, perhaps, because the musicians are so happy to be playing it, happy to be remembered.
"The hardest part in the beginning was getting a lot of musicians out of retirement and putting together a band," Jaffe said of Preservation Hall's beginnings. "The musicians from the early days had stopped playing in the later years. Their music had gone out of style."
The music became "in" again at Preservation Hall, a room with wooden floors and benches and no liquor.
"It's been going 35 years and people still line up to get in," Jaffe said. "They got the formula right."
Jaffe spent much of his childhood in Preservation Hall, listening to his father, the late Allan Jaffe, play tuba with Willie and Percy Humphrey.
Benjamin Jaffe played tuba himself in grammar school, and went on to study classical music and jazz at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio.
He remembered the music and the good times of his childhood, he said, but New Orleans jazz didn't seem to be a part of his future.
"I thought of playing in an orchestra or moving to New York because that's where most musicians move to," he said.
Then his professors started mentioning the names of musicians - musicians he knew. And Jaffe started making trips to the library, to find his roots on audio tape.
Soon there was no question of where and how he would make his music: back home in New Orleans, the way his musician friends had taught him.
"I came back and started really understanding and appreciating what the musicians here did," he said. "A lot of musicians don't have a lot of respect for what we do here in New Orleans. They think of it as old-time. But it's challenging."
The shows are mostly ad lib, though they usually end with "When the Saints Come Marching In." Band leader and trumpeter Wendell Brunious sizes up the audience and picks the rest of the playlist accordingly from songs like "I Ain't Got Nobody," "Little Liza Jane" or "Tiger Rag."
New Orleans jazz, usually played by five- to seven-piece bands, is just a shade slower than other jazz forms, with a clear melody line over lots of improvisation.
"It's so fulfilling to play and have people appreciate you," Jaffe said. "The audience just adores it and has a great time. It's not above their heads. Not that it's not high art, but it's something they can understand. Even if a little kid comes and hears the music - they don't know what's going on, but you'll see them out there bouncing around. It has the same effect on adults."
And musicians. Jaffe said the music keeps them young.
"Once a musician starts playing here, people get to know him or her and they just keep playing until the day they die," he said. "They play until they can't play anymore."
And they teach what they know to the people willing to learn - like Jaffe.
"Being on the road with these musicians, you spend hours of time," Jaffe said. "It goes beyond considering them a friend - they're a part of your life. I was blessed with that."
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans willby CNBperform in Danville on Saturday and then in Radford on Monday
evening. For more information, see today's calendar on Page 3.
color.