Band festival-goers can donate money to help New Orleans musicians

By EMILY TOADVINE
emily@amnews.com

New Olympia Brass Band member Darryl Adams, a musician of 37 years, wound up in Texas with nothing after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. He turned to the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund.

"They helped me," he said. "They gave me money to buy clothes and food."

Adams is one of 800 musicians the fund has helped since its creation after Katrina. The non-profit organization provides grants for home repair, rent subsidies and general needs as well as pays for gigs and the replacement of musical instruments. The only requirement is being a New Orleans musician.

Jordan Hirsch, administrator, said he and Ben Jaffe, director of preservation for New Orleans, created the fund to help musicians continue to bring the city the music for which it's famous.

New Orleans is known as the birth place of Jazz. Louis Armstrong, Duke Elligton and Jelly Roll Morton all got their starts in the city, a place where a person could visit a dozen different clubs on any night and hear live music at every one.

A Google search on music and New Orleans produces 69.7 million results.

Even Katrina couldn't stop the city from celebrating its tradition - colorful masks and, yes, music filled the streets for Mardi Gras in February.

Now that music is coming to Danville. New Orleans musicians will be among the many here this weekend for the Great Big Brass Band Festival. And people who go will be able to donate to the Hurricane Relief Fund.

Katie Jo Kirkpatrick, who's on the festival steering committee, said a portion of the donations collected this year will go to the fund.

"We'd thought we'd give back since they've been giving to us all these years," she said.

People can put money into any of three tubas that will be near the Main Stage Saturday and Sunday.

To find out more about the fund, visit www.nomhrf.org.

This story ran in the Advocate on June 7, 2006.

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