A City Speaks-Through Music

How New Orleans Speak Through Music

New Orleanians care deeply about family, faith, food, traditions, and most of all, about making a joyful noise. They take their brassy expression of bliss to the streets in celebration of life, death and everything in between. ("New Orleans Music History And Traditions") The music in New Orleans is more of a simple pastime; it is the center of festival and ritual, of family and neighborhood life, from Carnival and street parades to Jazz Fest and nightclubs. Music in New Orleans also has healed ethnic tensions within the city and brought stability to a weak economy, an in a city so often cast aside as a center of corruption, music provides a vital force of healing and education. The realms of music and health exist as one within the Big Easy, where spiritual and physical health are impossibly intertwined. (Silver)

Among African societies, music has long been used as a way to make sense of death. Rather than live in fear or its mystery, second line culture and jazz funerals have become one of the most important ways to celebrate the unknown and continue a distinctive West African memory. (Silver)

 Music often becomes a mechanism to make a process or event more easily understood and relatable, and music as a remedy for the pains and trials of the human condition is hardly a new phenomenon. Early blues was born out of the work of songs of enslaved plantation workers. Hip Hop music often expresses the pain of the sometimes-hidden-sometimes-blatant racism still present in society. However, music’s continued presence as a force of ritual healing speaks to its power, especially in New Orleans. (Silver)
      Music is believed to be tied to the soul and can be used as a type of spiritual medicine. Music is intrinsically tied to the soul and can be used as a type of spiritual medicine. From herb shops to songs about health, the crossover between music and health speaks to the importance of the spirit, of medicine for the soul not just the body. (Silver)

      The events of Hurricane Katrina left a lasting imprint on both the cultural and physical landscape of the swampland. Music, and the arts as a whole, provided a way to transcend the frustrations and pain of the present. It gave hope, healing and a cultural memory so vital in a city founded in family lineages. The extent of the loss of important cultural and historical artifacts will likely never be truly known; music however, could not be taken away by the flood. (Silver)





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