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Up From New Orleans
Life Before, During and After Katrina
A conversation with transplanted New Orleans musicians Devin Phillips and Mark DiFlorio
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Photo by Alexey Sergeev
Pirates Alley, New Orleans February, 2006
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"I'm always wondering," Louis Armstrong wrote in 1966, "if it would have been best in my life if I'd stayed like I was in New Orleans, having a ball."
In 1922, Armstrong left his city of New Orleans by choice, boarding a Chicago-bound train in his long underwear, carrying a "little" suitcase with a "few" clothes in it, his cornet, and a trout sandwich packed by mother Mayann.
In late August of 2005, an unimaginable number of New Orleans residents in the path of an oncoming Hurricane Katrina were left with little choice but to flee the city. One can only assume that few had the luxury of leisurely packing a suitcase, let alone a trout sandwich. They rode in cars and vans and busses, getting as far from the wind and rain as possible. Their intent may have been to stay in a roadside hotel for a night or two -- maybe a week at the most. Many who have lived through hurricanes before chose to stay. Many others couldn't leave and paid an enormous price in damage to life, property and spirit.
Jazz musicians Devin Phillips and Mark DiFlorio were two New Orleans citizens who fled by choice, but they assumed that when they returned, the clubs they played in would be whole, and the residents and tourists they played for would reappear.
Nature didn't exactly cooperate, and post-Katrina New Orleans became a city to escape from -- perhaps even permanently. But where do you go when you are forced to flee, when there is precious little time to gather family and friends and pack a trout sandwich?
In the case of Phillips and DiFlorio, where do you go when your music -- perfectly suited to the culture of New Orleans -- must play on?
Across the country and around the world, sympathetic citizens transmitted cash and prayers in an effort to assist directly-impacted victims, as well as to salve their own Katrina-inflicted wounds. Children collected money in their classrooms, extended family members added beds to their homes, and entire cities in nearby states opened their arenas and government facilities.
In Portland, Oregon -- a city with seemingly nothing in common with New Orleans -- local businesses, including the entrepreneurs responsible for the upstart Portland Jazz Festival, offered displaced jazz musicians a place to temporarily live and play while recovering from the effects of the storm. Its program offered airfare, temporary housing, and studio time, which spoke to the needs of Phillips and DiFlorio, who called it "...almost too good to be true."
On their own, Phillips and DiFlorio chose to take advantage of the Festival group's offer and traveled to Portland, where they hooked up and soon discovered a musically-engaged community excited about the music they carried from New Orleans. They also found themselves in a potentially rewarding climate in which to nurture their emerging talents. Now, twelve months after Katrina uprooted their New Orleans lives, Phillips and DiFlorio are flourishing as independent musicians in Portland, and play together in a quartet Phillips fronts called New Orleans Straight Ahead. Their presence, meanwhile, has contributed to widening the area's already respectable appreciation for the music New Orleans made famous.
While it is too soon in their lives for Phillips and DiFlorio to reflect on leaving New Orleans as a sixty-five-year-old Louis Armstrong did in 1966, it is not too early for them to share their fascinating experiences.
In February of 2006, Phillips, a gifted saxophonist and clarinetist, and DiFlorio, a personable and polished drummer, met with the publisher in the offices of Jerry Jazz Musician. In the resulting conversation, "Up From New Orleans," the men reveal their pre-Katrina lives, their personal experiences during the storm, and the difficult circumstances that led to their decisions to travel to Portland -- a city they now consider their home.
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Interview Chapters
Before Katrina: Life in New Orleans
Facing Katrina
Discovering Portland
Mark DiFlorio and Devin Phillips
Portland, Oregon, August, 2006
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Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
by Ellis Marsalis
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Before Katrina: Life in New Orleans
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JJM I'd like to start by asking each of you
who your childhood heroes were?
DP My mom was a single mom, and she had to
be my mom and my dad, so I have to say she was my hero. I remember
one experience from when I was about four years old that really made her
seem bigger than life to me. I watched her cutting the grass and went outside
to tell her that, since she is a woman, she couldn't do that job. But she
responded by telling me that she was a woman and a man. I didn't
understand what she meant by that -- she was a man and a woman? So
I was confused for a long time. Of course now I dig what she meant, and that
is why she is my hero. She had to play the role of man and woman to
me.
JJM Where does she live now?
DP She remarried, and after Katrina she and
her husband relocated to Texas.
| JJM Mark, who was your childhood hero?
MD My father's youngest brother Dennis was
my hero. I remember always being very excited when I was around him because
he made me feel so good. He would make me laugh and it seemed like we always
had fun together. I also remember being impressed by how he handled himself
-- there was just something about him that fascinated me.
JJM Was he a musician?
MD Yes, he was. He was actually the person
who introduced me to the drum set a little later in my life.
JJM Devin, I understand you are originally
from New Orleans. Where are you from, Mark?
MD Philadelphia.
JJM When did you move to New Orleans?
MD I moved there in 1993.
|
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Mark's Uncle Dennis in the mid-seventies, playing drums he eventually
gave to Mark in 1986 |
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Mark, going by train to New Orleans for "Jazz Fest" in May, 1992 --
his first visit to the city
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Mardi Gras In New Orleans
by Dirty Dozen Brass Band
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JJM Why did you move there?
MD I moved there to learn to play jazz music.
I had been a rock-and-roll drummer from my middle teens, and became aware
of jazz drumming while I was in college in Pennsylvania, where I started
listening to jazz and reading about it. Then, a couple of years later, a
friend of mine asked me if I wanted to join him for a trip to New Orleans
for "Jazz Fest," '92. Since I was basically living on my buddy's floor at the
time, just playing music all the time, I decided to take the train with him
there. I wound up having a great time, and when some musician friends of
mine later suggested we move to New Orleans, I decided to do so.
JJM Did you have an instant appreciation for
the city?
MD I think so. I really hadn't been to too
many places outside of Philadelphia and college, so the trip to New Orleans
was the first big trip that I made on my own. New Orleans presented me with
a place to experience freedom and adventure, and there wasn't any doubt that
I wanted to play music after I got there. Actually, prior to moving there,
I was trying to get into Berklee in Boston, while my friends were telling
me to move to New Orleans. So, when I didn't get into Berklee, I decided
to head to New Orleans.
JJM Did you get gigs right away after you
arrived?
MD No. I was playing some rock-and-roll,
but I could barely play the drums in 1993. |
JJM Devin, what were you doing in 1993?
DP I was twelve years old, and probably in
the seventh grade. I had just started playing jazz and was beginning to learn
about people like Charlie Parker. Being from New Orleans, I always knew who
Louis Armstrong was, and the music of Duke Ellington, B. B. King, and Frank
Sinatra was always on in my house, but it was just a sound I was used to
hearing.
When I was twelve, I started playing jazz in this outreach program that came
out to all the schools. It was about this time when my mother started giving
me a little bit of freedom, and I began to have more friends around the city,
learning a few things about street playing. While I wasn't fully involved
in it or anything, I was getting exposed to it. This was about the time that
I really started to recognize the culture of New Orleans music. Other people
may grow up around a musician who could teach them about New Orleans culture,
but that was not the case with me -- I just kind of found it.
JJM What neighborhood did you grow up in?
DP In eastern New Orleans, about fifteen
minutes from downtown, fifteen minutes from the Superdome. My high school
was near the city itself.
| JJM Do you feel that the city of New Orleans
did a good job educating young local students about its role in the development
of jazz music?
DP No. Jazz isn't appreciated very much there.
Jazz can be a lot of different things, you know? It can be music that is
played at somebody's birthday party, or even at a funeral. There is always
some form of jazz that is being played in New Orleans, and it seems as if
everybody has a cousin or uncle who plays it. In that sense, everybody who
grows up in New Orleans grows up with jazz. It is so much a part of the culture
that you can't see it -- you may not even recognize it.
JJM It is felt by some that New Orleans has
done a terrible job in communicating and promoting the importance of jazz
to the rest of the country. In fact, it has gotten to be that when the average
person thinks of jazz that is played in New Orleans they think of guys in
straw hats, and musicians like Al Hirt and Pete Fountain. So, New Orleans
jazz went from being associated with people like Louis Armstrong and Jelly
Roll Morton to Hirt and Fountain… |
New Orleans: Ragging Home, 1974, by Romare
Bearden
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Flee as a Bird
by Olympia Brass Band
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DP Yes, but that happens in any kind of music
-- it is happening in rap music also. The Beatles did more of a number on
jazz than Al Hirt did. I do like the Beatles too, you know...
JJM Let's talk about when you guys started
finding work in New Orleans. Mark, how old are you now?
MD I am thirty-five.
JJM Ok, so you are ten years older than Devin.
MD Yes. It's funny, because in 1992 Devin
and I were in the same place -- we were both starting to learn about jazz,
but I was twenty-three and he was twelve. When I got to New Orleans, I actually
found work playing music right away, playing with some rock group at a private
party. I also remember playing Nick's Bar and Check Point Charlie's with
this great Dr. John-type band called Blood and Grits.
Photo by Alexey Sergeev
French Quarter, near Bourbon Street
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JJM What would you make for a gig like
that?
MD Fifteen dollars or so. These were real
low-end gigs I was playing. I also had a day job cooking at a bar.
JJM What part of the city were these clubs
in?
MD Check Point Charlie's was right on the
edge of the French Quarter, which is where I played a lot. It was a dingy
little bar that had lots of mostly rock music all the time.
DP Yes, it was a crazy place.
MD It was an all-night place! |
| JJM Who was the premier local New Orleans
drummer at that time?
MD Johnny Vidacovich. When I moved to New
Orleans, he was the guy who I looked to study with, although I don't really
remember how I got directed to him. It could be that someone recommended
him to me, but I think he was the first New Orleans drummer that I saw.
JJM Is he in New Orleans now?
MD I think I heard he was back in New Orleans.
I heard he went to Houston after Katrina, and that he was taken really good
care of there. But his house was high enough so it wouldn't have any flood
damage, so he might be back there now.
JJM Devin, did you see Vidacovich play much?
DP Yes, of course. All the jazz musicians
in New Orleans know each other. As I was growing up -- especially around
that twelve-year-old time we were talking about earlier -- I did a lot of
camps with Johnny Vidacovich and Tony Dagradi. . The same people in New Orleans
teach everybody how to play, really. Most of us all had the same teachers. |
Johnny Vidacovich |
JJM Devin, what was your pinnacle musical
experience in New Orleans?
DP I don't know if this was the pinnacle
but it was probably the thing that pushed me into jazz. When I was twelve
or thirteen, a guy named Jonathan Bloom did a thing called "Jazz Outreach,"
where he went to all the schools and taught one jazz class per week. At the
end of the year, they would combine all the kids from the middle schools
and do a jazz fest. We practiced for this all year long. At the time, I hated
the saxophone, because in New Orleans marching bands are really popular --
especially in the black high schools. Marching bands are not exactly
saxophone-friendly because they don't really play marching songs, they play
music that is played on the radio -- like R&B songs. The best bands are
the ones that play the loudest. It is tough to play the saxophone in a marching
band, so, I hated the saxophone. Also, if you played the saxophone in a marching
band, you had to march in the back of the band with the girls, away from
all the brass. It was horrible!
But when I started playing jazz, the saxophone had a much more significant
role and I appreciated it a lot more. So we practiced four songs, and at
the end of the year, we put on a performance. Right before the performance,
Wynton Marsalis came, which was an unbelievable experience for me. I was
in love with his suit jacket, the way he talked, and all that stuff. I was
like, "Wow, I love this man," know what I mean? I wanted to be just like
him. At that time I may have wanted to be like him, but as I have gotten
older, I don't necessarily want to be like him, but what he does inspires
me. I may not like all his music, and he may not like all of mine, but I
understand his vision. It makes me proud to be where I am from.
JJM He certainly possesses a desire to communicate
the importance of jazz in American history.
DP Oh yes. And he wants jazz to be in the
forefront. I was watching television the other day and there was an I-Pod
commercial with him in it, and no jazz musician has an I-Pod commercial,
know what I mean? But he wants jazz to be visible wherever you go. He pushes
for jazz to be part of the Grammy's, and I like that.
| JJM What about you, Mark? What was your
pinnacle moment as a musician in New Orleans?
MD There are so many, I don't know if there
is really one. There is one thing that I do feel has a special importance.
I ended up studying jazz at the University of New Orleans, and every spring
semester they would put together a small combo -- something they called the
"Europe Combo" -- and whoever got picked for that group would do a summer
tour in Austria and Italy. The cats who were in the combo in previous years
were players that I really looked up to -- people who I held up high above
me. For most of us in the school, this was a group we really wanted to be
a part of. I remember auditioning for the combo and then going to check the
combo list, and what a great thrill it was to discover that I had been picked
for the Europe combo that year.
Besides being exciting, it was timely because it was at the point where I
decided to learn to play jazz very seriously, and making this combo made
it so I had no excuses for not playing and improving. It cleared the way
in my life for me to spend time on my instrument and make great progress
on it. The professor who ran the combo and who accompanied us on the trip
was Harold Baptiste, who is a very profound, wise teacher. He was a fantastic
influence on me. |
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Europe Combo, 1997
Tyrone Jackson, piano; Brent Rose, sax; Brady Kish, bass; Mark Rapp,
trumpet; Mark DiFlorio, drums |
photo by Jayne
Sanchez
 Devin Phillips |
JJM There is so much cultural history
in New Orleans. How did its atmosphere and all the associated culture help
inspire you musically?
DP Seeing how the music in New Orleans is
a living music, a living art form, is very inspiring. I am not saying anything
bad about classical music, but jazz is nothing like classical music. When
you are taught to play jazz, you learn that it is always changing, and that
there is no set way you are supposed to learn. Something that fascinates
me is the untrained players -- those who can't read music, for example --
who are great musicians anyway. How does that happen? How are they like that?
And the people who are trained and methodical about their music pushes my
interest also.
A lot of playing goes on in New Orleans all the time, and your musical peers
push you all the time. Sometimes your teachers may not be there to teach
you, but others around you are. While I went to an art conservatory for high
school, I didn't go to a university or have formal training in order to learn
how to play jazz. I am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing, but
people in New Orleans learn how to play jazz on the bandstand. You learn
while you are performing on the stage, so the art is alive and growing. If
you don't sound bad, you don't lose your job…
JJM Yes, there are those who say that jazz
artists are all sounding as if they come out of the same conservatory, taught
by the same teacher, but what you are saying is that the jazz musicians of
New Orleans learn through experience, and through what the city offers…
DP That is true, yes, and the thing that
makes musicians of New Orleans better is the city's culture, but more so
is how the musicians help each other out, and how they interact with each
other. New Orleans is a breeding ground for musicians -- there are ten cats
in New Orleans who are just as good or better than me. But the downside about
New Orleans is that while it breeds musicians, it doesn't do a good job of
supporting them. Musicians can't thrive there, that is why Wynton isn't there,
that is why Branford isn't there, Harry Connick Jr…
|
| JJM Who does thrive there?
DP Various people for various reasons…
JJM We all know about the Aaron Neville's
and the Dr. John's and those kinds of musicians, but have jazz musicians
thrived in New Orleans despite the reduced demand for jazz music?
MD Ellis Marsalis thrives there, and that
probably has a lot to do with the fame of his sons. I remember Ellis saying
that before his sons were famous he wasn't selling-out weekends.
DP I don't think he thrives, I think he just
sustains the music and keeps it afloat so people can enjoy it, know what
I mean? There are so many different types of jazz, one of which is that played
by Ellis Marsalis, which is great. Although I haven't ever learned from him
personally, he is like a mentor because I have watched him my entire life.
Now, on other nights I may decide I would like to go see Kermit Ruffin, but
his show is entirely different from Ellis Marsalis' show. They are two very
different artists so it is hard to compare the them, and they have each thrived
in New Orleans for different reasons.
MD Another musician who thrives there is
the bassist James Singleton, who has been a big influence on me. Like you
were saying, Devin, he thrives for different reasons than Ellis Marsalis.
A great sideman like Singleton may thrive as a result of his versatility
in the styles he plays. James may do a recording for a traditional jazz session
during the day, then he might go play a convention center gig at night, and
the next day he may put a suit on and play standards at an uptown gig, and
afterwards go downtown and play a totally improvised set with an avant-garde
ensemble made up of a pedal steel player, cello, and bass at another. He
may play three different types of gigs a day, and do that four times a week.
DP I find New Orleans musicians to be more
versatile than other musicians because they play so many different styles.
I am not speaking for myself, just overall. |
 Ellis Marsalis
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Never Let Me Go
, by Ellis Marsalis
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photo by
Brad
Edelman
James Singleton and Johnny Vidacovich
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photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Quintology at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, 2000
Best new jazz artists, New Orleans 1999, Offbeat Magazine Awards
Left to right: Charlie Dennard, piano; Brian Seeger, guitar;
Brent Rose, sax; Brady Kish, bass; Mark DiFlorio, drums |
MD That sort of versatility is a survival
instinct, and my teachers taught me this. When I was studying with Johnny
Vidakovich, one of the first things he taught me was that in order to learn
how to play, I needed to play every gig I was offered -- to never turn down
a gig. So when I started playing in New Orleans, I played every gig. I was
playing Cajun dance gigs out in the country one weekend, and the next I may
be in a tuxedo playing a very conventional gig. Or, I may play a blues gig
on Bourbon Street during the day and an avant-garde gig at a club at night.
That was a great lesson for surviving and cultivating this versatility. Now,
I have to say in the end that it wasn't the healthiest thing for me.
JJM Why not?
MD Because I developed this habit of never
refusing to play a gig, and I wound up playing in a handful of them that
I wish I wasn't a part of. I also started feeling incredibly overworked,
but I couldn't get out of the habit of saying "No" when I got the call. It
was all part of this survival instinct. I would tell myself that since I
didn't have a gig that night, and since someone wanted me, I should go out
and play with them. |
JJM Were you guys both full-time musicians
in New Orleans?
DP Other than working at Foot Locker when
I was in the tenth grade, I have never done anything besides play music.
JJM So, you are making it as musicians?
DP Well, if you want to call what I am doing
"making it," then yes, I am making it. Now that I am away from New Orleans,
I have realized something that I was not able to see while living and playing
there, and what I am about to say may come across as sounding arrogant or
conceited, but anyone who knows me knows that I am not either of those things.
Some things are either appreciated or they aren't, and I now know for a solid
fact that I was not appreciated in New Orleans.
JJM Why not?
DP It could be my fault or someone else's,
but I guess I would like to take another shot at it when we have our city
back. But I do know that I wasn't appreciated. This is hard for a native
son of New Orleans to say, but since I have come to Portland -- while I still
have to work very hard, which everybody should have to do -- I see a more
promising future here for myself than I saw in New Orleans, and that realization
hurts me. New Orleans is a breeding ground for musicians -- they come from
all over the world to live and work there -- however, it is not a place that
does a good job of supporting the music and its musicians.
| JJM Before we begin talking about Katrina,
is there anything either of you want to add?
DP Yes. I want to talk about my background
in New Orleans just a little more. When I talked about playing in a marching
band, besides being taught at an arts conservatory, a lot of my training
came from playing in brass bands, and that is a big part of the New Orleans
region. It has changed a lot over the years because now brass bands play
mainstream music that is played on the radio, whereas their grandfathers
played parade music. But no matter what era you are from, playing in a brass
band is a very important part of being a horn player from New Orleans. It
is a famous tradition, and every important horn player has done it -- beginning
with Danny Barker. Even though I never met
him, I feel like I am a part of this tradition. So the brass band is where
I come from, and it is where I learned how to play jazz.
JJM I am sure you can't help but feel connected
to the Danny Barker's, the Buddy Bolden's, the Louis Armstrong's…
DP They are like our family.
MD Yes, they are like family, and we are
a part of a musical lineage. I also want to reiterate what Devin said, that
jazz is alive in New Orleans. It is living in that city, and there are probably
six to ten clubs in the Frenchmen area alone…
DP Yes, it is alive there.
MD There were times when I had a gig at
one of the clubs, and at the same time I knew about fifteen other guys playing
in the other clubs of the area. So, after we set up we would go around and
say hello to each other before we started, talking about who was playing
where and with whom. On our breaks we would go over to those other clubs
to check them out, and often sit in with them. I may be on a gig at Café
Brazil and then head over to another club on my break. There was also this great street
scene that went along with this, where people who loved the music would hang
out in front of the clubs -- so there was noise and festivities and all this
wonderful interaction that shapes the night and shapes the music being created
during the gigs. The New Orleans scene ends up being this holistic, living
organism. |
Buddy Bolden
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Danny Barker
*
Louis Armstrong
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Tiger Rag
, by Louis Armstrong
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Photo by Alexey Sergeev
Bourbon Street near crossing with Saint Peter Street, April, 2006
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Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
, by Nicholas Payton
|
JJM You make it sound as if it were a
modern day 52nd Street scene…
DP I was about to say that also! The 52nd
Street of the forties and fifties is the closest thing I can think of to
compare it to.
MD That's right, and I have never seen it
like that anywhere else.
JJM I have lived in the northwest for the
last thirty years and have only visited New Orleans a couple of times, so
I can't say I know the city much at all. However, given my interests, the
kind of scene you describe should have been marketed to someone like me.
DP When you come into New Orleans, jazz is
not likely what you will be seeing. As a tourist, you will probably come
down Bourbon Street, where there will be eight rock bands, two reggae bands,
six blues bands and a place called Maison Bourbon, the only club that features
any form of jazz. I don't really want to comment on what kind of jazz it
is because it depends on who is playing, but there is usually some
form of jazz in there, and maybe two other places of very low quality have
jazz music inside. Somebody once told me that jazz was invented in New Orleans,
but if you walk down Bourbon Street you will have a hard time finding it,
know what I mean? There is not one single place on Bourbon Street that features
modern jazz, and if a musician sounds the least bit modern, he won't be working
there for very long. |
JJM Is Dixieland the primary type of jazz
music played?
MD Rock cover bands are mostly what you
hear there now.
JJM So there aren't even Dixieland jazz bands?
DP Very few.
MD One, maybe.
JJM I suppose the decisions leading to what
kind of music gets played in the clubs are market driven, just like anything
else…
MD There were some quality blues clubs at
one time, but they aren't there anymore. One of the blues clubs that featured
the blind guitarist Brian Lee is now a daiquiri shop.
DP I hear great stories about a place called
the Playboy Club on Bourbon Street. Ellis Marsalis played on the first floor,
and some other people played on the second and third floors, and when I hear
that, I wish that was the time I was alive. Why am I here right now? Not
that I don't love my life now, but why didn't I live then?
| MD Yes. I hear there was big money for
people who were playing modern jazz at the time. They would make their rent
every night because the cost of living was cheap at the time, and the gigs
were paying good money.
I want to add to what Devin was saying about how a lot of cats are coming
out of conservatories sounding well-trained. Being around New Orleans and
playing there as much I did, I couldn't help but realize that the city has
such an oral tradition for jazz, and a musician discovers how to play there
by getting up on stage, listening, getting pushed around, and being encouraged.
It is a very real, human process in which to learn and advance. I came to
find that some of the teachers from New Orleans taught that ethic. For me,
coming from the east coast, that was a nice balance, and a new way for me
to learn. I was comfortable with the standard classes I attended at the
university, where I took notes, listened and asked questions, but I also
had teachers who were into this New Orleans oral tradition -- which is a
huge part of what New Orleans has to offer musicians.
|
Mark DiFlorio at his graduate recital, University of New Orleans,
1999 |
DP I want to talk about something that is
sort of off-color, but it goes back to how New Orleans doesn't support jazz.
My best friend plays the trumpet, and we were talking about how the city
doesn't support jazz very well. We were doing this gig every Sunday for a
year-and-a-half or so, and one day I asked him, "What would you do if you
walked into the gig and it was packed full of young black people?" He said
that he would play butt-naked, and for free! He said that because he knew
it wasn't going to happen. Now, if my brother gets shot and we have a funeral,
there will be a second-line band there, and that may be their entire exposure
to jazz. If you go into a class and say "Count Basie," I don't think
people in the class will even know who he was.
JJM How ridiculous is that?
DP I don't know, but it is a shame. It is not
like that just in New Orleans -- it is like that in other places as well -- but
we should be setting a standard in New Orleans for jazz education…
JJM Yes, and not only because what jazz meant
to New Orleans, but what it meant to America as well. It could be that the further we get away
from the times in which artists like Basie, Armstrong and Ellington lived, people will begin having an appreciation
for them.
DP My friend Lee and I have a lot of
heart-to-heart talks about that. Sometimes it is easy to get down because
of how hard this work is, and I remember joking with him over the phone one
night that if I put half the effort I was putting into jazz into rap instead,
I would be a millionaire by now. I would probably have my Hummer outside,
and we would probably have lots of women, acting crazy, drinking champagne.
I don't mean that realistically at all because I don't want to rap -- that
is not what I was put here to do. But it can be discouraging at times because
jazz is an art form we are trying to keep alive, and it is not an easy thing
to do at all.
*
Facing Katrina
_______________
photo National Environmental
Satellite
JJM So, lets talk about the storm itself,
and your personal experiences with it. I saw it approaching the Gulf Coast
on the same satellite photos I am sure you guys did, but I was in the comfort
of my Oregon home. What was going through your mind as Katrina approached,
and when did you first begin to realize that you faced the likelihood of
evacuation?
MD Saturday, when one of my gigs got cancelled,
which I was pretty pissed off about…
JJM Katrina hit New Orleans on Monday, right?
DP Yes, Monday. By Saturday I was still
thinking it would be more of an inconvenience than anything else. Hurricanes
come through New Orleans a lot, and I have been living with them all of my
life. But people my age hadn't seen a Hurricane Betsy or anything like that,
so my experience with hurricanes was that I would pack up my Play Station
and an overnight bag and swim in a hotel pool. It was almost like a vacation.
But I could tell that this storm was bad, so I left like I always do.
JJM Where did you go?
DP Shreveport, LA.
JJM How did you get there?
|
DP If I say so myself, this is a pretty
amazing story. I decided to leave around noon on Saturday with two girls,
one of whom was from Japan who had lived in New Orleans for about two years,
and the other was from the Soviet Union, going to law school at Tulane. She
had only been in New Orleans for about two weeks. There was another student
from Tulane as well. The car we were in was running really hot, and after
a while it just gave out -- it was done. By this time I was a little pissed-off
because I didn't want to take this car in the first place. I don't always
take pressure the best way, and I was getting pretty anxious because by this
time it was pretty obvious it was going to be a tough hurricane, but the
people I was with didn't have any worries -- they think it is like a field
trip, know what I mean? So I am getting more and more frustrated, because
the car isn't working good, and I am really mad at the guy who wanted to
take this car even though I didn't.
So the car is broken down and we are standing on the side of the road. It
is pitch black out, and even though there are a lot of cars passing, nobody
stops for us until a bald-headed, short white guy who looked like the
Unabomber pulls over to ask if we need help. We tell him that our car is
all busted and that we could use some help. So, he tells us we need to get
going because the storm is coming, and offers us a ride in the van. Already
I am asking myself whether I really want to ride with this guy. Then, he
pulls back and opens up the back of his van -- there are no seats in it,
and it is filled with two-by-four's, buckets, saws, and a bunch of equipment.
Not only that, the floor is completely covered in dry dog food, and one of
the smelliest dogs ever is back there as well. So now I am really thinking
this is a bad idea, because this guy looks like he has all the equipment
to tie us up and torture us in the back of his car! I told the others that
I don't want to go with this guy, but we don't have a lot of options. I could
call my dad to come get us, but it would take him eight hours to drive here,
so it was agreed that we had to ride with this guy, but once we get into
his van it will be too late to call our parents or anyone else for help.
Now, I am 6'3", 200 pounds, but I was afraid of the guy driving the van. I couldn't
go to sleep because of him, and because of how everything was so hectic and
stressful -- and I had yet to think about how the city could be destroyed!
By the time we got to Shreveport, we went right to sleep, and we woke up
the next day to learn about how rough things were in New Orleans. The trip
was not any fun at all, and when the levees broke and everything else happened,
it made it worse and worse. |
 Devin Phillips and friends with their over-heated vehicle
* 
The "Unabomber," the dog, and the rescue van
* 
The view of the abandoned car from inside the van
|
JJM Where was your mother when all this was
going on?
DP They evacuated to Baton Rouge first.
JJM Did they have their own transportation?
DP Yes. She and my stepfather evacuated together,
and all my brothers and sisters did as well. Most all my family evacuated,
but I had an uncle who stayed, who was rescued a few days later by helicopter.
Hurricane Katrina approaching |
JJM What about you, Mark? What was your
experience?
MD I don't have a television, so I don't
always keep up on the news. It wasn't until Friday night before I was able
to see the storm coming on television, and it was about as wide as the state
at that time. I had stayed for a couple of hurricanes that they recommended
evacuation in the past, where they cut off the highways and New Orleans became
a ghost town, but nothing ever happened. So, until Katrina, in the ten years
I lived in New Orleans, I had never left the city in the face of a hurricane.
But, when I saw the size of the storm, I told myself that I was leaving
tomorrow! I began calling people and found out that all my work had
been cancelled. On Saturday morning my girlfriend Joanna and I decided to go to
the gas station, where we waited in line for an hour-and-a-half. By this
time, there was an incredible buzz in the city, and it dawned on me how real
this situation was, that the shit was goin' down. Before leaving on Saturday
night, I went to my house to put everything up high and close my shutters.
I lived on the second floor, and Joanna lived on the first floor in
another part of town... |
| JJM What neighborhood was this?
MD I lived in mid-city, Banks and Jeff Davis,
and Joanna lived uptown. I finished up at my house -- the only thing I took
was my cat -- and then went to her house. She was working until midnight
on Saturday, so I got everything off the floor, picked her up and split out
of there. By this time they had already done the contra-flow -- where only
outbound traffic was allowed -- so there was no traffic, and we were able
to fly out of there. All we had with us were our cats, and we drove all the
way to southwest Virginia, where her mother lives.
We figured we would be gone about three days, and thought this would just
be a long ride. On Monday, the storm hit, but it passed and most everything
seemed okay. I was even thinking about the gig I had on Wednesday, and I
remember telling Joanna that while it was nice visiting with her mom,
I had to get back to New Orleans because I was going to be working over the
coming weekend. Then I heard some report about what could happen to the city
as a result of the storm surge. Getting news was hard because Joanna's
mom didn't have a television or computer, so the only news we were getting
were the morning and evening National Public Radio news reports. In
order to get online we had to go to the local library, where we were able
to catch up on things for an hour at a time. So, on Tuesday morning, while
I was in Laurel, Virgina, we heard this report that the levee broke, and
we were just stunned. |
Joanna Cowan and Mark DiFlorio, Mardi Gras, New Orleans, 2005
*
Broken levee
|
JJM Were both of your neighborhoods under
water?
MD Yes, my neighborhood had six-to-eight
feet of water in it for a week.
DP Mine was fine.
JJM Where was your neighborhood, Devin?
DP I lived in Lee Circle, about six blocks
from the Superdome.
JJM From my perspective, I saw a cloud about
the size of the entire Gulf of Mexico moving toward Louisiana. All the
meteorologists were predicting it would hit New Orleans -- and if memory
serves me were doing so three or four days before it actually hit. A significant
part of the discussion among the scientists and television personalities
was a reminder that New Orleans is a city under sea level, and a catastrophe
was potentially in the making. So now I am thinking about the people of New
Orleans -- where the hell do they go? How do they all get out of town? Then
there was video of people getting on busses, moving them out of the city
or to the Superdome...
photo
"Slight
Clutter"
 |
DP Those busses should have just got
on the interstate and kept on going…
JJM It was clear that there were tons of people
who didn't have transportation and who were
stuck in the city. I kept thinking about what kinds of accommodations were
being made for people who wanted to leave but who had no way to get out…
DP The Superdome…
MD As far as I know, there wasn't any kind
of system that would take people out of the city. There was no way out.
DP It was so crazy at the time. I could tell
from seeing the size of the storm on television that this was going to be
big. It was just so much bigger than any other storm I had seen come toward
New Orleans before. I went to Wal-Mart just before I left town, and ran into
some people I knew as acquaintances who said they were going to stay in town
and ride the storm out. So, not everyone decided to leave. I often think
about them, and wonder what may have happened to them. All they did was stay,
because they had always stayed before… |
MD I believe it was Sunday when the mayor
and maybe the governor announced the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.
As far as I know, it was the first time in the history of New Orleans that
a mandatory evacuation had been ordered. My personal opinion is that they
didn't announce this evacuation earlier because they wanted to see where
the storm was headed -- once they tell people to leave, it is the government's
burden to take care of those who had no transportation, which was a lot of
people. But when they were sure the storm was going to hit New Orleans, they
saw the potential for it to sink the city, and were then obligated to get
people out, although there was no realistic plan for an evacuation.
DP Even a bad plan is better than no plan.
At least it would have shown an effort was being made to do something.
JJM Devin, you evacutated to Shreveport. Did
you feel some impact from the storm up there?
DP No. It was just hot and dry.
MD Shreveport is north and west, and the
storm went east. We actually got hit with rain from the hurricane in Virginia
four days later.
JJM My guess is that you guys
watched much of the same news coverage of the storm's aftermath as me. I was furious
by the lack of basic services, by the outbreak of crime, and by the sadness
and heartbreak caused by what appeared to be poor governmental response.
How much anger did you guys have about what you were seeing?
DP I wasn't angry, but I was really confused,
know what I mean? I just didn't know what was going on. It was surreal, as
if it weren't even happening. It is hard to explain.
MD Yes, I was confused too, that was my
first reaction. Then I was sad, then I was depressed, but I don't think I
was surprised that any of it was happening. Once the levee broke I knew that
the city wasn't prepared to handle the consequences of it.
DP Do you remember when you were young, and
you would think you were invincible? It is hard to appreciate the intensity
of a storm like this, because you don't have the experience. My parents saw
Hurricanes Betsy and Camille, so they could understand this storm a little
better than me, and they got angrier than I did. It's funny because when
I was a little kid, out of stupidity I wished that a hurricane would come
so I could see what it would be like. I couldn't understand Hurricane Betsy
because all I had seen of the storm was what was shown in old black and white
films, where stuff would be flying all around. Now, I watch television and
I see my high school, and I see my best friend's neighborhood where I hung
out every day, and that entire neighborhood is gone. It was a place I went
to every day, where all the old ladies I knew would say hello and ask about
me. That is what I am familiar with, and it is all gone, so the pain of a
devastating hurricane is now very real to me.
JJM There seemed to be conflicting information
coming from the local and national authorities. President Bush wanted to
paint a bright picture about how well the government was responding, while
the mayor, on the other hand, was preparing everyone for horrendous stuff
-- at one point the headline in the Portland paper read something to
the affect of "25,000 Body Bags Ordered." That was horrific and unimaginable.
I didn't know what to believe. What was going on in your minds at that time
concerning the potential for personal loss and tragedy?
DP At that time it wasn't as real to me as
it is now. It is like getting in a fist fight, and the punches don't hurt
right away, but after you fight, you can feel the pain. Now, I get depressed
about it every day, more than I did while it first happened, because it was
different. It was like speculating about what you lost before you even knew
what was lost, but when you discover what you lost and see what you are not
going to get back, it is tough. This is the saddest time for me, probably
more so than before, because I now realize my life is going to be up and
down. Even though I am satisfied with my life, it is never going to be the
same again, know what I mean? It's different. It's like when the fist fight
is over, you are angry and jump back into the fight some more, but after
you step away from it, you get a chance to look at what the fight took away
from you, what you gained from it, and what you should have done different.
JJM The government's response to the crisis
made me pretty angry. Seeing people without a way out of the city
or off their own rooftops was quite a wake up call for me. The ineptitude
and inaction exposed the absurdity of our national fantasy that we have
adequately progressed as a society when it comes to values and race. I
found it incredibly disheartening...
MD I felt pretty disconnected from that
while I was watching it on television. Out of this situation I realized that
I am a person with a lot of means -- not that I am financially secure, because
I am not -- but, for whatever reason, I have always had just enough money
to take care of myself, and I could get out New Orleans before Katrina hit.
I had the means to see the storm coming, I had friends who encouraged me
to leave, and I actually had a car and a place to go, so I left. I am sure
a handful of people who stayed in the city wouldn't have left even if they
could, but mostly what I saw were people who just didn't have a way to get
out because they didn't have the economic means to do so.
I wasn't really shocked by what I saw. While watching it I was thinking that
the rest of the country is now going to see a real poor part of the United
States that they had never seen before -- this was not Mardi Gras. But the
poverty that was seen is what a large part of New Orleans is like -- there
is a lot of it in that city. You can't even begin to explain how undereducated
and poor New Orleans is. While there are a lot of problems with school systems
all over the country, there is a huge problem with the schools in New Orleans,
and because of the poverty, there is a tremendous amount of crime there.
What was shown after Katrina was not the face of the city that usually gets
marketed nationally, and now everyone was seeing it. |
photo
"Slight
Clutter"
 * 
*
|
JJM Again, the thing that was so amazing to
me was the ineptitude of the response. Even though it was generally known that a category
four or five storm could breech the levees, for whatever reason they didn't
prepare for the essential needs of the people who could be impacted by this.
DP That is pretty obvious to me, and the
thing I would like to know is, "Why?" You make a good point, but, why is
it like that? Things don't change that fast. The civil war seems like a long
time ago to us -- and it was a long time ago, but the South is still the
South. Even though it is modernizing and changing, it is still reminiscent
of what it was before.
When you saw those people on the roof, you saw the color that they were,
but the issue isn't that we left them on their roofs because they are black
and we hate black people -- that is ridiculous! The issue is why were they
on their roof in the first place? Why is their education so shitty? Why are
they living in those depressed neighborhoods where their sons and brothers
are dying all the time in the first place?
Man, when I got to Portland, an alto sax player invited me to his house for
dinner with his family, and before driving over there he apologized for the
neighborhood he lived in -- he said it was bad and that it was like a ghetto.
I told him not to worry, that I am from New Orleans. So he brought me to
his house and, man, I didn't see any ghetto. It was nothing like the kinds of bad neighborhoods you see in New Orleans.
JJM Did you guys go back to see your
neighborhoods?
DP Not before I came here.
MD I did. Joanna and I went
back as soon as we could, which was about six weeks after the storm. My zip
code was closed up until about six weeks after. Hers was going to open but
then Rita hit and a levee broke, so they closed it down for another week
or two. Joanna was really itching to get back, so, as soon as it opened we
drove back down.
JJM So did you have reports from friends,
telling you the status of your house?
DP We could see it on the Internet..
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
 Mr. Shaw and Joanna Cowan |
MD I have a story I want to share about
this. Joanna lived on Spruce Street, which is uptown off of Carollton. Her
block was great, filled with some real classic New Orleans people. The guy
across the street, Mr. Shaw, was an older man who grew up in the city and
lived in his house with a couple of dogs. He was not going to leave his house
for the storm, even if he could get out on his own. He always stayed
during previous storms, and was going to stay for Katrina as well. His land line was working throughout the storm and after
it passed, so Joanna called him a couple of times a day to make sure he was
okay. The block got about three feet of water, but no water came into their
homes because they are built about four feet off the ground. She called to
tell him that she had food and water in her house that he was welcome to,
but her keys were at another neighbor's house, and to go over there and get
the keys and then get the food and water. He couldn't get the keys, but the
National Guard broke into her house so he could get the food. While they
were there they were evacuating people in boats in helicopters, but they
weren't taking animals. One night while we were watching the national news,
there was video of a boat going down Spruce Street, and it stopped at Mr.
Shaw's house! The National Guard went up to the door and wanted to take Mr.
Shaw but they wouldn't take his dogs, so he started to cry, saying that he
was tired and hungry and wanted to leave, but wouldn't leave his dogs behind.
It was a heartbreaking thing for us to watch. |
JJM How did the story end?
MD Eventually they were able to take animals
so he evacuated.
JJM What about the status of your own places?
MD We had seen that there was only three
feet of water near Joanna's house, so we were thinking her place would be
fine. My landlord lived in Texas, and when I talked over the phone with him,
he said he heard there was eight feet of water in the neighborhood, but since
I was on the second floor about twenty feet off the ground, I knew there
wouldn't be water in my apartment, but I didn't know what else I would be
facing. Six weeks after the storm we drove into the city and went to my
neighborhood first, and found it to be pretty much a ghost town -- there
was absolutely no one down there. By then much of the city had been cleaned
up, so my street had tree brush lined up on both sides of it, and we could
see the water lines on buildings, which were above my head.
I wasn't able to get into the front door because the water swelled it shut,
so I had to get a ladder and climb in through the top. The only damage inside
was a little mold on the floor. When we went uptown to Joanna's house --
where we knew there was no flooding -- we discovered her roof had blown off,
and had actually been off for the entire six weeks we were away. She lost
her ceiling in three of her rooms, and it basically fell in on everything
inside. She lost about sixty percent of her stuff. So we spent the whole
week cleaning out her apartment, trying to salvage what we could and storing
it elsewhere.
|
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Entrance to Mark's mid-city apartment. The water line is about eight feet above street level.
*
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Ceiling collapse in Joanna's uptown apartment
|
*
Discovering Portland
_______________
JJM So by then, six weeks have passed since
Katrina, and New Orleans was clearly a disaster. Meanwhile, you guys are
musicians in need of work, and, in your case, Devin, the only job you have
ever had other than music was working at Foot Locker…
DP Yes, and this is when I really started
to get depressed. I don't have a college degree, and I don't work at a place
like Wal-Mart where I can be transferred to another Wal-Mart. Music is the
only thing I have, and when you see something as dramatic as an entire city
flood, you can't help but question how important jazz can possibly be. I
couldn't do anything for anyone else, because I couldn't really do anything
for myself. I was beginning to think that I was going to have to go to work
in a Subway restaurant pretty soon, know what I mean? It is a scary thing.
At this time, my dad said he could probably get me some kind of gig in
Shreveport. One night, he offered to take me out to eat there, and said he
wanted to take me to where all the good gigs were. We ended up going to some
restaurant, where I hear this really horrible music! There was a husband
and wife act, singing with a play-along CD -- but it isn't karaoke, it's
a gig, know what I mean? I remember saying to myself, "Man, I have to get out of here, and soon!" So I got
on the Internet and started pounding, and that is how I found Portland.
| JJM What was being communicated to you
about Portland?
DP Mainly that there was an opportunity for
me to keep doing what I was doing. I didn't know what kind of opportunity
it was, and I didn't know how good it was. All I knew was that there
was an opportunity -- which was an offer to bring me out here for housing
and work opportunities. After I saw that husband and wife duo in Shreveport,
I didn't feel I had a lot of options there, so I decided to try Portland.
JJM Had you ever thought about Portland before?
DP Never.
JJM Did you have any image about the city?
DP I played at the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival
before, but that is not really in Portland. |
Portland's Pearl District |
Google Earth image of post-Katrina New
Orleans
enlarge
image |
JJM Yes, that is out in the suburbs.
Did you have any sense about how long you would be here?
DP I had no idea about what I was going to
do. Before the storm, I had planned to leave my house for three days, and
by now it had now been weeks since I was there. I was with my father so I
didn't have to worry about money, but my own money was beginning to run out,
and I am a proud man -- I didn't want to keep asking my dad for money. After
a time like this, I had big questions for myself, like, "What the hell am
I going to do next?"
This was a very hard time for us, and there were a lot of impromptu moments.
When you are displaced by something like this, there are a lot of impromptu
family reunions -- people all getting together to make sure everybody is
alive, and with everyone cooking during the reunions. I remember when my
dad found the Google map site -- where you can see your house from a satellite
-- it was incredibly emotional, because everybody in the family went up to
the computer to see their house, and some would celebrate because their house
was still there, but other times all you could see was a spot where a home
used to be. I remember that there was a line of about thirteen people at
the computer, all waiting to see if their house was still there. At one time
my grandma's sister started crying…It was very hard. |
JJM So, you chose to move to Portland, and
your mother is in Texas now. Mark, how did you find out about Portland?
MD I wasn't going to make any decision about
where to go and what to do until after I got back to New Orleans, because
I wanted to get my stuff. But after I saw the condition New Orleans was in,
I knew I was leaving. I wanted to be near my friends, but most of them were
moving to New York, and I had lived there before and didn't want to go back.
At that point I could have gone to any city, because I didn't have a reason
to be anywhere. I had some friends in places like Denver and Seattle, but
they are married couples with kids, some of whom are not even musicians.
Around this time I got an email from the Portland Jazz Festival people, making
me an offer to come here. So, I decided to go.
JJM Why not, huh?
MD That's right. It was almost too good
to be true.
| JJM Had you been to Portland before?
MD No, although one of my closest friends
lives in Seattle, so I had been to the Northwest before. I hadn't given much
thought to Portland ever, although I keep a blog, and when I read over it
recently I saw that in June [of 2005] I wrote something about not working much in New
Orleans, and that I was thinking about Portland. I totally didn't remember
that, but I look back on it now and, man, that is really strange. So I got
the email, got in touch with the Portland Jazz Festival, and I came out here.
JJM Did Joanna come out with you?
MD No, at the time we decided to split up.
She decided she wanted to go to Austin, and we were doing this long distance
relationship thing. However, since then she has actually moved here and is
with me now.
JJM And when did you guys arrive in Portland?
MD I got here November 1st .
DP September 14th for me.
|
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
Mark and girlfriend Joanna |
Devin Phillips
|
JJM Portland has a reputation on the west
coast for having a better-than-average jazz scene. When you came here did
you have an expectation that you would be playing right away, or did you
view it more as a place to just hang your hat for a short while?
DP Before I came here I thought that I would
maybe come for a week or two, and then go back to New Orleans. The worst
part about a hurricane is the uncertainty it causes. People affected by them
don't know what to do after. With Katrina, the hurricane made it so you didn't
know when you are going to be able to go back to your house again because
you don't even know when your city is going to be open again. In fact, you
don't even know if you have a house -- it was that uncertain. Because there
is so much uncertainty, you wing everything, know what I mean? I totally
winged it by coming to Portland, and I am the type of person who doesn't
like to wing anything. So, there is a lot of improvisation in life
as a result of the hurricane. Maybe improvisation is good for a jazz musician,
but man, not this… |
JJM As good as the "scene" for jazz is here,
it still only has four or five viable clubs in town, and there was an influx
of New Orleans musicians looking to work in them. How many of you moved here?
DP There were thirty to begin with, and there
are probably seven of us still here.
MD Maybe not even seven. Maybe its five
or six now.
DP The Portland offer was an invitation to
spend some time here while New Orleans remained unsettled. Some of us who
came here had no intentions of staying for long, and I don't think anybody
had any intentions of actually moving here. The offer was to come here and
check it out and see if we liked it.
|
MD When I first booked the ticket to Portland
I imagined that I would come here and hang out for a couple of weeks. I thought
I would go see my friends in Seattle for a while and check out the music
scene to see if I wanted to move there. I also have friends in Eugene, and
figured I would spend a week or so with them down there. After I got my ticket
I sent an email to Devin -- who I knew in New Orleans -- letting him know
I was arriving on a Tuesday. Devin then called me to ask if we could get
together once I got into town because he had a gig on Wednesday and another
on Saturday, and he had some music he wanted me to learn. So I came in on
Tuesday, I worked Wednesday, and I could barely even schedule a trip to Seattle.
I could only get away for three days to Seattle because I had been working
consistently since I got here, which is not what I expected at all. I didn't
know if I would have work of any kind when I came here.
JJM Has the work been fairly consistent throughout
this time?
DP No, it is not consistent, but we have
work. These are not regular things that we are doing, but it is work. There
is still uncertainty.
|
Portland Jazz Festival website |
Notable Portland-area jazz musicians
Drummer Mel Brown
Pianist Gordon Lee
Vocalist Nancy King
Pianist Darryl Grant |
JJM Are you able to play the kind of music
you want to play?
MD Yes.
DP That is one of the things I love about
being here -- I have only done things that I want to do. I am not saying
I wouldn't do anything else, because if I had kids or other commitments,
I am not too proud of a person to say I wouldn't do a certain kind of work.
I like to play some kinds of music more than others, but I can honestly say
that in Portland I have been able to play what I want.
JJM Portland is a community of about two million
people, and while it is more diverse than it was a generation ago, its population
is predominantly white. Because you come from a culturally rich area that
has a deep tradition in jazz, once you got here, did you feel as if your
calling might be bigger than just hanging out here for awhile, and that your
music and the circumstances under which you arrived here could help reshape
the culture of this community?
DP I think it's great if you can do something
like that, but I don't think that is anything anyone can plan. I hope to
be able to do that someday, but that was not my plan when I came here.
JJM Your presence in Portland could potentially
create more venues for jazz, which increases the options and can alter the
culture at night. Do you feel you can touch the city in that way?
MD I feel as if the initial reaction to
our presence here has been very positive. I see that in the overwhelming
reception I see when I play in Devin's band around town. My sense is that
is a little different than what Portland is used to, and I think that is
very positive.
JJM Are you hearing that from the local musicians
as well?
MD Yes. A lot of high-end cats are coming
to our gigs, and we chat after. They are full of compliments for us, and
are all excited to have us in the city. I feel that and see that in the reaction
in the audiences as well -- they seem very excited about us being here, and
seem to enjoy the energy we have brought here. I think they understand that
the music we play is not anything that was cultivated here -- that it is
coming from a place with a great jazz tradition. But I don't think I have
thought enough about the bigger picture just yet. I am very uncertain about
what to do next, because there is music going on in New Orleans again, and
I have a lot of friends who are there playing music now.
JJM So, are you guys on the cusp of deciding
to go back?
DP No. I am not going back to New Orleans.
|
JJM Will you stay in Portland?
DP I want to. If I had to choose right now,
I would settle here. Just because Portland only has three or four clubs --
which is a lot for any city -- it isn't the clubs that make the scene, the
people make the scene. When I play with my band and I see the same people
coming to my show, that is not about the clubs, it is about the people and
how open-minded they are to being touched by a jazz group. My favorite movie
is Mo' Better Blues, which is about a cat who has a band that plays
in the same club for five nights a week -- and if that is not fiction, I
don't know what fiction is! That just doesn't happen. The days of playing
in the same club night after night is over. Now, in New Orleans you can make
a living by playing in clubs, but you won't be doing that playing in a jazz
club.
JJM So, if it is tough making a living playing
jazz in clubs, how does a jazz musician get by in a city like Portland?
DP I don't know, but I do know that I would
like to try to find out. I want to stay in Portland and play here for as
long as I possibly can, but my objective isn't to remain a Portland musician.
I hope to become an international recording artist and do the same things
that musicians like Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, James Carter, Branford
Marsalis, and Kenny Garrett have done. They are my role models, and I want
to be like them, and I would like to achieve their stature while I live
here in Portland.
JJM Are you closer to that today than you
were five months ago in New Orleans?
DP Yes. Way closer -- so much closer it is ridiculous.
JJM Much of this has to do with how your talent
has progressed through practice and consistent work -- as it likely would
have if you stayed in New Orleans -- but have the circumstances for your
being here given your playing more prominence among listeners?
|
DP Please don't misunderstand what I am about
to say, because in no way am I comparing my life to Jesus Christ, but when
he went home, people didn't respect him -- they saw him as that crazy virgin's
son. So, not even Jesus Christ got respect when he went home. Add the story
of Louis Armstrong to that. The fact he is from New Orleans is one of the
many reasons I am proud to say I am from there, and I feel connected with
him as if he were a relative of mine. Yet while we celebrate Armstrong virtually
every day in New Orleans, when you get right down to it, New Orleans treated
him like shit, and that is why he isn't even buried there. I wish that wasn't
true, but while we are all proud of him, the fact is that you have to go
to New York to see his house -- you can't even see it in New Orleans. Why? |
Devin Phillips |
JJM Racism would be a pretty good guess…
DP Yes, there is that, and it is also just
because of the way things worked out. I don't know.
JJM So, are your chances better now that you
are in a smaller town with the circumstances of your being here than they
would have been if you remained in New Orleans?
DP It is a combination of everything, you
know? It is a combination of the economy in New Orleans and the appreciation
for jazz there, and the appreciation for each individual in the band playing
there. I like to think that I am a good musician and the product I put out
would be good anywhere, but it is true that the people here in Portland support
the arts a lot more than the people in New Orleans do, so in that sense it
is easier to find the support you need to be successful.
JJM By success do you mean in terms of how
much money you can make or by how many people attend your Portland shows?
DP Yes to all of that. In New Orleans, the
tourists are the people who support the arts. While the club you play in
may be packed, they are mostly just packed with tourists. In Portland, I
am playing in clubs that are packed with people who are coming to the show
because they like jazz.
MD Yes, they are even coming out after work
on a Thursday night to hear this music.
JJM Given the economic challenges posed by
the recording business of today, what is the next logical step for you guys?
MD The next logical step is to make a record
and then do some traveling. It seems like going on the road is how you sell
recordings now.
DP Yes. You have to be on the road.
MD Especially for local bands. There are
very few who record for major labels anymore, but you can self-record, duplicate
the CD on your own, and then tour in support of it.
JJM Are you at the stage of making a disc
now?
DP We are going to record the CD, but I don't know
if we are going to release it. We will shop it around and see what happens.
JJM If I were an A&R guy for a label like
Blue Note or Verve, why would I sign you?
DP Here is the thing; even though I criticize
modern music, there is a lot about it that I like and can appreciate. For
example, I am not a big fan of Usher, but I can see he takes great pride
in his music, and he knows where he gets it from. He knows every Michael
Jackson song and can dance exactly like him, but even though he plays in
that tradition, he doesn't sound like him. He knows what he is aiming for
and works within that framework.
Devin Phillips | I play music in the tradition of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and while
I may change their music, the change is going to come from within that tradition
-- I will call upon the same drive they did to grow the music. That is what
I want to do right now, and I want to make jazz accessible for young people.
I want jazz to not only sound good, but I want it to look cool as well. I
want it to be attractive, sexy, and I want kids to like it. I want five-year-olds
to look at me and say they want to be like me when they grow up. I even want
middle school kids with shitty attitudes to like it too. Nobody seems to
be doing that now, and maybe I won't end up being the "Usher of Jazz," but I
would damn sure like to try. That is the reason I came to Portland -- to
play my horn. I wouldn't even be here if not for that. Playing my horn is
the reason I am alive, and it is scary for me to think about doing something
else. |
JJM Do you have anyone you would like to thank
who may have been especially helpful during your post-Katrina experiences,
or perhaps there is a life lesson in this you want to share?
MD So many people helped me throughout this
transition, and while I spent a lot of time writing letters of thanks to
people, there were many others I never got to thank. While we were driving
through Virginia, I had car trouble in a small town. My car was in really
bad shape, and I was concerned that I would have to put a lot of money into
fixing it. I dropped it off at a muffler shop there and the mechanic told
me that he could fix it. My girlfriend and I spent some time walking around
the town, and when we came back to get the car, I asked the mechanic what
the charge would be. When he found out we were there because of Katrina,
he told us not to worry about the charge because we obviously had other things
to worry about. I got his card and I swore I would write him a letter, but
I never got around to thanking him. But I would like to thank him, because
that was tough. It was the first outreach that we got from a stranger after
Katrina, and it was really wonderful to feel that kind of support.
JJM It was important for those of
us who didn't have their lives changed by Katrina to feel like we could help
in some way. We wrote checks and participated in a kind of impersonal assistance,
and I think what this Virginia auto mechanic did for you was something a
lot of us wanted to do.
DP So many people have helped me since I
left New Orleans. I am not a very patriotic person, but there have been times
throughout this experience where I was left feeling that America is not such
a bad place after all. The funny thing about this is that you meet so many
people along the way, and you still meet people who you know are assholes,
but when they find out I am from New Orleans, they do something for me --
even if it is an asshole-ish kind of way!
JJM We started this interview almost two hours
ago now, and it began with the question, "Who was your childhood hero?" Devin,
you talked about your mom being yours, and Mark, your uncle was your hero.
The question I have now is, who is your post-Katrina hero? Or, if not a hero,
is there someone you truly admire for their courage in facing this?
DP I am not saying I am my own hero, but
I have so much more confidence in myself as a result of this experience.
I am not afraid anymore -- I am doing things now like talking on the phone
with executives at Nike and Adidas, and I was never doing anything like that
before. But I am doing this because I have to survive, and, I am lucky because
it is what I want to do, know what I mean?
|
MD I am continually impressed by the group
we have put together here in Portland with Devin as the leader -- especially
the four of us who are from New Orleans. I have great respect for our group,
and I think it is amazing what we are doing. We weren't playing in this unit
when we were down there, but we quickly found a common ground here and are
making some really great music. This is a position I wasn't in while living
in New Orleans, and I am being pushed in so many different ways here -- my
drumming is just growing and growing, and playing in this group is forcing
me to listen to different music, and practice differently. |
photo courtesy of Mark DiFlorio
 Mark DiFlorio, August, 2005 |
JJM So, the experience of living through Katrina
and forcing these changes on you has accelerated your growth…
DP No doubt, and in a lot of different ways.
Now, when I sit down to practice for an hour, I know how important that hour
is, and I am not messing around because I feel I have to get something done
in that time.
Something I want to mention concerning one of the best things about my coming
to Portland is that I am not on a grind here like I was in New Orleans. There,
I was playing different engagements with different people, but here, when
I am not working, I have the means to sit inside of my house and figure out
how to make my band sound the way I want, or have it go in any direction
I want it to. I can focus on that, and that is the only thing I have to focus
on. That is a great thing, and it is something you can't really do in a lot
of places. I am working really hard, constantly feeling like I need to go
home and write more music, because I am working toward a goal that I can
now see. You can't beat that feeling.
JJM It sounds as if you guys feel you have
very clearly evolved from the musicians you were before Katrina. Your personal
lives have also evolved. How do you imagine the city of New Orleans evolving
as a result of this?
Devin Phillips and Stephen Walker |
DP On the one hand, I feel that it is possible
for New Orleans to return to what it was culturally. Maybe all the other
things around it will be different -- maybe it will be like Las Vegas or
Disney World, or maybe it will be mostly white -- but it won't stop swinging,
because jazz is over one hundred years old. So, New Orleans culturally will
be back, I just hope I will be around to be a part of it. |
MD I think it will come back too. The culture
there is so strong and real. The city will need time to heal, of course,
and there will always be a scar, but it will be back. It will probably change
at a pace New Orleans is accustomed to, which is pretty slow, even when extreme
things happen.
JJM Given the complexities of rebuilding this
city, do you think the rest of the country is going to have the patience
required for its renewal?
MD I have a feeling that the rest of the
country will forget about New Orleans in five years, and won't even worry
about it. The city will be left on its own to return to the way it was. In
a way, New Orleans became the city it was because it was left alone in an
isolated part of the country. I don't think the country necessarily had an
idea of what New Orleans was or what its culture meant to us, and I don't
think people are particularly interested in it. A small group of jazz musicians
and people who appreciate its history may have understood the city's importance,
but outside of them, I don't think there is any great interest in the city
around the rest of the country.
DP I think it can be what it was before
culturally, but socially and politically, that is uncertain. From what I
can tell, we don't have very good politicians with an ability to deal with
this. I don't know how hard that job is, but I am sure it is a lot harder
than playing a tune, you know?
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Photo by Alexey Sergeev
West side of Canal Street near South Rampart Street
April 30, 2006
Canal Street Blues
by Dr. Michael White
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This interview took place on February 7, 2006 (with minor revisions in August, 2006)
*
If you enjoyed this interview, you may want to read our conversation on the history of New Orleans with Gary Giddins.
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Other
Jerry Jazz Musician interviews
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