Still Singing Those Post-Katrina Blues

"Everything is shrinking," says David Freedman, general manager of WWOZ-FM, a public radio station in the city. "In the clubs, you get the impression that all's back to normal. When you start scratching the surface, it's smoke and mirrors.

"So many musicians have not come back. How many can we lose before we lose that dynamic? To what degree do we just become a tourist theme park?"

By industry insiders' estimates, a third of the city's musicians, like Boutte, have found a way back home for good. Another third, like Lumar LeBlanc of the brass band Soul Rebels, are doing what he calls "the double Zip code thing," parachuting into town for gigs and then heading back to temporary homes in Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles. The final third, like blind bluesman Henry Butler, stuck in Denver, have yet to make it back.

Among the double Zip-coders is Ivan Neville, singer, songwriter, keyboardist, son of Aaron. His mom's house was washed away. She passed in January. His dad settled near Nashville. Neville relocated to Austin, jetting in and out of New Orleans a couple times a month. As for making a permanent move back home?

"I don't see it," Neville, 48, says between sets at the Maple Leaf in the city's Uptown section. "Not in the near future. The spirit of New Orleans is alive. But it will never be the same again."

How do you measure loss? So much is gone now, so much will never come back. There are tangible ways, of course: High schools lost their caches of musical instruments. Fifty public schools remain shuttered; enrollment is down 40 percent. With the loss of schools comes the loss of teaching jobs, work that musicians counted on to pay the rent between gigs. With the loss of students comes the loss of a future generation of musicians. (This year, the state passed legislation requiring that art and music be taught in the public schools.)

"Is New Orleans's music scene coming back?" says Bill Summers, 59, a percussionist and voodoo priest who's played with Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Sarah Vaughan, Madonna and Sting. "Yeah. And no. Baby . . . it's very sad."

Says Deacon John Moore, 66, an R&B singer and president of the local musicians union: "We've been reduced to beggars in the streets. Begging for tips from the tourists. . . . The competition is so keen among musicians, they'd do almost anything for exposure."

Life was always tough for New Orleans's musicmakers: Decent pay was scarce, with musicians, desperate to make a buck, scrambling for whatever they could get, underpricing other musicians.

The waters rushing in from Lake Ponchartrain obliterated already fragile support systems. Neighborhood-based Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs, once the backbone of New Orleans society, helping their dues-paying members with burial and hospital expenses, have been displaced. Eighty percent of the city flooded; more than 200,000 homes were destroyed in the process. Rents have close to doubled since the storm; a one-bedroom apartment that once could be had for $500 a month now goes for more than $800.

The upside to calamity, if there is one, may be artistic. "Post-Katrina, everybody is getting in touch with their New Orleans roots," says singer-songwriter Paul Sanchez, co-founder of the country-rock band Cowboy Mouth. "We all lost more than we can ever articulate. And as artists, it's our job to articulate that loss."

Deprivation still abounds. You see it in the FEMA trailers parked outside Katrina-ravaged houses. You feel it in the bulldozed lots of the Lower Ninth Ward, where homeowners have scrawled on the handful of remaining homes: "DO NOT DEMO. WORK IN PROGRESS."