New Orleans

New Orleans

Fats Domino (playing);

Little Richard

In the New Orleans movie, The Big Easy an attractive (seemingly always bare-legged) investigaor comes down to New Orleans to try to ferret out police corruption. Her New Orleans colleague, though, sees things differently. When she sees him take a bribe, he explains:

"But Honey, it's the Big Easy."

When he takes a drink on duty, and she rebukes him, he responds:

"But Honey, it's the Big Easy."

When he makes a pass at her and she resists, he says:

"But Honey, it's the Big Easy."

While, of course, he finally has to do a little work to solve the case, the message he gives throughout the movie (which may even win her heart) resolves to this: In New Orleans, you can get away almost any immoral behavior simply because:

"Oh, Honey, it's the big easy."

Well, New Orleans' very climate encourages this. Until the advent of air-conditioning, the days, especially in the summer, tend towards the hot and sweaty. This makes people most active at night.

Then, add in the French. While the French in Quebec really had to work hard simply to survive the cold, the French in New Orleans always had it easier. After the local Natchez Indians (an interesting civilization with a well-studied social system) bit the dust, the French remained in New Orleans unopposed. Slaves made living easy. A short interlude of the Spanish (whose fading imperials provided few models of ambition) did little to change this. Literally, trade simply stopped at the doorway to New Orleans, a natural port, and early America chafed but paid the New Orleanites tolls just to pass.

American rule, after the Louisiana purchase, brought new immigrants, but French culture, language, and laxness survived the arrival of Uncle Sam. While Twain had to work in Life on the Mississippi to pilot his steamboat, New Orleans, again, simply had to sit there to collect the tolls from the boats and let the slaves offload them. Hence, New Orleans always remained something of a lax place where people could get away with more, and even immigrated with that in mind.

Two wars almost effected New Orleans, but not so much. The War of 1812 briefly made the citizens of all types, including pirates, join together under Jackson to defeat the British invaders. During the Civil War, the Federals captured the city, and General Butler did something that no New Orleans gentleman could condone, he actually talked rudely to upper class ladies! In many ways, the dashing General Bureaugard best presented the attributes of upper class New Orleans in the war.

One bi-product of this attitude was a whole complex caste system involving slaves of mixed blood. Whereas elsewhere in the South, mixed raced children (at least in theory) didn't exist, New Orleans invented a whole vocabulary to deal with different graduations, including quadroons (1/4), octaroons (1/8), the latter reputed to include the most beautiful women. Put these people together, and you get the Creoles (literally colored), an entire race who shared their culture with whites but at least some of their blood with African ancestors.

This class resisted post-war efforts to lump them in with their "uncivilized" black brethen. Eventually, however, most ended up receiving the same discrimination and mistreatment. However, proud Creoles, such as jazzman Jellyroll Morton insisted on their separate privileges to the end of their lives, and persisted in names such as the "______ Creole" jazz band.

The Creoles, during World War I, congregated around Storeyville. In typical New Orleans fashion, this served as a red-light district simply ignored by the authorities ("Aw, Honey, it's the Big Easy) where visiting soldiers could find their pleasure and spend their money. Here, arguably, jazz began, and Creoles, in particular, claim to have had a major influence on that. The major figure here is Louis Armstrong though he quickly left the Crescent City.

An aside here on New Orleans jazz requires some explanation. In early jazz, all musicians improvisized simultaneously, as they still do in the best traditional jazz. Elsewhere, the system quickly changed to one in which each soloist took a turn. One might compare one to soccer, and the other to baseball, with the New Orleans form, sure enough, closer to the continental.

Creoles and New Orleans also played an important role in the invention of rock and roll. Fats Domino and Little Richard, along with Memphians, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley dominated record sales. While Little Richard clearly came from another planet (with strong gospel influences), Fat's music crosses over, easily into New Orleans jazz.

Before leaving the musical heritage of New Orleans, note that New Orleans also, strangely enough, started reggae. The Jamaican stations could only get New Orleans stations so that remained their strongest influence.

New Orleans ties to the Carribean in other ways, including voodoo. You can find many a shop that sells "gris-gris" just as you can buy jambalaya and gumbo. Uncle John the Night Tripper, the ultimate New Orleans rocker, exploited this in album titles like Gris-Gris and in his strange voodoo, witch-doctor costumes.

I visited New Orleans in the summer of 1994 at the invitation of my friend Steve Brown, to whom I dedicate this page. Steve tended bar on New Orlean's modern "Storeyville," Bourbon Street, in 1980s, and there he met his wife, Barbara. I never did visit them because I didn't have the correct phone number. Imagine how many Steve Browns (black and white) a city of New Orlean's size might have, and you'll see why a day at the phone didn't find him. Some day, I hope to see his stories in print, maybe on this website?

Instead, I spent a half week touring around and seeing the sites and realizing that, more than the short-skirted girl in the movie, I couldn't really fit much into this culture. I felt guilty, a bit, about spending a little more money than usual, particularly on that Black Voodoo Beer, but then again:

"Oh, honey, it was the Big Easy!"