MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Many musicians also had to leave New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, so there was a fear that the city's musical culture could be lost. Then two prominent jazz musicians got together and created a village to bring the musicians back. Joseph King with the Gulf States Newsroom reports the place is still thriving.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JOSEPH KING, BYLINE: That is 17-year-old Alaina Boyd in a recital at the Ellis Marsalis Music Center.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KING: The concert hall and music school is the centerpiece of the 72-home neighborhood in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, the neighborhood hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina. Ellen Smith lives here and works at the center.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BASIN STREET BLUES")
ELLEN SMITH: (Singing) We've got Mardi Gras, oysters raw.
KING: Twenty years ago, she lost her home to Hurricane Katrina. At the time, she was singing alongside New Orleans drummer Bob French.
SMITH: Bob was a mentor to Harry Connick Jr. And when Katrina hit, Harry Connick Jr. came to New Orleans with a news crew and wound up rescuing people off roofs and stuff. And he saw the devastation.
KING: And he teamed up with the first family of New Orleans jazz - the Marsalises.
SMITH: Him and Branford decided that they needed to do something more.
KING: Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis partnered with the Habitat for Humanity to build Musicians' Village. Two years after Katrina, Smith moved into her new home. The community became a hub for musicians. In 2012, the music center, named after Ellis Marsalis Jr., was added. Besides being a pianist, the patriarch of the talented Marsalis family was an accomplished music educator. Today the center is teaching the next generation of New Orleans musicians, like in this music class.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: One, two and three, four.
SMITH: I think it's extremely important that kids who don't come from money have some place to come where they can learn. And this center is doing exactly that.
KING: Besides music lessons, children here also get meals, homework help and counseling.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MICHAEL HARRIS PROBLEM SONG, "ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE")
KING: Michael Harris is a bass player in New Orleans. He was homeless after losing everything during Katrina but now lives in Musicians' Village. He says there was a fear that the culture that makes New Orleans what it is would be lost after the hurricane.
MICHAEL HARRIS: It was so much easier for a lot of people to just remain wherever they had relocated to and more or less establish a lifestyle or whatever. It - this incubator, this hallowed ground, sacred space, is a guarantor that the culture will - and meet through the music and the arts in general will survive.
KING: And 20 years after Katrina, New Orleans' music culture is not just surviving but thriving at Musicians' Village.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE")
THE MICHAEL HARRIS PROBLEM: (Singing) And soon you'll realise that he will never leave you lonely.
KING: For NPR News, I'm Joseph King in New Orleans.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE")
THE MICHAEL HARRIS PROBLEM: (Singing) Always by your side. Always by your side. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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