New York – John Brunious flew in from an evacuation center in Arkansas, wearing donated clothes and carrying a borrowed trumpet, his voice shot from swallowing polluted floodwater.
The 64-year-old leader of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band went straight from the plane to a Manhattan TV studio for a reunion with the world’s ambassadors of New Orleans jazz. The musicians could play only one tune that night. Everyone agreed it should be “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?”
“I was so happy to see that the others were OK, because I knew what I had just come from,” said Brunious, who was treated for dehydration at an Arkansas hospital after enduring days without food and water at the horrific New Orleans convention center. “I was very emotional because I really wanted to sing that song to let the world know that we do know what it means to miss New Orleans.”
For more than 40 years, the Preservation Hall musicians have spread their infectious, joyful rhythms from African villagers to British royalty, from the White House to the former Soviet Union.
Jazz lovers from around the world have made the pilgrimage to pass through Preservation Hall’s wrought-iron gates at 726 St. Peter St.
Inside the dimly lit hall with no air conditioning, fans sat on benches or cushions spread on the rough wooden floor as they listened to pure, unadulterated, traditional New Orleans jazz.
The band last performed at Preservation Hall on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina hit.
