Storyville, St Paul's Bottoms and other Jazz notes

Luke Brouillette @ Barnwell Jazz, Shreveport
Originally uploaded by trudeau

Storyville, the fabled New Orleans red light district, is often mentioned a s a birthplace of jazz.

Storyville was the red-light district of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1897 through 1917, says Wikipedia.

Locals usually simply referred to the area as The District. The nickname Storyville was in reference to city alderman Sidney Story, who wrote the legislation setting up the district.

The District was set up to limit prostitution to one area of town where authorities could monitor and regulate the practice. In the late 1890s, the New Orleans city government studied the legalized red light districts of northern German and Dutch ports and set up Storyville based on such models. Between 1895 and 1915, "blue books" were published in Storyville. These books were guides to prostitution for visitors to the district's services including house descriptions, prices, particular services and the "stock" each house had to offer. The Storyville blue-books were inscribed with the motto: "Order of the Garter: Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense (Shame to Him Who Evil Thinks)."

St Paul's Bottoms was the equivalent district in Shreveport. It is said to be one of the places the folksinger Leadbelly learned his guitar style.

general vocab -

ergonomics
incendiary
cerebral
visceral

Jazz bio of the day: saxophonist John Coltrane.

Instruments of the day invented by the Belgian musician Adolphe Saxe in the mid 1800's.

Movie coming to Robinson Film Center on Sept 25, 26: a documentary on the painter John-Michel Basquiat. I'll be introducing the showing on Sat at 3:30 pm.

Recommended this week at LSUS Black Box Theater: the edgy drama "Oleanna," written by plawright David Mamet.