Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras And America's Creole Soul

The City in the Twenty-First Century

by Roger D. Abrahams, Robert Farris Thompson, John F. Szwed

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the citizens of New Orleans regroup and put down roots elsewhere, many wonder what will become of one of the nation's most complex creole cultures. New Orleans emerged like Atlantis from under the sea, as the city in which some of the most important American vernacular arts took shape. Creativity fostered jazz music, made of old parts and put together in utterly new ways; architecture that commingled Norman rooflines, West African floor plans, and native materials of mud and moss; food that simmered African ingredients in French sauces with Native American delicacies. There is no more powerful celebration of this happy gumbo of life in New Orleans than Mardi Gras. In Carnival, music is celebrated along the city's spiderweb grid of streets, as all classes and cultures gather for a festival that is organized and chaotic, individual and collective, accepted and licentious, sacred and profane.

The authors, distinguished writers who have long engaged with pluralized forms of American culture, begin and end in New Orleans—the city that was, the city that is, and the city that will be—but traverse geographically to Mardi Gras in the Louisiana Parishes, the Carnival in the West Indies and beyond, to Rio, Buenos Aires, even Philadelphia and Albany. Mardi Gras, they argue, must be understood in terms of the Black Atlantic complex, demonstrating how the music, dance, and festive displays of Carnival in the Greater Caribbean follow the same patterns of performance through conflict, resistance, as well as open celebration.

After the deluge and the finger pointing, how will Carnival be changed? Will the groups decamp to other Gulf Coast or Deep South locations? Or will they use the occasion to return to and express a revival of community life in New Orleans? Two things are Katrina is sure to be satirized as villainess, bimbo, or symbol of mythological flood, and political leaders at all levels will undoubtedly be taken to task. The authors argue that the return of Mardi Gras will be a powerful symbol of the region's return to vitality and its ability to express and celebrate itself.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 2006

Reviews

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greater Afro-America

“The old adage “It’s easier to be angry together than by yourself” has much going for it when it comes to considering the government’s response to a flood caused by engineering malfeasance, its aftermath and the perilous future of New Orleans. At least for the authors of this book, our anger was kindled forty years ago or more by the insistent neglect of African and other non-Western European cultural traditions that have been nurtured and maintained in the New World. The emotion and hope for inclusion of the great expressive culture our diversity has produced have kindled a good deal of talk and writing on our parts. The idea of a plural culture with an inclusiveness of people and their expressions that developed from the Civil Rights movement has entered a new phase, particularly in the mercantile centers engendered by the global marketplace. Now, in the face of recent events, the exercise of cultural difference seems more like an argument for human rights. Cultures, especially in their most vernacular renderings, clearly have ignored political boundaries, as the history of creole communities in and beyond Louisiana shows.”

These authors, Roger D. Abrahams with Nick Spitzer, John F. Szwed, and Robert Farris Thompson have been seminal to the course of my studies for the better part of the past forty years and getting them all between the sheets of Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and America’s Creole Soul (Phila.: University of Pennsylvania, 2006) is the biggest gang bang I’ve got for my literary buck in a while. Their works have been a constant source of entertainment and enlightenment in my study of Africa and Africa America. They are all very good writers.

For the cognoscenti, part of the fun of the book is pondering who wrote what, as they all swing together, preservation style, in rhythm and harmony. For being thrown together in haste, it swings; a screed to address the problems addressed and exemplified by the place that’s always asked, “Do you know what it means?” So sync they say it, transporting the reader, Iko-Iko, to “A poetic city with a prosaic population.” Outraged old Mardi-gridians, these guys have the vernacular vigor needs-be to right wrongs, educate and illuminate our way into the present.

“We are angry in the face of a hurricane whose intensity blew away many of our dreamscapes, and even angrier because human intervention could have prevented it in a way most natural disasters cannot be. And now, we daily witness the indignities issuing from those who run our national lives, as the ask, “What’s left to reconstruct? Let’s just start all over.” Without raising taxes. This is pure ignorance of a natural and cultural disaster of the grandest proportion in our country’s history.”

[Andrew #2! · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first read this book many years ago, shortly after Katrina, for a college course I was taking. Then, as now, I was struck by how tone-deaf the authors were to the actual plight of the people that they claim to be so concerned about.

Ultimately this book reads like a bunch of academics that are concerned that the concepts they devoted their lives to studying might "disappear", rendering their careers meaningless as opposed to people with real concern for what the people who made up that society were suffering. Mardi Gras is a very general framing device for the discussion. I'd be curious to see if they wrote a similar book for the post-COVID world considering COVID's impact on Mardi Gras wound up being much more significant and longer lasting.

[Vampyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book, however the title is rather misleading. I anticipated a book on Blues but it wove in all the various micro & macro cultures of New Orleans. A lot of great content I will be using for my research paper.