The History of Jazz

by Ted Gioia

The dictates of commerce made it inevitable that a major city would be established near the base of the Mississippi River. But, in the words of historian Ned Sublette, it was “a terrible place to build a town.”4 New Orleans has the lowest elevation of any major U.S. city, and with 41 percent of the continental United States’s runoff flowing down and through the Mississippi, the Crescent City is to America what plumbing pipes are to your home. Tropical storms are frequent visitors, brushing by or making a direct hit once every three or four years on average, and any resident who lives to middle age will likely confront the ravages of the region’s hurricanes, marauders that periodically force evacuations and leave behind untold damage. And in a land that is gradually sinking lower and lower below sea level—some foresee a day in which New Orleans will be completely surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico—the risk of flooding is ever present. In short, the city’s history of homegrown catastrophes, whether acts of God or merely those of the lower deities known as elected officials, testifies both to the challenges facing the inhabitants as well as to their hardiness and perseverance.