City of a Million Dreams documents Black jazz funeral tradition of New Orleans ncronline.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ncronline.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In the 1960s, Ben Jaffe’s family founded Preservation Hall to help keep a defining Black art form alive. In 2022, that’s a complicated part for a white musician to play.
In 1961, Sandra and Allan Jaffe stopped in New Orleans on their way home to Philadelphia from an extended honeymoon in Mexico. They heard music playing all around them in the French Quarter and stepped into an art gallery on St. Peter Street where a combo was playing traditional jazz.
With her husband, she opened a club in New Orleans in 1961 to showcase traditional jazz. Defying changes in musical fashion, it has been open ever since.