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All that jazz: New Year in New Orleans

— Seeing in the New Year down on the Bayou.”

After J and I left Florida behind, we headed over the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana. We visited New Orleans for New Year, drawn by the nightlife, the restaurants and the art galleries.

We also wondered how things were two years after Hurricane Katrina.

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New Orleans

Being in the Big Easy is not so easy since Katrina but the indomitable spirit of New Orleans is at last starting to return.

J had visited New Orleans on business in 2004 and we wanted to include the city in this itinerary for New Year. J’s descriptions of nightlife and the galleries were colourful, but we’d wondered how things might be 18 months or so after Hurricane Katrina. As it transpired, you couldn’t talk to anyone – and there were plenty of folks keen to talk – without mentioning that”K” word.

A little bit of history

The French founded La Nouvelle-Orléans in 1718 and named it after their Regent’s duchy seat. Within fifty years Spain had control of the city, but it briefly reverted to its original owners in 1801.

After New Orleans was sold to the Americans in the Louisiana Purchase, they held it against the British and the population flourished, outgrowing the higher ground of the original city limits.

A pump system devised early in the 20th century enabled expansion into new suburbs, many of which found themselves below sea level.

New Orleans is architecturally eclectic. Within the older neighbourhoods, styles include Italianate, Victorian, Colonial and Classical Revival, reflecting the cultural diversity of the inhabitants.

In the 1980s an oil boom in the city also brought the modern skyscrapers in the Central Business District, which are harder to reconcile with their older neighbours.

Jazz and cocktails

There can’t be too many places in the world nowadays where strangers will talk to you without first being solicited.

In common with Dublin – a trip we did too long ago to be included in this blog – New Orleans is such a place. People will say hi to you in the street.

Down at the Bombay Club on Conti Street, musician Jay Griggs was another example. A resident of New Orleans, he’d just finished his second of three sets playing bass with NOLA legend Luther Kent. I was a bit drunk by this time, so I don’t know whether I managed to hold a decent conversation about Coldcut and post-Katrina gigging. Jay was a lovely guy, though, I do recall that much!

The Bombay Club can be found tucked away at the back of the Prince Conti, the hotel J stayed at when she was last in the city. It was the last stop on our tour of the French Quarter with Sandi, our guide who stayed on for a bit of intelligent conversation.

In the Bayou

J and I went over to Westwego to visit a few of the Louisiana bayous.

Westwego is so-called because at one time the tramline started there and conductors were in the habit of calling out “West we go” as the tram set off. The name stuck!

At Westwego we boarded a boat helmed by Captain Billiot, a sort of woolly Deep South Chazz Palminteri meets George Clooney. During Katrina, the Captain shared his property with – I believe – 17 other people. He was clearly a dependable and resilient man who remained unphased by extremes of nature.

The Captain was also devoted to the swamp life: fishing, shooting nutria and catching crabs.

His amazing enthusiasm made for a rather offbeat, and at times very funny, nature tour. Pointing out turtles basking in the pale winter sun, the Captain would excitedly relate their value on the market and how many you’d need to make soup. He knew exactly how to pinpoint and estimate the bounty on several nutria visible in the distant undergrowth. When discussing catfish, he would haul up one of his own lines and tell us “this right here is good eatin’”.