Noise law has musicians singing the blues : New Orleans’ ordinance is at the center of a controversy between the French Quarter’s entertainers and residents.

Eight bells chime from the spires of the St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter as Jay Vincent meticulously removes the mouthpiece from his saxophone and flicks off the cassette player that serves as his musical backup.

“I’m a career criminal in saxophone,” Vincent deadpans as he recounts the six previous times he’s been arrested for making music past the city’s 8 p.m. noise ordinance limit. Staving off arrest No. 7, Vincent heads for the nearby and louder confines of Bourbon Street--where the competing sounds of nightclub hawkers, amplified dance music and general revelry will give him temporary cover from strolling police with sensitive ears.

“This is nothing but a hassle,” complains Henry Johnson, who also is hastily departing Jackson Square. An out-of-work opera singer, he sings up to eight hours a day on the concrete slab surrounded by wrought iron balconies and some of the city’s most important historic attractions: the 17th Century Cabildo Museum, the 18th Century St. Louis Cathedral, and the winding, equally old and ornate Pontalba apartment buildings.

On any given day, Vincent and Johnson may be joined by up to two dozen other entertainers--including Cajun, rap and rock bands, Dixieland quartets, tap-dancing troupes composed of boys from a nearby housing project, mimes and elaborately costumed Tarot card readers.

For tourists, the musicians and novelty acts are part of a local ambience that seems to blend magic and mystery, certainly an expected occurrence in a city with such a rich musical tradition.

But to residents of the French Quarter, the entertainers are something else again: “I can’t stand them,” complained C. Robert Holloway, who lives in a balconied apartment on the second floor of the Pontalba building, just inches away from all the noise.

“It isn’t just that some of them have played at night,” said Holloway, a movie production designer. “It’s that there are so damn many of them playing as loud as they can throughout the entire day. Sometimes I have to leave my own apartment just to get peace and quiet. “

Holloway and other French Quarter residents have become so incensed that they want the city to prohibit all street entertainment in the French Quarter, favoring instead a designated live-entertainment space along the Mississippi River in a nearby park.

“That would bring the Quarter back to what it used to be,” said Holloway, “a relatively quiet section . . . with restaurants, art galleries and museums.”

But the musicians have their own take on history. They note that New Orleans is home to legendary musicians Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, King Oliver and Sidney Bechet, among others--most of whom played music often and loudly in the streets.

“Of course that was all over New Orleans then, not just in the French Quarter or Jackson Square,” noted Steve Teeter, a curator with the state’s Jazz Museum, which is in the French Quarter. “There used to be bands playing very loudly on wagons almost everywhere in the city. And if they saw another band, they’d have cutting sessions, where each band would try to outplay the other. And it got very loud.”

At least today’s loud music can be measured, and City Councilwoman Peggy Wilson--whose district includes the French Quarter--thinks hand-held decibel meters may help eliminate some of the Quarter’s noise war. “If the meter shows a musician playing above a certain level, then an officer should warn that person the first time and hand out a citation that could result in an arrest the second,” Wilson said.

The city code prohibits any noise above 60 decibels in residential areas, with a 72 decibel level for outside loudspeakers at clubs and other places of business. Residents claim that the 60-decibel level is sometimes surpassed at night, and almost always during the day when, they add, the level has gone as high as 78.

The argument for decibel meters has gained more currency in the wake of a decision by a federal judge earlier this month that temporarily banned all enforcement measures prohibiting music played loud at a certain distance--if unamplified and still audible at 50 feet, the music was in violation of city law.

That ruling is expected to hold until September, when the same judge will hear a suit brought by a group of French Quarter musicians arguing that any limitations on their music-making is unconstitutional.

Until then, predicts Jo Anne Abbott, director of community affairs with the French Quarter Business Assn., another aspect of the Quarter’s ambience has been lost: the willingness on the part of many different people to tolerate one another in a close working and living environment.

For saxophonist Vincent, the solution its obvious: “If you don’t like music, you shouldn’t live here,” he said. “If you don’t like water, don’t move into a houseboat.”