Playing Music for the Ages

At 26, bassist Benjamin Jaffe is the youngest member of New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band, an institution commonly and (in recent years) mistakenly believed to consist solely of musicians in their golden years playing a bygone music.

Jaffe, son of hall founder Allan Jaffe, knows otherwise.

He’s a true child of New Orleans, born 10 years after the founding of the hall, his second home from the time he was an infant. In a hurried phone interview from Billings, Mont., Jaffe recalled the effect it had on him.

“It was my preschool, my grammar school, my music class,” said Jaffe, who plays with the Preservation Hall band tonight and Wednesday in Cerritos. “I always considered the musicians to be part of my family.”

As a student at the music conservatory at Oberlin College in Ohio, Jaffe never considered that he might join his father’s band.

“I was going to be a musician, but I was classically trained and often thought that after college I would be auditioning for some symphony orchestra somewhere,” he explained.

Then there was the stigma of New Orleans jazz among the ivory-tower set.

“While at college, I discovered that a lot of musicians had an arrogant attitude toward New Orleans-style jazz. The pervasive attitude among modern jazz musicians is that the music is inferior to what they do, that the musicians are not as technically proficient. They considered New Orleans jazz a kind of simplistic folk music.”

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Jaffe almost joined the doubters, until he returned home after graduation in 1993. “I realized what I found lacking [in jazz and classical music] was the spirit. New Orleans music displays this incredible generosity toward the audience. The musicians approach the music with happiness, and they aren’t really playing right unless the audience is happy too. New Orleans music was created to be part of our culture; it was created to be entertaining and enjoyable. I was just amazed at how good it made everybody feel.”

When Jaffe tells how his parents came to New Orleans and Preservation Hall, the story takes on mythic qualities.

“They were on their honeymoon in 1961 and just fell in love with the place. But they were disappointed to find that real New Orleans jazz wasn’t being played anywhere in the city. After they befriended a few people around town, they discovered this art gallery where the owner held jam sessions for his close friends.”

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His parents loved what they found there and became regulars. “The gallery owner eventually asked them if they would consider taking over the lease. They did it that very year, and 35 years later the hall is still going strong. Thousands and thousands of people have heard New Orleans music there.”

Jaffe’s father, who died in 1987, played tuba in the band and enlisted links to the music’s past to join him.

“He didn’t really know the music that well when he first got to New Orleans,” Jaffe said, “but he was warmly accepted into the community and learned it in no time.”

Tours of Japan and Europe in the early ‘60s--with a group that included legendary New Orleans cornetist Kid Thomas and clarinetist George Lewis--helped establish the Preservation Hall name and the hall itself.

Three Preservation Hall bands exist, so one is always in residence at the hall while two travel. Banjo player Narvin Kimball, at 87, is the senior member of the group playing in Cerritos. Trumpeter Wendell Brunious, who leads the band, is 42, as is pianist John Royen. New blood holds out the promise that Preservation Hall will exist well into the next century.

Jaffe sees the music’s longevity best mirrored in the reactions of children.

“This music has such an infectious quality on everyone, but it especially has so much impact on kids. When you see a little kid bouncing around in time to something they don’t even understand, you begin to see how universal this music is, even though it was born in the late 19th century. They’re going to love it all their lives.

“I’m so happy now, with what I’m doing,” said Jaffe, who manages the hall with his mother, Sandra. “We touch so many people with our music. And there’s this tremendous sense of community. Some 80 different musicians played last year at the hall, all of them come from musical families dating back to the 1800s. There’s no other place in New Orleans that can say that.”

* The Preservation Hall Jazz Band plays tonight and Wednesday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. 8 p.m. $25-$40. A package including a New Orleans buffet with drinks, served at 6:30 p.m., and admission to the concert is $75. (800) 300-4345.