Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Few groups have kept a single tradition as close to its source as the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which takes its name from the venue in New Orleans' French Quarter. Founded in the early 1960s by tuba player Allan Jaffe, it has carried traditional New Orleans jazz across the world, and its early line-ups drew on local players aged from their sixties to their nineties.

After a 1961 honeymoon visit, the Jaffes stayed far longer than planned and took over management of the hall. Allan Jaffe began touring with its musicians in 1963, and many were later hired by Harold Dejan for the Olympia Brass Band. In 1977 Jaffe teamed with Arthur Hall's Afro-American Dance Ensemble on the dance musical Fat Tuesday and All That Jazz, a Mardi Gras production. After Jaffe's death in 1987, his son Ben became artistic director in 1993. The group kept touring after Katrina closed the hall in 2005, received the National Medal of Arts in 2006, and has since worked with the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Foo Fighters on Sonic Highways and the Trey McIntyre Project.