1841 New Orleans: The center for music or the idea of music?

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The creoles of color were entitled to their own sound and skill, creating a divide between downtown and uptown sounds. The popularity of ragtime music pulled the free people of color from uptown New Orleans to co-create with the untrained wildness of the new downtown sound. Many sheet reading musicians at the time were against ragtime music because of its looseness, but that opened up opportunities for individualist blurbs of improvised music. This energy was created in New Orleans, and although it holds rights to it, with the Mississippi River in full swing, nothing was stopping the music from fleeing. Instead of concealing the works and mastering them in a city where the necessary tools were available, artists decided to pack up and pick up. 

Louis Moreau Gottschalk is a native-born New Orleanian who was born with a gift for composing and was hailed as a leader of the New World, having been able to master multiple instruments. Gottschalk, from a young age, set out for the world beyond New Orleans and found himself in Europe, Latin America, Cuba, and other places around the globe. When people began noticing his talent at a young age, he was immediately referred to a composing school in Europe. For the large deal, people make New Orleans be a center for the music industry through the brass movement and forward. Yet, if the French quarter was littered with street performing musicians and the houses were filled with classically trained prodigies, why is it no one thought to create a music school for New Orleanians and travelers alike? As mentioned in the Times-Picayune during the December of 1841, adequate spaces for rent were available to create the opportunistic adventure that could have been a music school in the heart of downtown New Orleans.

Current history praises New Orleans throughout the 1800s for its innovation behind ragtime music and all the collective sounds coined within the city at that time, but so many of the creators chose to leave. Edmond Dede was a free creole of color born in New Orleans. He was held on the same pedestal that Gottschalk had enjoyed, and once discovered did he stay in New Orleans? Nope. Dede saved money through working at a cigar business to save enough money to travel and study music in Paris. At the time, Europe did host the best music schools globally, including The Paris Conservatory for Advanced Musical Study, where both Gottschalk and Dede attended. The school initially rejected Gottschalk without even hearing him play but later was granted a spot due to family strings. The artists of this generation seemed hungry to create and statize the outside world by exploring it and forgetting about their roots. Gottschalk became famous for his inbreeding of the Spanish music he picked up on his tour around Latin America and mixed it with the creole jive found in New Orleans. Suppose the artists who made New Orleans famous had stayed in New Orleans throughout their lifetime. In that case, communities of musicians could have been taught and brought together rather than pulled around the world. Once Gottchalks left New Orleans, considered the best pianist of the New World, he never returned. He left the city that bred his music, chasing the attention of the outside world. 

In 2021, traveling outside your home within your own home can be made accessible. With just a click of the button, you can be in another country or time zone. Music can be uploaded, moved, and shared readily by people worldwide with the help of streaming services. Due to coronavirus, physical shows are currently not happening in most states around America, but before famous local New Orleanian music halls were filled with strictly bands from outside the city. In 2019, not one band, The House of Blues showcased, was from New Orleans, while very few other than the owners of Tipitinas themselves (the band Galactic owns Tipitinas) featured local artists of New Orleans in the most recent years. Just as in the December editions of the 1841 Times-Picayune, no mentions of local artists were being made at the time, and centuries later, their recognition is still faint. Music scouts that once littered the scenes of New Orleanian clubs have now turned into someone sitting behind a computer working for Spotify and other streaming services (or working for no one at all). So what is the point of trying to get into the local concert hall around the corner if no one is ever going to hear you play? The rooted problem of outsourcing online or in-person links to the hardships local musicians face every day in order to make it in the business. A friend of mine started a playlist that now has thousands of followers. She currently deals with emerging artists willing to pay to be on her playlist in the hopes of getting heard. She has no background or future in music; she is just a random girl behind a computer.