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After The Storm, It Takes A Village

5/7/2006
Audra D.F. Burch - The Miami Herald

NEW ORLEANS - Peter ''Nine'' Badie, a devout Catholic, walked into church that Sunday before Hurricane Katrina but never sat down for services. Dressed in his silk best, he gave his tithes, the car outside full with a daughter, a grandbaby and his beloved bass.
They called him Nine 'cause he grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, the dense urban patch named for its downriver footing, which became the face and place of despair after the storm.
So here is Nine, among the acoustic bass greats, headed to a tiny town outside Baton Rouge. He planned to sit a spell then go home. Nine had traveled the world, all across Europe with Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Dizzie Gillespie. But he always came home.
Fifty-two days later, Nine, a widower, returned to a seven-room house on Johnson Street, two feet from where it once stood upright and proud, rinsed through and through with Katrina'swaters. His best friend, a black 1979 Coupe Deville he called the Black Eagle, was lost.
''It's all gone, baby. My daddy built that house in 1953 and now it's gone. All my pictures, me playing with different orchestras, gone,'' says Nine, slowed by his 80 years. ``My life went down with the waters. I've been trying to get my own place ever since.''
Now, home ownership for Nine and other musicians displaced by the storm may not be so far away.

STAR POWER
Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr., saxophonist and singer, sons and souls of New Orleans, along with Habitat for Humanity, are building a musicians' village here, a quiet place for old and new and struggling players and singers to live.
Just last month, construction started on the first 30 homes in the Upper Ninth Ward -- not far from where Nine once lived -- that will be part of the eight-acre village. The village will include homes and the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music,
an incubation center that will celebrate New Orleans jazz. The center is named for the patriarch of the Marsalis family, a native New Orleans jazz pianist, educator and father of musicians Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason.
''The village was a way to thank the musicians of New Orleans for helping us attain the level of success we have had,'' says Branford Marsalis, in an e-mail from Tokyo. ``Musicians are one of the main tourist attractions for visitors of New Orleans but they have often -- like other places, I am sure -- been ignored or overlooked in terms of value to the city
and pay scale.''
In the days after Hurricane Katrina, Marsalis and Connick cried for their city and its lost musicians, so many in their sunset years who helped birth the New Orleans sound.
They wanted to do something, something that would help musicians take the steps back to life before Aug. 29, 2005, the day Katrina hit.

GETTING IT DONE
''We were tired of the culture of blame, which basically results in nothing getting done,'' says Marsalis. ``With the help of Habitat for Humanity, we are now able to help great musicians grab a piece of the American dream: home ownership.''
The homes, roughly 1,100 square feet, will cost about $75,000 or a $500 monthly mortgage payment, which includes sweat equity -- each person living in the village contributes about 350 volunteer hours -- 250 for building other homes with the last 100 devoted to their own homes.
The numbers are hard to beat. Before Katrina, a duplex in the same neighborhood rented for about $700 to $800 a  month. Now, with so much of the housing damaged or demolished, rent is closer to $1,000.
Jim Pate, Habitat's executive director, says because of the nature of the music world, they are creatively working to verify income requirements. The range is $16,000 for individuals to $32,000 for a family of four.
''We have people who show up with a spiral bound notebook, or with fliers from their clubs showing their income,'' says Pate, who added the village is also open to non-musicians.
In all, the project will cost about $24.5 million, for both the homes and the center. In all, 75 to 80 homes will be in the village and another 300 in the surrounding neighborhood. About half the homes will be for musicians; already 30 have applied and seven have qualified.
For Fredy Omar Quiroz, the village is a singular shot at homeownership.

''This is a great break for me,'' says Quiroz, the singer and bandleader of Fredy Omar Con Su Banda. ``I am not sure I could get a home without this program.''

Quiroz, 36, evacuated to San Antonio, then made his way to San Francisco. There, with the news that most everything in his New Orleans apartment was but a memory, he slipped into depression. He wanted to sing, just couldn't. ``I was so unhappy, deeply sad.''

Finally, he found his voice in December when he sang at a New Orleans gig, then at an Alabama festival. But when he came home for good, he found a stage and an audience but a city that was profoundly changed.

''The New Orleans lifestyle was gone -- you know, big fun, good times and cheap,'' he says. ``It wasn't that way anymore.''
 
BETWEEN GIGS
Now, in between gigs at Cafe Brasil, Quiroz spends his days laying brick at the village -- his first steps to owning a home.

``I am so excited -- I just love the idea of being able to live near other musicians. I do Latin and the guy next door can do jazz and maybe we can do something together''
On this Monday, a car slowly cruises by the lot, now just clumps of wilted grass, foundations and framework. The car circles the block then stops in front of the first three homes under construction.

Joseph ''Smoky'' Johnson sits in the passenger seat, a drummer who played just about all his life, sometimes with folks like Fats Domino and Little Richard.
For 28 years, he played professionally, made decent money, enough to raise six children.
Today he is 69, disabled by a stroke, living 90 minutes away in Baton Rouge and wanting more than anything to come home.
''It sure would be nice if I could make something happen here,'' says Johnson, whose wife drove him here to get an application for the village. ``I just want to get back.''
The next day, Nine shows up to help, working off a couple hours toward his home.
He takes a break and takes in the huge lot, a junior high school years ago, and points to a strip on the side.

''Wouldn't mind having that spot right there, lot number nine,'' he muses. ``Wouldn't that be lovely?''

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