JAZZTIMES MAGAZINE
- DECEMBER 2007 -

Made In New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions
By: AMANDA PETRUSICH

Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Made In New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions
(Preservation Hall)

In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, Preservation Hall creative director Benjamin Jaffe scrambled to salvage sopping master tapes and archival material from Allen Toussaint's famed Sea Saint Studios, which had been flooded with six feet of water. The stunning, hand-assembled Made In New Orleans box shares some of the results of Jaffe's inspired digging: No two sets are the same, but all include a DVD documentary about the band, a CD of alternately swinging and bluesy pre- and post-Katrina tracks, original Poloroids and press photographs, and a trove of documents and trinkets (think backstage passes, Mardi Gras coins, performer contracts, oyster reciepts). Though its impossible to reduce any American city to a 9"-by-13" box, Made In New Orleans comes awfully close.