Human tragedy brings out the best in the jazz community.

When nasty Hurricane Katrina bore down on the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August, its floodwaters broke through New Orleans' fragile levees, and the storm and its aftermath laid waste to a city built below sea level—and best known to many of us as the cradle of jazz.

It also brought out the best in us. Not knowing how long it will take the region to recover, or if it truly will, people across the U.S. and around the world responded with generosity and creativity to begin the process. The music industry, including affected musicians, has been at the forefront of those efforts.

Dozens of concerts, many featuring New Orleans musicians, were held all over the U.S. to raise funds for Katrina relief efforts, some specifically channeled to help Crescent City musicians. Some concerts, including the five-hour Higher Ground benefit at Lincoln Center, resulted in fundraising recordings. Several labels, including Nonesuch, Rounder/Marsalis Music Rykodisc and the Recording Industry Association of America, released relief benefit albums. Dr. John quickly and recorded his own Katrina relief fundraising CD, appropriately titled Sippiana Herricane.

The New York-based, and largely Big Apple-focused, Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund, expanded its efforts. In the first nine weeks after the emergency, Executive Director Wendy Oxenhorn reports the non-profit agency handled 508 Katrina-related emergency cases that involved clothing and feeding families, repairing cars and musical instruments, helping find new homes, pay mortgages and provide counseling. It also donated more than $200,000 in donated new instruments to New Orleans musicians that it received from instrument companies—and employed more than 150 New Orleans jazz and blues musicians in schools and senior centers in seven states where they have resettled, at least temporarily.

"With so many New Orleans musicians still coming in for help, Oxenhorn said, "the challenge now, is to be able to keep up all we are doing for them and our regular 35-a-week, nationwide elderly jazz and blues pioneers who still suffer from sickness, lack of employment, eviction, and homelessness.

One creative initiative, led by Ellis and Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr., is designed to resolve one Katrina-related dilemma: the storm forced many musicians to flee New Orleans but those who seek to return, like so much of the population, have nowhere to go.

Habitat for Humanity, working with Connick and Branford Marsalis, announced plans in early December to create a "Musicians' Village" in the Crescent City. It will consist of Habitat-constructed homes for displaced New Orleans musicians. Its centerpiece will be the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, dedicated to the education and development for homeowners and others who will live nearby. The center, named for the Marsalis family patriarch, will include performance rooms and classrooms.

"This plan, this village, will help restore New Orleans' musical heritage, and protect it for the next generation that will follow," Branford Marsalis said. "It's also the beginning of Habitat's return to work in the city, which will see hundreds of houses built in the years to come, to help hurricane recovery and beyond."

Seed money for the Musicians' Village is coming from proceeds from the historic From the Big Apple To The Big Easy benefit concerts, held at both Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall on Sept. 20, which have been directed towards this effort as part of the event's overall commitment to support the long-term rebuilding efforts of the Gulf Coast region.

"This is very exciting because it uses the Habitat model—building homes and communities—and takes it a step farther, to helping hope for the future," said Connick. "Children will grow up in the neighborhoods, in a safe and secure environment, and at the same time the opportunity to become a part of the musical and cultural scene in New Orleans."

There were other developments of note in the jazz world during the year:

So Much For Independence: Only a few years after its battling its own financial woes, the Concord Music Group acquired Cleveland-based Telarc International, a classical music, jazz contemporary instrumental and world music recordings through its Telarc, Telarc Jazz and Heads Up recordings. The transaction follows Concord's late 2004 purchase of Fantasy Records, which is home to such historic imprints as Milestone, Pablo, Prestige/New Jazz, Riverside/Jazzland Stax/Volt/Enterprise, Specialty, Takoma, and many more. Concord executives say the transaction further bolsters the Concord Music Group as one of the world's largest and most dynamic independent record companies. It also begs the question: With more than 15 labels within its growing family, when does one stop being considered an "independent record company ?

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