Donner is seeing to it that the music is top of the chop. From 6 p.m. to the wee hours, his musicians will wail in the faded elegance of the circa 1920s Ballroom at Twenty Four Fifth, a famous venue on lower Fifth Avenue near Washington Square that was once the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The evening will begin with an African American a capella group from New Orleans singing the national anthem. Other New Orleans musicians, themselves the beneficiaries of the evening, will perform as will a Louis Armstrong look-alike paying a special tribute to Satchmo and to his music. Others appearing will be Jimmy Maxwell, the maestro of many Mardi Gras balls, and Joe Lovano, perhaps the premier saxophonist of the present. In the Donner band itself will be Vince Giordano, a great bandleader in his own right.
As the evening has already been underwritten, every dime raised will go to the SOS's efforts to give New Orleans musicians a bit more time to revive their art at its place of origin, New Orleans. "Because New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and Dixieland, one of our very few indigenous art forms," says Donner, "New Orleans holds a special place in American culture." Donner is hopeful, but he speaks with urgency: "If these musicians/singers cannot receive support now, there is a good chance this music will become relegated to museums or retro concerts."
Frankly, I expect the evening to be a huge success and to make a tremendous contribution to the revival of the Crescent City. It sounds like a lot of fun. Traditional New Orleans masks will be handed out. The food should be superb. The music cannot be anything but rapturous. And there is a very clever idea behind it aside from the love of jazz. If the musicians come back, the tourists will be sure to follow, and that will revive the city more certainly than any government program. I plan to arrive early for the mint juleps and stay late. With the Mardi Gras masks being distributed widely, I can easily avoid my critics.