Music of New Orleans

Despite colorful stories of mid-20th century writers, the prostitution district known as Storyville was no more important in the development of the music than the city's other neighborhoods, but did play a role in exposing some out of town visitors to the style.

The Creole people of New Orleans also contributed greatly to the evolution of the artform, though their own music became heavily influenced by the pioneering work of Bolden.

From the perspective of African American music, the habanera rhythm (also known as congo,[17] tango-congo,[18] or tango[19]) can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat.

For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime, and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African American popular music.

[23] Whether tresillo was directly transplanted from Cuba, or if the habanera merely reinforced tresillo-like "rhythmic tendencies" already present in New Orleans music is probably impossible to determine.

[25] Although technically, the pattern is only half a clave, Marsalis makes the important point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music.

The New Orleans musician Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz.

Buddy Bolden, the first known jazz musician, is credited with creating the big four, the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march.

Instead, New Orleans jazz bands began incorporating a style known as "ragging"; this technique implemented the influence of ragtime 2/4 meter and eventually led to improvisation.

This band played no small role in the coinage of the term dixieland in reference to jazz in New Orleans, though they were not the innovators of the music.

An early student of Dixieland was the young Louis Prima, as well as his older brother Leon, both of whom lived outside the French Quarter in a working-class neighborhood populated by Italian-American and African-American musicians.

Into his early 20s, Louis Prima performed on trumpet and cornet throughout New Orleans before following in the path of his idol Armstrong, and moving North for career reasons, where he appeared at the Famous Door in New York City, eventually relocating to Las Vegas where, beginning in the mid-1950s, he regularly appeared with another New Orleans musician, saxophonist Sam Butera.

Prominent musicians such as Fats Domino helped shape what was first widely known as "Rhythm and Blues", which was an important ancestor of rock and roll, if not the first form of the music.

In 1949, New Orleans jazz musician, and Fats Domino producer Dave Bartholomew brought the tresillo directly from Cuban music into early R&B.

New Orleans producer-bandleader Dave Bartholomew first employed this figure (as a saxophone-section riff) on his own 1949 disc "Country Boy" and subsequently helped make it the most over-used rhythmic pattern in 1950s rock 'n' roll.

On numerous recordings by Fats Domino, Little Richard and others, Bartholomew assigned this repeating three-note pattern not just to the string bass, but also to electric guitars and even baritone sax, making for a very heavy bottom.

He recalls first hearing the figure – as a bass pattern on a Cuban discIn a 1988 interview with Robert Palmer, Bartholomew revealed how he initially superimposed tresillo over swing rhythm.

I'd have the string bass, an electric guitar and a baritone all in unisonBartholomew referred to the Cuban son by the misnomer rumba, a common practice of that time.

Some seminal New Orleans artists from No Limit included Mia X, Mystikal, Master P, Soulja Slim, C-Murder, and Silkk the Shocker.

Cash Money likewise signed and released albums by several New Orleans artists including BG, Juvenile, Turk, Big Tymers, and Lil' Wayne.

Drake, also signed to Cash Money recently collaborated with New Orleans Bounce producer Blaqnmild on his international hits "Nice For What" and "In My Feelings".

New Orleans is also known for a hip hop duo known as the $UICIDEBOY$, who are known for their blend of Memphis Hip-Hop beats with guttural, heavy lyrics dealing with drug usage and depression, similar to sludge metal, another prominent genre of the city.

[39][40][41] Bands such as Eyehategod,[40] Down,[42] Exhorder,[41] Crowbar,[43] Acid Bath, Soilent Green,[44] Goatwhore,[45] Kingdom of Sorrow,[46] Graveyard Rodeo and Superjoint Ritual[47] are either based in the city, or have a majority of their members hailing from the area.

Artists such as Mike Williams, Jimmy Bower, Brian Patton,[40] Phil Anselmo, Kirk Windstein, Pepper Keenan,[42] Pat Bruders, Stanton Moore and Kyle Thomas are New Orleans residents.

[41] Several of these metal groups share a style which draws inspiration from Black Sabbath, Melvins, hardcore punk as well as Southern rock.