The Great Hall: Perseverance Society Hall and the Beginnings of Jazz, Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Part 3: The Great Jazz Hall

Perseverance Society Hall was a multi-use facility for much of its history. But the chief use of the expansive interior was membership events. The design had even included a unique feature: a musicians' mezzanine was built at the back end of the hall. Just as benevolent societies had taken on responsibilities to the community in the wake of the defunding of the Freedmen's Bureau, the PBMAA and others continued the social banquets once held to promote citizenship. The Economy and Mutual Aid Association had been the first hall to hire a brass band for its events, hiring the Eagle Brass Band (no association with the Eagle Band) to play the society's dances. However, other societies quickly adapted and offered society nights with brass bands, usually hiring from within their own membership ranks. For example, the Eagle Brass Band contained two members of the Economy and Mutual Aid Association and their eventual replacement in 1909, The Peerless and Imperial Orchestras, was also fronted by a member of the association. Due to the constant outbreaks of Yellow Fever in New Orleans, benevolent societies were in constant need of brass bands for funeral parades, causing brass bands to become embedded in the fabric of New Orleans culture.

Unlike their peers who hired bands from the occasional parade or funeral, PBMAA had weekly events and membership dinners. Every Monday from 1 pm to 6 pm, the membership would meet at Perseverance Society Hall and after meetings and dinner, after which the tables and chairs would be moved and the dinner would shift into a dance. Though not much is known about the first musicians who worked at the Hall, the regular events made the Hall a cultural center for the 7th Ward. As the PBMAA was an African American society, very little information about the community events is available, and most of the historical record of the hall comes from first-hand interviews of those who lived nearby. However, the available information shows the Hall at a very unique position within the burgeoning New Orleans music scene.

During the "hot" music craze at the turn of the century, the PBMAA had lost much of its prestige, and the position of Perseverance Hall placed it away from the center of the new music. Whereas Globe Hall and Economy Hall were located mere blocks from the French Quarter in the middle of the Treme neighborhood, Perseverance an extra half mile away from the city center and even further away from the multitude of halls and clubs opening in Storyville. Despite its position in the rapidly changing New Orleans culture, Perseverance Society Hall was still able to book top acts for its Monday banquets, including Buddy Bolden and his band. Though Bolden was more comfortable at Globe Hall where he played regularly and had his exploits documented, Perseverance Hall was his next most comfortable venue in the neighborhood. His infrequent appearances at the hall inspired the residents of the neighborhood, nevertheless. Paul Barbarin tells:

I did remember hearing Buddy Bolden because Buddy Bolden was playing a...banquet at the Perseverance Hall...The Buddy Bolden Band was blowing, and the people were dancing, I imagine, having a good time, and my momma...said, "That's Buddy Bolden over there, he sure can blow..." That was around 1906-07.

Barbarin's mention of Bolden is the only time Barbarin speaks about Perseverance Hall despite knowledge that his father, Isidore Barbarin, played at the venue as well. An inclusion of Bolden with the Hall speaks to both the massive popularity and impact that Bolden had on New Orleans culture and the opinion of Perseverance Society Hall. Though not as prestigious as Economy Hall or Globe Hall, Perseverance Society Hall was simply a working venue for musicians and would sometimes hire younger bands and leaders to play their many events. One such band was the Superior Brass Band led by Bunk Johnson who played the hall regularly. Popular brass bands such as the Onward Brass Band also played the Hall and gave many younger musicians their first opportunities. It would have been with Onward Brass Band that Isidore Barbarin would have first played at the Hall. Once Bolden was arrested and committed to an asylum in 1907, his band rebranded themselves as The Eagle Band and continued playing at Economy Hall, Globe Hall, and Perseverance Hall. Though not as prominent as the other two downtown halls, Perseverance was part of the musicians' circuit and saw the playing of all the musicians who came through the Eagle Band, including Joe Oliver.

Most of the information regarding Perseverance Hall has been lost since the organization became defunct. However, there is evidence that Perseverance Hall's live traditional jazz music continued well after the PBMAA quietly declined. On July 18th, 1962, Curt Davis of the National Education Television network joined music historian Richard B. Allen to "[make] the rounds." Davis was at the beginning of an impactful television career. He would eventually become vice president of programming for the Arts and Entertainment and won two Emmy awards during his tenure. Allen had already begun his massive oral history of New Orleans jazz. The pair visited Perseverance Hall No. 4 before heading to Dixieland Hall at 522 Bourbon street. Their final visit of the night was to 1644 N. Villere street to hear Paul Barbarin's band. Barbarin, now a highly sought-after drummer in New Orleans, had continued to play at the Hall where he heard Buddy Bolden play as a child on his front porch. His band included Ernie Cagnolatti on trumpet, who had many personal connections to Perseverance hall. His older brother Claiberre had likely played here with Bunk Johnson's Superior Band as a drummer. Additionally, his aunt, Cecile Cagnolatti, was the owner of Perseverance Hall from 1932 until her death in 1938. When Ernie Cagnolatti moved to New Orleans in 1919, the Cagnolatti family became associated with the Barbarin family in Central City New Orleans, an association that continued through Ernie's brother Claiberre Cagnolatti, who lived next to Rose Barbarin for decades. The downtown Barbarins had married into the Cagnolatti family in 1912 when Walter Barbarin married Francesca Fauria, a cousin of Cecile Cagnolatti. Walter and Francesca lived under a mile away from Perseverance Hall and Walter was a house raiser, the very type of worker who the PBMAA attempted to recruit into membership.

The ownership of Perseverance Hall by the Cagnolatti family proves more mysterious than insightful. In his interview with William Russell for the Hogan Jazz Archives, Ernie Cagnolatti doesn't mention the hall or his Aunt despite knowing that his older brother Claiberre had played at the hall with Ernie's mentor, Bunk Johnson. Also, there is no mention of any family members outside of his immediate family nor of his distant relationship to the Barbarins. Perhaps this is due to his Aunt owning the property as a widow and not passing the hall to any of her own children, but the exclusion of Cecile Cagnolatti begs more questioning considering the fact that Paul Barbarin regularly hired Ernie Cagnolatti to play Perseverance Hall, such as July 18th, 1962.

While the connection between the Cagnolatti family and the hall provides more questions than answers, it illuminates a reason as to the continuation of live music at the venue during a time when many older dance halls were shuttering their doors. As Cagnolatti owned the hall after or during the demise of the PBMAA, its fate wasn't tied to a soon-to-be antiquated organization and could continue to function as a music hall. Also, since the Cagnolatti family was a musical family and was related to another highly regarded music family, the Barbarin family, musicians were certainly welcome to perform. Though the Barbarin family is significantly more famous, the Cagnolatti family can be traced to dozens of prominent New Orleans musicians and owned the longest-lasting dance hall in New Orleans. Though none of the prominent musicians like Ernie or Paul Barbarin ever played Perseverance Society Hall on a weekly basis, they always returned and their presence continued to make Perseverance Society Hall a functioning music venue decades after its sale to the Church and its early influx of young familial talent created the facade of a developmental venue for bandleaders.

This reputation as a familial venue could account for the seeming embarrassment of so many prominent New Orleans musicians as there is almost no interview that mentions Perseverance Society Hall except for Paul Babarbin's mention of Buddy Bolden on the occasional Monday Banquet. However, these musicians continued to play the Hall until the physical decline of the interior made performing a dangerous task. While Globe Hall shuttered its door in 1914 before a fire destroyed the building in 1918 and Economy Hall was similarly destroyed by Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Perseverance Hall remained a steadfast member of the music scene. More research into the history of the Cagnolatti family is needed to provide a sufficient answer to the question of the hall's omission from multiple interviews.

Currently, Perseverance Society Hall is in complete disrepair and is in danger of being forgotten. While there are a handful of articles every year in historical restoration or architecture trade journals begging the public for its assistance, no help has come. Just as the cultural memory of the hall was limited to one of the many venues in New Orleans, the building will soon collapse into history along with the Perseverance Benevolent and Mutual Aid Association. Despite its lack of recognition, Perseverance Society Hall, though severely hobbled, continues to stand in the 7th ward neighborhood it once served. Though the inside has become uninhabitable, the musicians' mezzanine still stands with echoes of New Orleans history surrounding the weak and fragile stage. The hall also holds echoes of some of the most famous New Orleans musical families who frequently played the banquets. Isidore Babarin, the patriarch of the legendary Barbarin family, rose to prominence with the Onward Brass band on this stage. The Cagnolatti family owned the building where Claiberre Cagnolatti was working with Bunk Johnson enough to send for his little brother Ernie, who would go on to start Preservation Hall. Paul Barbarin continued to play the Hall where he heard Buddy Bolden for his entire career. Though the PBMAA rapidly declined after the turn of the 20th century, the Hall stands as a monument to the organization that supported the 7th ward while also creating a lasting footprint on New Orleans culture.

Other halls were slowly destroyed by fires, storms, or mismanagement and became lionized as a result. Though Perseverance Society Hall has outlasted Economy Hall by nearly sixty years, Economy Hall has been documented in critically acclaimed books compared to the near erasure of any recollection of Perseverance Society Hall. Globe Hall had been shuttered for four years before it burned down in 1918 when Perseverance Society Hall was sold by the city for unpaid taxes, but the exploits of Buddy Bolden at Globe Hall became a New Orleans myth. Perseverance Hall No. 4 is lovingly kept in Louis Armstrong Park and was once home to the famous New Orleans independent radio station, 90.7 WWOZ. No such attempt was made in regard to Perseverance Society Hall. One reason that the Hall has been largely forgotten by jazz historians is the name missing in Perseverance Society Hall's roll call. Louis Armstrong is absent from the Hall's history, and much of New Orleans' musical myth-making is based around the city's most famous residents.

Whatever the case may be, Perseverance Society Hall deserves a spot in the cultural memory of New Orleans. Even if the musical exploits of the hall were ignored, the PBMAA was a significant organization in New Orleans history as the first benevolent society founded by free people of color and the first organized element of Mardi Gras. After the defunding of the Freedmen's Bureau, the PBMAA became the neighborhood's social, communal, and political organizing body. The hall built by the PBMAA stands as a physical reminder of the historic association. But, musically, Perseverance Society Hall is a monument to the musicians who began their careers on the mezzanine, particularly those of the Barbarin and Cagnolatti families. Before Paul Babarin's band featured Ernie Cagnolatti in 1962, Bunk Johnson's Superior Band played the stage regularly, featuring Ernie's older brother on drums. Before Bunk Johnson, Paul Barbarin's father Isidore worked with the Onward Brass Band at the Hall as that band rose in popularity to rival the Eagle Band who also played Perseverance Society Hall with their old leader, Buddy Bolden. The Barbarin and Cagnolatti clans were a significant part of the hall's history, even becoming owners for a brief period.

Perseverance Society Hall may not stand for much longer. The next major storm may blow the walls away from the tree that is currently supporting the structure, and it may collapse. Because of the imminent nature of its destruction, it is important to note the fascinating cultural history that is slowly eroding before the eyes of the 7th ward. So long as the building stands, a faint memory of the PBMAA remains until the walls finally fall and erase this vital link from the present to New Orleans jazz history. Mercifully, the 2022 hurricane season is forecast to be a relatively light affair with only two major hurricanes predicted to form, but it won't take much for the weather-beaten walls of the hall to give in to nature and fall away.

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