BATON ROUGE – In 1966, journalist Charles Suhor wrote that New Orleans jazz was “ready for its new Golden Age.” Thomas W. Jacobsen’s “The New Orleans Jazz Scene, 1970–2000,” to be published by LSU Press in October, chronicles the resurgence of jazz music in the Crescent City in the years following Suhor’s prophetic claim. Jacobsen, a New Orleans resident and longtime jazz aficionado, offers a wide-ranging history of the New Orleans jazz renaissance in the last three decades of the 20th century, weaving local musical developments into the larger context of the national jazz scene.
 

Jacobsen vividly evokes the changing face of the New Orleans jazz world at the close of the 20th century. Drawing from an array of personal experiences and his own exhaustive research, he discusses leading musicians and bands, both traditionalists and modernists, as well as major performance venues and festivals. The city’s musical infrastructure does not go overlooked, as Jacobsen delves into New Orleans’s music business, its jazz media, and the evolution of jazz education at public schools and universities. With a trove of more than 70 photographs of key players and performances, “The New Orleans Jazz Scene, 1970–2000” offers a vibrant and fascinating portrait of the musical genre that defines New Orleans.
 

Jacobsen is the author of “Traditional New Orleans Jazz: Conversations with the Men Who Make the Music.” He has published extensively on New Orleans jazz in a number of jazz periodicals, including “The Mississippi Rag and The Clarinet.”
 

For more information on the book, contact Jenny Keegan at jenniferkeegan@lsu.edu or 225-578-6453 or visit http://lsupress.org.