New Orleans Travelogue - Part 3: The tenuous connection

When we stopped at the Louisiana welcome center on our way to New Orleans, we took a few minutes to browse through the many tour and destination brochures they had displayed there. I came across one that said Cemetery/Voodoo/Jazz across the top.



Cemetery voodoo jazz.

Although I consider myself relatively more knowledgeable about voodoo than the average American (I sleep on two different kinds of gris-gris - how about you?), other than the fact that several noted voodoo practitioners called New Orleans home, I'm not sure what the connection is. And while the above-ground, mausoleum style cemeteries are well known, when you think about it, there is really nothing so different between a New Orleans cemetery and a "regular" cemetery in Anywhere USA. You still are six feet from the bodies, there just isn't all that dirt between you and them. So I consider the connection between cemetery, voodoo and jazz to be tenuous at best, and I don't think the best way to appeal to tourists is to throw everything you've got all at them at once. Besides, I imagine the following conversation.

So, are you a swing era musician, or do you like be-bop?

No, man.

Okay, post-bop then, maybe fusion?

No.

Free jazz?

No, man.

What then?

Cemetery voodoo jazz.

If this is the new standard, other tourism promotional possibilities that come to mind are:
San Francisco: Gay Alcatraz Sea Lions
Los Angeles: Hollywood Tar Pits Jack Nicholson's House
New York: Empire State Building Broadway Mugging
Phildelphia: Liberty Bell Cheesesteak Rocky Balboa
Orlando: Mickey Mickey Mickey
Las Vegas: Magic Gambling Neon
Cleveland: Rock 'n Roll LeBron Rust
Seattle: Rainy Boeing Salmon
Alabama: Cottonfield Plantation Whatchou lookin' at boy?

But I digress.
So, part three of my travelogue is finished and I still haven't written about any music. But it is coming, probably with the next post. Y'all come back now, y'hear?