ORANGE

BEACH, Ala.

"background-color: white;">--

"background-color: white;">The Orange Beach Festival of Art has

added a Friday night gala to the weekend event traditionally held

the second weekend of March for the past 40 years.

The famed

Preservation Hall Jazz band will be the featured entertainment on

Friday, March 9 beginning at 6 p.m. at Orange Beach Waterfront

Park, the traditional festival site. Tickets for the outdoor event

on the banks of Wolf Bay are $50 per person and can be purchased at

the Orange Beach Art Center or by calling 251-981-2787 or

251-223-3970.

Admission

includes a catered dinner featuring local cuisine. Patrons will sit

at tables set up around the stage. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band

will perform following dinner. In case of inclement weather, the

event will be moved to the Orange Beach Event Center at The

Wharf.

Since the

1970s, the Festival of the Art, scheduled March 10-11, has been the

Gulf Coast's first rite of spring. The Festival is a celebration of

the visual arts, performing arts, literary arts, music and culinary

arts, all on the grounds of the Orange Beach Arts Center's campus

and the adjoining Waterfront Park. Festival admission is $1 for

adults. More than 90 Artists from across the nation will

participate, and there will be live demonstrations of glass

blowing, molten iron casting and raku pottery firing.

The Culinary

Arts brings the unique flavors of the Gulf Coast as local

restaurateurs prepare specialties for festival guests. The

Performing Arts includes two stages of non-stop music and

entertainment. The fest also includes a wonderful Kids' Art Alley

with amazing children's art activities.

For more

Orange Beach Festival of Art information, call 251-981-2787. The

Preservation Hall Jazz Band derives its name from Preservation

Hall, the venerable music venue located in the heart of New

Orleans’ French Quarter, founded in 1961 by Allan and Sandra Jaffe.

The band has traveled worldwide spreading their mission to nurture

and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz.

Whether

performing at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, for British Royalty

or the King of Thailand, this music embodies a joyful, timeless

spirit. Under the auspices of current director, Ben Jaffe, the son

of founders Allan and Sandra, Preservation Hall continues with a

deep reverence and consciousness of its greatest attributes in the

modern day as a venue, band, and record label.

The PHJB

began touring in 1963 and for many years there were several bands

successfully touring under the name Preservation Hall. Many of the

band's charter members performed with the pioneers who invented

jazz in the early twentieth century including Buddy Bolden, Jelly

Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Bunk Johnson.

Band leaders

over the band's history include the brothers Willie and Percy

Humphrey, husband and wife Billie and De De Pierce, famed pianist

Sweet Emma Barrett, and in the modern day Wendell and John

Brunious. These founding artists and dozens of others passed on the

lessons of their music to a younger generation who now follow in

their footsteps like the current lineup.

The building

that houses Preservation Hall has housed many businesses over the

years including a tavern during the war of 1812, a photo studio and

an art gallery. It was during the years of the art gallery that

then owner, Larry Borenstein, began holding informal jam sessions

for his close friends. Out of these sessions grew the concept of

Preservation Hall.