The story of the beginnings of Preservation Hall in New Orleans is one with a few twists and turns. While many people ascribed the founding to Allan and Sandra Jaffe, and still do, apparently that is not quite correct. Jaffe, a revivalist jazz fan and tuba player, had a business degree from Wharton School of Business, Pennsylvania, and along with his wife, also a jazz fan, was asked to take over the management of the club.
The Jaffes did so, putting it on a sound business footing and in part establishing its reputation by forming a touring band bearing its name in addition to that remaining in New Orleans. (Perhaps that should be “those” rather than “that” as there were different personnel at different times in the resident New Orleans band.) The Jaffes did not disavow their being credited as founders, and today their son, Ben Jaffe, continues running the club and associated foundation.
But others were involved in the establishing of the club on St. Peter Street, among them Ken Grayson Mills and Barbara Reid, whose names are not often mentioned in this regard. In his book titled Preservation Hall: Music from the Heart (N.Y., 1991), William Carter acknowledges their contribution, and in a series of articles collectively titled The Hidden History of Ken Grayson Mills, Icon Records, and Preservation Hall in Exile published in the monthly British jazz periodical Just Jazz, R
