Sidetracked by Katrina, Big Easy student goes on tour

~ New Orleans student pursuing interrupted music career plays in Cape Girardeau.

Since late August, musician Jason Greenwald has been one of the thousands displaced from New Orleans. Like those others, he fled the city just before Hurricane Katrina, expecting to go back in a few days and maybe find some busted windows in his Garden District apartment.

Now his exile has brought him to Cape Girardeau, where the acoustic rocker will play two nights of shows, tonight and Saturday, with the Mike Renick Band at the Rude Dog Pub.

The day he left New Orleans, Greenwald and his friends spent 12 hours on interstate highways, making their way into Florida for temporary sanctuary. All Greenwald took was his recording equipment and a few clothes.

But he soon found out those items wouldn't be enough, since he wouldn't be able to live in New Orleans for months.

"There was definitely a period where I wasn't certain exactly what I was going to do," Greenwald said. "I thought about volunteering, but that didn't come through."

Instead Greenwald, a student at Tulane, arranged to finish his semester at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Penn. There he found his aim, focusing on writing music and starting to play shows on the East Coast.

Now Greenwald is working on a new album with an unknown release date and trying to raise his profile on the indie music scene.

The New York native originally moved to New Orleans in 2003 to start school there. He had just began the first semester of his second year when Katrina struck, forcing him to relocate temporarily.

The hurricane flooded his apartment, ruining furniture he and his roommates had bought only days before. His Martin guitar was also ruined, but another guitar was spared. News of the loss of the guitar somehow got to the Martin company, which presented Greenwald with a new instrument at a Philadelphia news conference this fall.

Of course, New Orleans haunts Greenwald wherever he goes. On tour this fall, questions about the devastated city and his experiences will inevitably come up.

"It's like, you want to tell people, but you don't want to, because you want to have an unbiased crowd, you want people to listen to the music," Greenwald said.

While he doesn't want New Orleans to overshadow his music, he isn't shy about the subject, either. When the topic of rebuilding the city comes up, he has one basic idea to convey to people: Come back to New Orleans. The city will rebuild, as will its healthy music scene, Greenwald says.

Greenwald plans his own return to New Orleans in January to resume school. For a musician, Greenwald says, there's no better place to be than in the Big Easy.

"There are venues that have everything from funk, jazz, blues, rock, and even an R&B hip-hop scene," said Greenwald. "It seems like everyone appreciates all different types of music."

There should be a market for Greenwald, given the popularity of acoustic/folk artists in today's market. His music carries on the tradition of recent folk-rock heroes like Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, with a delicate, stripped-down blend of pop and folk-infused acoustic rock.

The tunes carry a softness that is occasionally speckled with an instrumental intensity provided by only the sounds of guitar, keyboard and voice.

When the young musician resumes his interrupted life in New Orleans he hopes to make the city a home base for launching his own career. He'll look for musicians, play out shows along the Gulf Coast and continue his college career.

He hopes to be part of rebuilding the cultural vibrance of a city that has been through a great shock.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

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Want to go?

• What: Jason Greenwald in concert with the Mike Renick Band
• When: 9 p.m. today and Saturday, Dec. 2-3
• Where: Rude Dog Pub
• Info: 335-4447