There aren't many levels on which Lincolnshire and New Orleans have anything in common. One is a rural county on the shores of the North Sea that raised Alfred Lord Tennyson; the other a city by the Gulf of Mexico that gave the world Louis Armstrong. When Louisiana celebrates Mardi Gras, Lincolnshire eats pancakes.
From the village of South Rauceby, however, comes an attempt to help the musicians of New Orleans. Jonathan Hoare, a furniture restorer and music fan, working with co-founders John Coops and Mick Burns, has set up an appeal to put on jazz gigs for the benefit of musicians from the city where the music was born. So far the parish church of Sleaford, a medium-sized market town, has raised £220, but Normal ( or New Orleans Music Aid Lincolnshire) has also caught the eye of a promoter in Sheffield who is keen to join in.
The appeal is backed by the New Orleans Musician's Clinic and Jazz Foundation of America, which has been helping jazz and blues musicians in need for the last 16 years. Before Katrina, the foundation dealt with 35 clients a week, mostly elderly musicians without pension plans or healthcare who lived hand to mouth and needed help to survive. Some of those were homeless, sleeping in their cars when they couldn't pay rent. Homelessness is now the norm.
Eleanor King, a counsellor for the foundation, says she is dealing with three times the number of clients she had before the hurricane, and from a much wider age range. The problems are the same - food, a roof, medicine - but the geographical spread much wider. New Orleans' 9th ward was a cheap place for musicians to live but also one of the most extensively flooded. The citizens of the tightly packed district are now in diaspora, and many of its jazz and blues playing residents have lost everything. The Jazz Foundation is donating instruments and arranging gigs so the musicians can start working and earning money again. It also puts on events in shelters in Alabama and Texas to raise the morale of Katrina's refugees.
Normal's contribution is small at present but Ms King is enthusiastic about their work. "It's quite touching to have people abroad spending time and energy to aid the musicians from New Orleans," she says. " We're so grateful that the international community cares about preserving New Orleans culture and the music that the United States has birthed."
Mr Hoare has never been to New Orleans or, indeed, spoken to the musicians he is helping. He declares a "love of humanity and a love of music" as the motivation behind the appeal. "We just want to see New Orleans normal again," he says. His goal is to secure a patron to boost publicity and link up with like-minded people through his website, to make the campaign national. On Shrove Tuesday next year, when New Orleans has Mardi Gras and Lincolnshire has pancakes, he wants to hear the sound of jazz across the county.
