Dead can dance!

If you ever get down New Orleans way, you might steer clear on St. Joseph's Day. According to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, that's when the graveyard bones make a rattling sound and the dead get up and start walking around.

Of course New Orleans is known for its macabre sensibility, as profiled on this blog a couple years ago during a whole New Orleans theme weekend. And no one could be more steeped in they city's character than the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which has been keeping traditional New Orleans jazz alive in the French Quarter and around the world since the early 1960s. The band was started by a jazz historian who wanted to preserve New Orleans jazz, and although membership in the band has changed over the years, that original goal has consistently been realized.

Tradition alone often isn't enough to keep a whole genre of music alive, however, so just last year the band released its very first album of all-original compositions, called That's It! The album is both traditional and forward-looking, as you might detect in today's song, "Rattlin' Bones." While sticking close to the traditional style, it still sounds new and vibrant. If you don't wanna see 'em, though, you best stay home, cuz there ain't no running round the rattling bones...