By Candice Ludlow
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-907904.mp3
Memphis, TN – Jazz musician Brian "Breeze" Cayolle was blown about after Hurricane Katrina. Now, he's settled in Memphis. Candice Ludlow brings us his story.
You can tell by the sound of his voice that New Orleans is home to Brian "Breeze" Cayolle.
Breeze Cayolle makes his living playing sax, clarinet and flute. He's the seventh generation to call New Orleans home. As Katrina was barreling toward New Orleans, Breeze readied his family to evacuate - with the thought that they'd reunite just in a few days.
"After Katrina hit, I was working on a riverboat in the orchestra. And the boat was the American Queen. And its last stop for that trip was Memphis," Breeze explained. "So when we got to Memphis, they were basically out of business. They couldn't go back to New Orleans. FEMA and the National Guard had taken over their offices on the port, what was left, and the boat was being used at that point for oilrig workers or something like that. And the boat went back down to the coastline."
After he hopped a plane to play a gig in New York, Breeze caught up with his family in Little Rock. His little boy was 1 , and had stopped talking. In between shows, Breeze headed back to their house in New Orleans to see if they could return.
"When I broke into my house, cause you couldn't walk in. I had to use a crowbar and a sledgehammer cause all the wood in the door had swollen and contracted and it was really hot. So everything was frozen. Was I finally did enter, everything was upside down. There was a gray film on the ground," Breeze said. "There was mold on the walls and the ceiling. When I looked at it, I just said, no.' I knew how long the water had been there. It had been there a couple of weeks. It wasn't like a tidal flood. The water comes in and goes back out. It's not sitting. This was left for weeks. And I'm like, no, I don't want my kid to play there. I don't want .It just left me with an uneasy feeling. It's not time for me to come back, at least not to that area."
After that, Breeze and his wife sold their home for "pennies on the dollar" and began settling in the Bluff City. The Cayolle family was shattered like glass and scattered across the country.
"It's a very strange thing not to have family that you can just call and just say, What are you doing? Why don't you come on over?" Breeze says. "That's a definite change in lifestyle. And it's sad because the family that I had that would have been around with like my son he was a year and a half, he's six now. All that time there were cousins that were his age, and nieces and nephews that would have been around. Now, he doesn't know any of his family."
Still, Breeze is finding his way in this river city. His son is talking again. And when Breeze isn't playing in and around Memphis, he's playing in New Orleans and around the world.