New Orleans Dance Hall Reopens; Professor Acquitted of Funding Islamist Terrorism
PHILLIPS: Jazz is to New Orleans what politics is to Washington. No matter then, the organizers of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival are determined, the beat will go on in the spring, as usual. They're not sure yet where the event will be held or when or how large it will be. That just depends on how many big-name acts they can round up. Plus, local talent to add the flavor, of course. The sign of recovery for a segment of New Orleans society. The band is back. The dance floor is full and patrons are once again swaying to the sounds of swing. CNN's Ed Lavandera takes us to the dance hall.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you doing?</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's Sunday night at the Jefferson Orleans dance hall.</s>PAT BARBEROT, BIG BAND LEADER: How are you doing?</s>LAVANDERA: And Pat Barberot is back where he belongs.</s>BARBEROT: Would you believe I have butterflies?</s>LAVANDERA: Leading the band just like he always has since 1940.</s>BARBEROT: It's really great to see you guys again. And I want to say, welcome home!</s>LAVANDERA: Hurricane Katrina left his dance hall silent for more than three months. But the glitter and shine is back. The dancers don their finest attire and polished jewels. The sound of swing is sweet, especially now.</s>WILLIAM WALSTEN, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: If this place disappeared, we'd really be devastated, you know. We waited a long time. I talked to a lot of people, you know. We've been waiting a long time for this night, and we're really going to appreciate it, really from the bottom of our hearts.</s>CORLISS SCHMIDT, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: Everybody loves Pat's music. It's the 1940 music, which we all grew up with during the wartime.</s>LAVANDERA: But Pat Barberot needed a little push to get his band onstage again.</s>BARBEROT: A real good friend of mine since World War II days, he called me and he said, in fact, I'm going to tell this tonight. He said, you can't wait. You got to set a date and get the club opened.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good to see you!</s>LAVANDERA: These friends are seeing each other for the first time since the hurricane. They share sad stories.</s>SCHMIDT: Well, to tell you the truth, I said I have a 1993 Buick and a cell phone. I said, that's all I have.</s>LAVANDERA: Corliss Schmidt's home was destroyed by more than six feet of flood water and mold. But getting her through the loss was the hope of finding a dress and a night of dancing.</s>SCHMIDT: So many people our age, we have nowhere else to go.</s>BARBEROT: This is a home to them once a week. They look forward to this night. People tell me, Pat, don't ever stop doing this. I said, well, one of these days, I'll have to stop.</s>LAVANDERA: These dancers know the music can end any day. Hurricane Katrina reminded them to cherish each Sunday night as if it were their last. Ed Lavandera, CNN, New Orleans.</s>PHILLIPS: That's right, Pat's band is showing off in a new documentary called "A Place To Dance." Filmmaker Alan Berg says he was drawn to Pat's commitment to the music. Alan joins me now live from Austin, Texas. Oh my gosh. This documentary was fantastic.</s>ALAN BERG, FILMMAKER: Well, thank you, Kyra. We were dancing, we were smiling. Tell me how you hooked up with Pat?</s>BERG: Well, Pat's daughter Shelly wanted her dad's story because he's been playing big band music down there for 65 years. And she knows a musician friend of mine here in Austin, Troy Campbell. And basically we all got together, went down there, and started filming last summer and just fell in love with the place and the scene.</s>PHILLIPS: Wow. It's amazing. It's just amazing that you started working on this before everything happened in New Orleans. And we'll talk about how Katrina affected Pat and everybody, but as you started putting this together, what did you discover just about this culture, this generation, and what Pat represents?</s>PHILLIPS: Well, basically that they are all the way alive. I mean, these folks are 75, 80 years old and they're coming out and they're dancing. And as you can see in the video, I mean, they are really moving around on the floor. And so that's attractive because of the energy that they have and just a zest for life, the fact that they are in New Orleans which is just such a unique and fun city, and the fact, too, that these folks have known each other since they were in high school together. And so they really have this connection both to each other and to the band. Pat's been the most prominent big band leader in New Orleans since World War II. And so they have all sort of grown up together.</s>PHILLIPS: You bring up a perfect point. They've known each other, as we can see by these pictures, since they were kids, 13, 14, 15 years old. Then they have to go off to war. And then they come back and they want to get back together again as a band but their biggest -- they are the most upset by one individual. And let's listen to who that is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They listen to Elvis and they listen to all the other bands, young bands. And they don't relate to this music.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's when people were saying, we have no place to go. There's no places to go dance anymore. And bing. Johnny (ph), Lee (ph) and I ended up mortgaging our homes and we stuck our necks out. We got enough money to open the doors and pay the first batch of liquor.</s>PHILLIPS: That is amazing that they mortgaged their homes. He could pay for the first batch of liquor? Is that what he said?</s>BERG: Yes, that's important in New Orleans.</s>PHILLIPS: Of course. You've got to be able to drink in order to dance, I guess. And I guess he -- they went with their gut. They knew this was going to work.</s>BERG: Well, and to me that's something that's very attractive about the story is that Pat always stayed true to what he knew. He knew that he liked the Glenn Miller sound, that he liked big band music, and that he wanted to open a dance hall where that was the sound. And so it's about taking a creative risk and then being rewarded for that risk. I think that's attractive to all of us.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, and not only do they join the dancing but they enjoy the opportunity to ask, I guess fellow, good looking men and women to dance. Therefore romance happened in this dance hall. Let's listen to this clip.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was sitting in my car alone. And I looked up at the sky and I said, God, why don't you send me a nice man I can dance with? And I walked in here and Bill was sitting over on that table, and I was sitting here, and he asked me to dance but he asked four other ladies before he asked me. But he asked me to dance and we've been dancing ever since.</s>PHILLIPS: So not only did Pat stick to his passion of swing and keep this going for all these decades but the folks that met in this dance hall are still together today and dancing there with him still.</s>BERG: True, and not only that, I think one of the things that's of value I think about following this is we get to see how people deal with different hurdles in life. And a lot of these folks are widows and widowers. And so the Jefferson Orleans was a way in which they came sort of back into society after that period of grieving, you know, and met other people in the same situation and formed sort of a new union. And that's nice. It's affirming.</s>PHILLIPS: And just before we got to you, Alan, and talking about the documentary, you know, Ed Lavandera did a piece on, obviously, the dance hall reopening ...</s>BERG: Wonderful.</s>PHILLIPS: ... since Katrina. It was tough for those that were so used to going here every weekend, right, but they made it through and they are back dancing.</s>BERG: That's true. The photographer who's done this with me, Matt Franklin, and I were talking that as we drove around in New Orleans that there's no real way to convey the scope of this. I mean, we've all seen the pictures on TV. But it was only when you get in a car and drive from one person's house to the other and you're driving for 20 and 30 minutes and you never leave the area of devastation you realize just how many people were affected. And several of the people that we profiled lost their homes. We know of one person that lost their life. And all that being said, they live to dance and the reopening of this club is an important symbol of things beginning to return to New Orleans.</s>PHILLIPS: If you go to New Orleans, you got to go see Pat and you got to do -- are you a swing dancer by the way, Alan?</s>BERG: I want to be now. I don't know how to do any of this. But, yes, his club, the Jefferson Orleans North is just a wonderful, wonderful place.</s>PHILLIPS: And your documentary is called "A Place To Dance." It was great to talk to you, Alan Berg.</s>BERG: Thank you, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: My pleasure. We're going to take a quick break. More LIVE FROM right after this.</s>PHILLIPS: Let's to straight to Betty Nguyen in the news room, working a story for us -- Betty.</s>NGUYEN: Yes, Kyra, we are learning from the Associated Press that a federal jury in Florida today has found a former Florida professor not guilty of funding the Islamic Jihad. This is a verdict that is likely to be seen as a blow to the U.S. government and its efforts to prosecute terror suspects. Sami Al-Arian was acquitted today by a jury on some counts, and then on other counts the jury was deadlocked. It's unclear which of which was acquitted and which was deadlocked. But here's what we know. It took the jury 13 days to deliver this verdict against Sami Al-Arian, who, along with three co-defendants, was accused of raising money for the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. The trial has lasted for about five months and over 80 witnesses. Tell you a little bit about Al-Arian. He is an Egyptian citizen who has been in the United States since 1975, and along with his co- defendants, they face a 51 count indictment with operating a criminal enterprise, conspiracy to murder and maim people outside the U.S., money laundering and providing material support to a terrorist group. Now, Al-Arian was fired from his post as a computer engineer professor at the University of South Florida following this indictment. But, again, today a federal jury has decided that former Florida professor Sami Al-Arian is not guilty of funding the Islamic jihad in a verdict that, as mentioned, will be seen as blow to the U.S. government in its efforts to prosecute terror suspects. The trial lasted five months, 80 witnesses. And it took jurors 13 days to make this decision. Some accounts were deadlocked, others were simply acquitted. And that's what we know as of now -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Betty Nguyen, thank you so much. And a man suspected of stealing Salvation Army kettle donations has been found dead. Four bell ringers in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area were robbed last week, prompting the Salvation Army to start securing its red Christmas kettles with locks. Now Tampa police say they found the car allegedly used in at least one of the robberies at the bottom of a creek. They say the dead man inside the car looks like the man robbery victims describe. Authorities say the car wreck that killed the man may have been alcohol-related. We're going to take a quick break. More LIVE FROM right after this.