NEW ORLEANS (Nov. 7, 2024) — Cities around the world boast vibrant music scenes, but few, if any, can claim a legacy as rich and enduring as New Orleans. And when it comes to documenting that legacy, no publication has given more to the city’s musicians, culture bearers, artists, and eccentric souls than Jan Ramsey’s OffBeat magazine.
Founded in 1987, OffBeat has weathered the highs and lows of New Orleans’ ever-evolving music landscape. The magazine was the first in the city to resume publishing after Hurricane Katrina, despite losing its staff and its printer to the storm’s devastation. In those early days, Jan and her husband, Joseph Irerra, used their scrappy publication to spotlight emerging talents like Trombone Shorty and Jon Batiste, while also chronicling the careers of musicians such as the late Ellis Marsalis and his musical dynasty. The magazine’s annual Jazz Fest Bible™ became an indispensable guide for festival-goers from all over the world, while its coverage of everything from traditional jazz to the city’s indie and experimental scenes helped define the pulse of New Orleans music.
Each year, OffBeat hosts an awards ceremony—often called the “Grammy’s of New Orleans”—where fans vote on their favorite musicians. The event is more than just a celebration; it’s a vital networking hub for the local music community, bringing together artists, industry professionals and fans in a shared space of appreciation and opportunity.
But after surviving hurricanes, the collapse of print media and the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, OffBeat is calling it quits. At 74, Jan and Joseph are facing their own health challenges, and despite OffBeat’s large organic social media following and international fanbase, the magazine has been operating with a skeleton crew of just four people for years.
In recent years, Ramsey reached out for help, hoping to find an organization that would recognize the value of OffBeat’s unparalleled archives, which document the careers of New Orleans legends like Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band as well as newer generation performers like Lil Wayne, and what she calls “The New Guard.” Despite her efforts to secure funding, including reaching out to nonprofits, the support she sought never materialized.
The magazine also helped launched the careers of local writers like Keith Spera and the late John Swenson and at one time boasted Bunny Matthews, the legendary late cartoonist, as an editor.
The December issue will be the last issue unless OffBeat can find a buyer.
Local Americana and folk musician and former OffBeat cover star Lilli Lewis was shocked to hear the news. “For all the complications involved with being a media outlet seeking to represent a musical community as potent, diverse and vital as that is singularly found in New Orleans, OffBeat Magazine has for its duration served this community beyond measure,” she said.
Lewis, whose work has been profiled in Rolling Stone, featured on NPR and earned national attention, credits the high quality of Ramsey’s branding, stylized photo shoots and commitment to production value as a key springboard for her career. “If you had a feature in OffBeat, it became your calling card,” Lewis says. She also praised Ramsey for her willingness to take a leap of faith, especially when her writers advocated for an artist, helping them gain exposure and recognition. The musician fears the loss of the publication’s digital archives which have documented so much of the region’s complex music history and scenes.
“We stopped just focusing entirely on the legacy musicians because if you look what we’ve done the last few years, we’ve [covered[ Dawn Richard and a lot of people like Pell and Rob49 who are newer,” says Ramsey. “I always thought we needed to show some love and support and respect to the new guard of local music because they deserve it and things don’t stay the same. Music changes. People here tend to not give enough attention to newer artists because they don’t appreciate the type of music that they make.”
Ramsey’s commitment to local music embodies the spirit of Taj Mahal’s “Queen Bee,” a song about positive energy and the importance of building up rather than tearing down. Mahal has said the song is about encouraging people to focus on the good—on making the most of time, rather than getting caught up in tension and conflict. In many ways, this resonates with Ramsey’s approach to the local music scene: embracing the new, celebrating the past and always striving to move forward without looking back in regret.
The New Orleans-born publisher says she struggles with the way people perceive and use media, and laments the way social media has impacted the way audiences engage with artists. She has always enjoyed phone call interviews and face-to-face communication when talking about the local scene and many in the community have expressed hope that the industry veteran will write a book someday chronicling her adventures and insights into the sometimes weird world of New Orleans music.
“I would love to do that. It would be interesting and surprising,” she says.
