IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Local artists are making music in a post-Katrina world.

Musicians find a new home in a post-Katrina world- and their futures sound bright.

FROM THE PORCH of his new 1,100-square-foot, three-bedroom cottage in the Upper Ninth Ward, Lawrence "Keng" Harvey has a front row seat for a neighborhood's rebirth. A funk and hip-hop vocalist, he recently moved to Musicians' Village (www.nolamusiciansvillage.com), a development conceived by native sons Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis to help fellow musicians return to the city. "This," Harvey says, "is a beautiful blessing."

Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans' homes, and Musicians' Village addresses the urgent need for affordable housing. So far, construction has begun on all 72 homes on the 8-acre site, all of which sit above flood level on cinderblock piers and can withstand 140 mph winds. Residents choose exterior paint from a palette of 27 shades, creating a rainbow of cheery Caribbean colors that sprout from a surrounding neighborhood still pock-marked with abandoned and decaying properties more than three years after Katrina.

Donations keep the cost of cottages under $100,000, and New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity funds no-interest loans and requires buyers to contribute "sweat equity" in the form of construction work. "I was out here like it was my job," Harvey says. "But when I hammered that first nail, it was healing."

Others have lent a hand: President George Bush came the day singer Fredy Omar moved in. "He said, 'Where do you want this box, Fredy?'" Omar says. "It was surreal."

The centerpiece is the planned

Ellis Marsalis Center for Music. Named for the piano patriarch of New Orleans jazz-and Branford's father-the $6 million facility will feature a small concert hall and educational resources for residents, who are mostly music makers.

The new home of R&B singer Al Johnson-who wrote and recorded the enduring Mardi Gras anthem "Carnival Time"-is on the same block as jazz pianist Jesse McBride and jazz vibraphonist James Westfall. Westfall relocated to New York after Katrina; the prospect of a Musicians' Village residency brought him home. "The whole idea of a community of musicians revolving around a music arts center seems like the only thing of its kind in the world," Westfall says. "And I know half my neighbors already."

Harvey quickly settled into his new home. A poster of Louis Armstrong decorates a wall; the smell of sautéed shrimp wafts from the kitchen. "It's [even] better than I thought it would be," he says of life in the Village. "And we all share something in common."