SHORT TAKES : Lawsuit Seeks Quieter Dixieland

NEW ORLEANS — Tourists love the brass bands that blare out Dixieland music all day long in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, but merchants and residents in the heart of the jazz citadel are suing to turn down the volume.

Their lawsuit, filed this week, says the music is causing “headaches, stress, buzzing in the eardrums, loss of sleep, nervousness, irritability, mental and emotional turmoil.”

“It would be like somebody putting two or three big, huge brass bands below your window where you live or where you work all day every day,” lawyer and shop owner Luke Fontana said Tuesday. New Orleans Civil Court Judge Richard Ganucheau set a hearing on the lawsuit for April 27. “Every musician that’s on the street is going to be there,” said Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, leader of the six-piece Chosen Few Jazz Band, which regularly plays the square.