What Was Lost: A family’s beloved record collection

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Ambata Kazi’s parents, Kuumba Kazi-Ferrouillet and Ua Kazi, owned a vast record collection that had a range of albums, from Miles Davis to The Beatles to Stevie Wonder. The collection was kept at her father’s house in the 7th Ward, which was eventually flooded during Katrina. The collection did not survive the storm, but fortunately Kazi had a couple of records that she got prior to Katrina — Ahmad Jamal’s “Outertimeinnerspace” and Davis’ “Sounds of Spain” —  that she still remembers her father by. 

Kazi’s fathers house was white, with a beautiful garden leading up to the front porch. The record collection was on the bottom row of a bookshelf that was built into the wall of  the front room of the house. The collection was made up of a mix of her father’s, mother’s and uncle’s records, as they used to swap albums to share music. The collection was as much her mother’s as it was her father’s. 

Her mother was an educator and her father worked for years as a newspaper editor in the city. Kazi says it was her mother’s artistic influence that caused her father to expand his taste in music. 

As Kazi grew up, the record collection was a way for her siblings to bond, dance and enjoy life in the house. As an adult, the surviving records are sources of comfort in times of grief.

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