Beating Out a Rhythm

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Drumsticks in hand, Derrick Tabb has found a way to transform New Orleans children from troublemakers to tuba players.

Beating out a rhythm,
he's trying to save them
from the bloody street
that waits to kill again.

They sway to the beat.
Where crime usually defeats
so many promising youth,
these musicians meet.

Some play noise uncouth,
or a melody of pure truth.
Carrying instruments in a sack,
they are the future forsooth.

Young boys and girls, black,
not a gang, a musical pack
not here to kill, rob, or attack,
but to bring New Orleans back.




NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN)--"When all you've seen is the drug dealers and the killing, you know, they think that's cool," said Tabb, adding that many young people wind up in trouble because they have nothing else to do.

Now Tabb, a New Orleans native, strives to keep young people on the straight and narrow in the city with the nation's highest murder rate, according to FBI statistics.