Cats' New Crib

The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance is looking for a new scene from its current pad at the University of Southern California and will move to Loyola University in New Orleans.

One of the jazz world's foremost institutions -- an organization dedicated to developing first-rate musicians who are teachers as well as performers -- is moving to New Orleans from Los Angeles in an effort to keep jazz alive and thriving in the city where it was born.

The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, whose instructors have included some of the genre's top artists, is scheduled to announce its relocation today at a news conference at Loyola University, which will be its new home.

The move from the University of Southern California is the focal point of the institute's four-year initiative, "Commitment to New Orleans," designed to reinforce the importance of music to the city's post-Katrina comeback by collaborating on programs with other colleges, setting up school- and community-level jazz programs, providing work for local musicians and persuading performers who have lived elsewhere since the storm to return home.

Crazy man.