Musical friends Jonathan Hoare and John Coops are planning to help New Orleans hurricane victims using the city's own tuneful heritage. Their group, New Orleans Musicians Aid Lincolnshire, also known as NOrMAL, is raising cash to help people affected by hurricane Katrina in September. The two Lincolnshire men started off with a vision of organising fund-raising concerts so that musicians from the disaster area could replace instruments they had lost in the floods.

Furniture restorer Mr Hoare (41), from South Rauceby, near Sleaford, said he believed it was important to bring to people's attention what is happening in New Orleans. "It's not something that's going away, but people do seem to have short-term memories for things like this," he said. "In reality, a lot of people over there are still struggling to get by."

Mr Hoare said that he and Mr Coops (60), a former lecturer from the same village, started up NOrMAL because they felt they were able to offer aid. "I have never been to New Orleans in my life but I am humanitarian," he said. "I love music and know I can help. People like this need some help and we have got the facilities and venues in which we can hold events and raise money for them."

Mr Coops said they started up Normal because they love music so much. "I have loved jazz as long as I can remember and New Orleans is the place where it all started," he said. "We wouldn't want to see that musical heritage lost and we think that through raising money for the musicians we can help in keeping it alive."

Musician Mick Burns from Spilsby will be playing the trombone and the sousaphone at a fund-raising concert the group has organised at the Drill Hall in Lincoln. "I have a lot of friends who are musicians over in New Orleans and I know they have lost everything," he said. "They have lost their homes, their instruments and even their venues. "Because the music scene in the city is so important and so influential across the world, we wanted to help musicians over there." He said that money raised by NOrMAL would be sent to the New Orleans Musicians Clinic - a charitable organisation which provides aid to musicians.

The next NOrMAL event, Let the Good Times Roll, takes place in Lincoln's Drill Hall at 3pm on Sunday, December 4, and will feature three bands with guest performers and a New Orleans style marching band.