George Mentz Rediscovers Music Lost After Hurricane Katrina and Builds 75-Track Music Catalog which is similar size is Top Artists with 20 Years of Production

Former New Orleans DJ, lawyer, author and professor returns to his musical roots as Mentzinger Media expands into a rapidly growing catalog of original music

NEW ORLEANS / COLORADO SPRINGS — 2026 — Counselor George Mentz, JD, MBA, has returned to a creative pursuit that began decades ago in New Orleans, producing approximately 75 unique tracks in roughly one year after rediscovering music, lyrics, notes and creative material he believed had been lost in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Before attending law school and beginning a career in law, education, writing and business, Mentz worked as a DJ and wrote and performed music. Much of that early creative work was eventually set aside, while some musical files and materials were believed lost following Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on New Orleans.

The unexpected rediscovery of this material last year reopened a chapter of Mentz's life that had been dormant for decades.

Drawing upon old lyrics, musical concepts, written notes and melodies—and combining them with his ability to sing and play piano—Mentz began rebuilding, completing and expanding music he had created throughout his life.

The result has been an unusually prolific creative period: approximately 75 completed tracks spanning more than half a dozen musical genres in about one year.

Modern studio and production technology has enabled Mentz to translate decades of musical ideas into finished recordings at a pace that would have been extraordinarily difficult using traditional recording methods. Rather than beginning with a blank page, Mentz found himself working from a reservoir of lyrics, melodies, rhythms, concepts and musical ideas accumulated over decades.

Some of these works have now been submitted for consideration in connection with Recording Academy award categories, representing another milestone in Mentz's unexpected return to music.

Mentzinger Media Builds a Growing Music Catalog

The new recordings are also becoming an important expansion of Mentzinger Media, a media and publishing company founded by Mentz years ago.

Mentzinger Media was established to publish and distribute intellectual and educational content, including books, audiobooks, training materials, educational programs and other media. With Mentz's return to songwriting and recording, the company has expanded its publishing activities into music and is now releasing Mentz's tracks while accumulating a substantial catalog of original musical works.

What began as a publishing and educational-media enterprise is therefore developing another dimension: music publishing, production and distribution.

With approximately 75 tracks already produced and additional material in development, Mentzinger Media is assembling a growing intellectual-property library that extends across written works, audio productions, educational content and original music.

Mentz has released two albums in 2026, Midnight Dr. and Lord of Lightning, while continuing to develop and release additional recordings through the Mentzinger Media catalog.

Perhaps most unusual is the stylistic range of the music. Mentz has written and produced works touching country, funk, punk rock, hard rock, metal, dance, soul and Britpop, moving across musical boundaries rather than limiting his work to a single genre.

That eclectic approach has deep roots.

Mentz was raised in New Orleans, surrounded by gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, rock and the city's distinctive musical culture. In New Orleans, musical traditions rarely existed in isolation. Gospel mixed with blues, jazz musicians played rock, funk borrowed from soul, and internationally famous performers could occasionally appear unexpectedly at local venues.

Mentz recalls an environment in which encounters with successful musicians were simply part of life—seeing nationally known performers around town and experiencing the legendary New Orleans phenomenon in which major artists visiting the city might unexpectedly appear at a local club late at night.

It was a city where the distance between the audience and the performer could disappear after midnight.

Those experiences remained with Mentz even as his professional life moved in another direction. He attended law school and subsequently developed careers as an international lawyer, professor, author, executive and public commissioner. Music, however, never entirely disappeared.

The rediscovered Katrina-era material ultimately provided the bridge back.

What followed was a remarkable creative surge: approximately 75 tracks in about 12 months, two albums, multiple genres and a rapidly expanding music catalog.

New recording and studio technologies have dramatically accelerated the modern production process, but technology alone cannot supply the underlying lyrics, melodies, musical concepts or decades of accumulated ideas from which the recordings emerged. For Mentz, the technology provided a means of finally transforming a backlog of creative material into completed works.

The story is therefore about more than producing dozens of songs.

It is about recovering something that appeared to have been lost.

The files, lyrics, notes and musical ideas that survived the Katrina era have become the foundation for an entirely new chapter—one connecting the New Orleans DJ and songwriter of Mentz's youth with the lawyer, professor, publisher and author he later became.

Now, through Mentzinger Media, those works are being organized, released and preserved as part of an expanding catalog of original intellectual property.

From the gospel churches, jazz rooms and late-night rhythms of New Orleans to today's digital studio, Mentz's musical journey has traveled an improbable circle.

After decades away from serious music production, Counselor George Mentz is writing and recording again—and Mentzinger Media is building the catalog to preserve and release that music for years to come.