pt at large

Festival International de Louisiane: A Sample of Sunday's Bands

Festival International de Louisiane
Lafayette, Louisiana

Sunday Bands April 29, 2012

Canailles (Quebec- Québec Roots), Scene Malibu, Fais Do Do Stage

I didn’t think I could be surprised by anything after hearing the Middle East band Lamajamal and the Slavic Soul Party on Saturday but in the midst of the 1:30 PM Canaille show one of the guys yodels ("J'l'hais" from http://www.myspace.com/bellescanailles)! When they patter with the audience, their English has a heavy Quebecois accent and inventive syntax.  Canaille means "scoundrel" in French and these kids fit the bill with their ragtag blend of country blues cajun and a big shot of garage rock played with guitars, accordion, banjo, standup bass, percussion, washboards and at least one kazoo!).

Most of their songs are originals.The girl lead singer has great pipes, has one style that sounds like Grace Slick who swallowed sandpaper ("Becik"  http://www.myspace.com/bellescanailles). The eight musicians (self-taught no less, which may account for their eccentric style) began jamming together  by chance in a Montreal park in 2009. Their set still has the feel of spontaneity. The music is raw, full of twenty something energy, feels like it could fly off the rails at any time and they'd laugh at the result.

Canaille VIDEO

Savoy Family Cajun Band (Louisiana- Traditional Cajun), Scene TV5 Monde Lafayette Stage
The Savoy Family Band - what a pile of talent on one stage. Marc and Ann Savoy should donate their DNA to the Smithsonian - their sons Wilson on keyboard and fiddle and Joel on fiddle  are immensely talented as are Marc on accordion (he builds them), Ann on guitar. Red Stick Rambler drummer Drew Simon is on percussion today. This is one of the royal families of Cajun music.

Marc's "Savoy Music Center" in nearby Eunice is considered holy ground by visitors from all over the planet. The brothers Wilson and Joel got into great fiddle duels that had Marc, usually pretty phlegmatic, whoop once or twice. This is the best kind of sibling rivalry. Listening to any of them tell anecdotes about a song they're about to sing is a treat. What's in store might be an old ballad they breathe new life into or a barn burner of a two step.

VIDEO
Dancing to the Savoy Family Band
The Savoy Family Band on stage

Chico Trujillo. (Chile – Cumbia/Punk/Ska/Chilean Folk), Scene Popeye International Stage

Today Chico Trujillo is working their magic at the biggest stage in town, Parc International, a permanent stage with a ton of paved space in front for people to dance and set up their camp chairs. Music and dancing happens so often around here that the city fathers and mothers realized it needed a public space in the middle of town to  accommodate it.

Today's music, like Friday night's, has a distinctive Latin flavor and the crowd is eating it up. The instrumental mix of trumpet, trombone, saxophones, drums, accordion, guitars, is a great platform for the singing. It may be in Spanish but scores of spectators have no trouble interpreting it in to dance moves. Judging by the size of the crowd, Chico Trujillo became a crowd favorite this weekend.Dancing to the Savoy Family Band

VIDEO: CHICO TRUJILLO

LeroyThomas and The Zydeco Roadrunners (Louisiana-Zydeco), Scene Chevron Heritage Stage

Five Louisiana acts perform at various stages today, the last day of the festival. Bands like the Savoy Family Band (Cajun), Andre Thierry (Zydeco), and Leroy Thomas (Zydeco) play for large crowds. The University of Louisiana/Lafayette Jazz Combo and the Destination Gospel Choir make happy music, too. Toward the end of Leroy Thomas's set, the last of the festival, Leroy steps up to the mic. Leroy's cousins are zydeco band leaders Geno Delafose and Keith Frank.

"I want to introduce one of the last living legends of zydeco. Along with Buckwheat Zydeco, my father, Leo "The Bull" Thomas are a couple of the only ones left."
Leo makes a statement standing still. His performance suits are electric pinks, royal blazing blues, and percussive purples and I mean from hat to shoes. So when Leo gets into his hit song, "Why You Gonna Make Me Cry?" dancers grab partners and dance anywhere they find room. He's earned his status as a living legend.
 

The Festival International de Louisiane was selected as Best World Music Festival in the 2012 About.com WorldMusic Reader's Choice Awards. The average attendance over the five day festival is 350,000. The fact that the festival is free, supported by the sale of festival pins and merchandise, and honors the region's Francophone roots, is a matter of great local pride. Spend just one afternoon or evening there and you'll feel it.

VIDEO: LEROY THOMAS

Photos and Videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Festival International de Louisiane: A World of Shopping, too!

Saturday April 28, 2012
Lafayette, Louisiana

If you wanted to shop till you drop while you weren't enjoying world class music, the Festival International de Louisiane obliged. Vendor space in both market areas was sold out.

The Marché des Arts featured arts and crafts chiefly from Louisiana: jewelry, sculpture, woodwork, photography, ceramics, original paintings and more.

The Marché du Monde featured African folk art, instruments and clothing; banana leaf art, baskets, seagrass hats, handbags, hammocks, purses, paintings, tapestries, dresses and a wild range of women's clothing and more.

Saturday afternoon, sunny, temps in the eighties, the vendor area was crawling with shoppers. I'm not sure how much they bought, but they were looking real hard.

  

 




   

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Festival International de Louisiane: Gigantic crowds

Saturday, April 28, 2012
Lafayette, Louisiana

By 3 PM, you can probably see Lafayette from the space shuttle.

Lafayette's population is a shade above 120,000. There's a fair chance most of them are crammed into the heart of the city (above) and the spectator areas in front of the four major performance stages within a half mile of each other. Walking down Jefferson Boulevard the only difference from feeling like you're packed into a sardine can is that you're moving… sort of, in a crab-like sideways, forward, stop, shuffle, step, step, stop dance like a giant amoeba high on Bud Light.

You could probably extrapolate the socio-racial-economic profile of Lafayette by observing the shoulder to shoulder crowd. It looks like any midsize city's range of teens just emerging from the chrysalis of childhood to couples and families  of every demographic on the city's census form.

After a few minutes, you realize the island of empty space over the shoulders of the people ahead of you contains someone in a wheelchair, or a stroller, or a little red cart with a two or three little kids in tow.

There are absolutely no rules of the road - just put one foot in front of the other and smile. What's the rush? This is one huge block party. If you’re jostled, more than likely you’ll hear a “sorry” or “excuse me”. If you’re claustrophobic, it won''t be pretty.

++++++++++++++

 

People everywhere...

in coveted areas in the shade ...

no matter where it was found...

on the sidewalk...

buying a party hat or figuring out which band to visit next...

hanging out with giants...

or with friends.

Festival International de Louisiane: A Sample of Saturday's Bands

Saturday April 28, 2012
Lafayette, Louisiana

Red Stick Ramblers, ( Louisiana- Swing/Cajun), Scene Malibu Fais Do Do Stage

...with their rambunctious ways, these are the wise guys of the Festival - irreverent, witty, recklessly spontaneous. There's no telling what any of them will say on stage.  The RSR''s music has a rollicking sensibility charged with the power of a crawfish boat that's scooped up every musical influence on their prairies - cajun, creole, even swing - and plays it out with their assortment of fiddle, guitars, banjo, drums, bass, and accordion.These guys began playing at LSU in Baton Rouge in the late 1990s. They throw a stick of dynamite into roots and country swing music and draw crowds wherever they play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnReIxupwOs&list=UUpO59RlFb0TWCXQLKYfisdA&index=2&feature=plcp




Vishten (Prince Edward Island, Magdalen Islands-Traditional Acadian), TV 5 stage Lafayette Stage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FexsC0aeD8

Pastelle LeBlanc on accordion, her sister Emmanuelle LeBlanc on keyboard and Irish hand held drum (Bodhran), and Pascal Miousse on fiddle and guitar, play rural traditional Acadian music, all the way from Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands in way east of Canada. Pastelle and Emmanuelle make a mighty, clattering, pulsing beat by rhythmically pounding their feet on the black trunks at their feet. Influences from France, Ireland, Scotland drive the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUeR0OZ5QUc

Once again people are on their feet dancing. The dances are jigs that require anything from simple stamping to complicated foot flying footwork in pretty much the same place, not partner dancing, but like Cajun or zydeco can go on for round after infectious round until the fiddler or the dancers are wringing wet with sweat and worries shooed out the door.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql0e8EXhFtU

Pascal vigorously bows his fiddle, the more animated the crowd, gets the more feverishly the band plays. No surprise, people figure out some way to express themselves in dance, mothers with kids in their arms, and twenty-somethings who probably got jiggled around in utero as their mother’s danced well into their terms.

Mercy Brothers, ( Louisiana – Gospel/Hillbilly/ Blues), Scene Chevron Heritage Stage

Three guitars, one bass, a big ol' drum kit, and electric keyboard, this is rock 'n roll come to jesus music, maybe the kind that inspired the Holy Rollers. If you want a gospel blues rock 'n roll country band, covering everything from love to perdition, these are your men. Once again, little islands of people are dancing, the sound system is awesome, and I am in heaven.
http://lineup.festivalinternational.com/band/the-mercy-brothers

Khaira Arby (Mali-Desert Blues) at the Scene Malibu Fais Do Do Stage

Once again Lafayete embraces the exotic, the spectator area is packed, am I repeating myself?  Lafayette has become a musical tapas town where the idea is to sample music you’ve never heard of. Desert Blues sounds intriguing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtci5CDZr9o

Men and women, as partners or solo, make up movement on the spot - trance, free form, or Martha Grahame with a world music twist. At the end of the show, the lead singer Khaira Arby introduces her band in Malian. We have no trouble imagining what she's saying and applaud when she talks about each of her two guitar players, one bass player, and the man behind a big percussion unit. Her two lead guitar players are whizzes. Her singing is enchanting and match her Malian nickname, "The Nightingale of the North".
 

Lamajamal (Middle  East/US-Gypsy Surf)  Scene TV5 Stage

This is the dark horse act of the day. From Vishten to Kaira Arby to Lamajamal one act tops another for sheer exoticism. Imagine the sounds the five of them make with a wild collection of instruments including mandolin, cümbüs (fretless Turkish banjo), drums, our, keyboard, guitar, melodica, accordion, clarinet, sax, flute, dulcimer and percussion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPAySRTTt0o&feature=youtu.be

One of the musicians says he’s from the West Bank, that a popular dance there is the circle dance. He asks people to form a circle, hold hands, and connect in energy and friendship. Hey, we may be in Lafayette, but today this could be Istanbul or Ramallah, no problem, friends and strangers dance to the joyous music, if there’s one word I will wear out today it is JOYOUS.
http://lineup.festivalinternational.com/band/lamajamal



Texas Tornadoes at Scene Malibu Fais Do Do stage

"These guys are awesome," a guy tells me, obviously in some kind of rapture, "I've been listening to them for twenty years.The original members Freddy Fender and  Doug Sahm died recently but Sahm's son Shawn got the band rolling again. That guy playing the accordion, Flaco Jiménez, he's a legend!" With that he took his friend in his arms and began to dance. So it goes around here. Judging by the crowd, Tex-Music has a big following.

Slavic Soul Party (Balkans/US - Slavic Soul), Scene Malibu, Fais Do Do Stage

This is the greatest kitchen sink band, from one groove to the next they turn on a dime from the middle east to Africa to USA, often  mashed altogether, gypsy, soul, funk, with a collection of  brass, reed and percussion to pull it off. If you can imagine a New Orleans brass band with saxophone, accordion, trombone playing in a Turkish bazaar somewhere in Havana, you might approximate what these guys sound like. Once again, the crowd cheered them ferociously.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Festival International de Louisiane: Friday Gears Up

Friday Night April 27, 2012
Lafayette, Louisiana


Beats Antique  (U.S.- Electronica/World/Dance),Scene Malibu Fais Do Do stage

Arrive in time to catch the last song by a totally funky group named Beats Antique. They wear masks and cavort about the stage to the tune of their own music. This is as close to a rave scene as I've heard so far, arms raised and waving in unison, the audience looks like a field of wheat swaying in the evening breeze. The band reminds me of an earth-bound Cirque de Soliel with a massive percussion section.

Pine Leaf Boys (Louisiana - Cajun), Scene Chevron Heritage Stage

The Pine Leaf Boys, local musicians with four Grammy nominations. They've revived the old time Cajun songbook and have so much fun doing it that they've captured the allegiance of their parents' generation, their own, and probably the ones to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0QDxkh85a0

The festival is run like clockwork. The shows begin on time and end on time. The Pine Leaf Boys show finishes at 8:59, scheduled to end at 9 PM. When the show is over, it is over. Within minutes tech crews are offloading one band's sound system and replacing it with the next - wires, mics and all.

At the end of the show, an announcer implores us, first in French, then in English, to buy festival pins and artist CDs and festival merchandise in the merchandise tent. This is the way the festival can run in the black and keep this spectacular weekend free to the public.

Lafayette is mindful of the French heritage common to much of southwest Louisiana - it's what binds the festival's music together. Lafayette began a French language immersion program in 1992. Over 1000 students are enrolled now, many more on a waiting list. For one or two generations before this, Cajun kids would get punished for speaking French in school. Pride in culture has been revived in the schools, it was never out of favor in the dance halls and front porches around here.


Lindigo ( Reunion Island-Maloya/Sega), Scene TV 5 Lafayette Stage

The band is as different in appearance and music content as anyone has seen so far this weekend. Listening to it puts most of us as close to Madagascar as we will ever get. As different as this music is, people are embracing it with feel-good enthusiasm. The sound has the same effect as a brass band that gets you to move your feet and get in touch with that spot in your heart that embraces joy and makes you smile. The lead singer has boundless energy. His movements groove and stop with the precision of Lindigo's traditional polyphonic songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWsJCt-mFt4&feature=youtu.be

In case you had any doubt that the spirit is moving, here come a pair of silver haired locals parading in a samba step to the music, teenagers sashaying all over the place - this is happy music, people relate to it, there's a mom holding the handles of her kid's stroller and rocking the kid gently to the beat of the song.

The seven men and one woman on stage play traditional wooden percussion and metal percussion,  no brass and no reed instruments, and one African string instrument. The lead singer paces the stage like James Brown, great moves, relentless energy, at one point the whole band steps and sways together. now I know where The Four Tops and The Persuasions got inspiration for their stage presence back in the 1950s.

Chico Trujillo (Chile – Cumbia/Punk/Ska/Chilean Folk), Scene Malibu Fais Do Do stage,

This Chilean band plays zesty Cumbia music, full of energy. A red, white, and blue Chilean is being waved by a proud compatriot somewhere in the front row. This band throws everything at us - trumpet, trombone, saxophones, drums, accordion, guitars, and soaring vocals. By turns sinuous and full bore rocking cumbia, it's all dance friendly. Hundreds of spectators take the cue, with all kinds of inventive dance moves.


Vagabond Swing (Louisiana–Gypsy/Afro beat/swing) Scene Chevron Heritage Stage

A wild combination if I have ever heard one, it attracts lots of the kids of the Goth persuasion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ka4OD4RUD4&feature=youtu.be

Around 10:45 PM, Gary Clark, Jr. (US–rock), Scene Popeye International Stage

Gary is a phenomenal guitar player, got down and bluesy at end of set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-K7Xhn3YY&feature=youtu.be

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Festival International de Louisiane: Thursday Opening

 Thursday, April 26, 2012, UPDATED

Lafayette, Louisiana

Narrative to follow, having too much fun to write...look at this schedule. The fact that most Americans have never heard of most of these bands is a non-issue. The promoters have an ear for music that is connected with the predominantly French culture of southwest Louisiana.

In the words of the organizers…
“Festival International de Louisiane is a community-based, non-profit arts organization formed in 1986 to produce an annual visual and performing arts festival celebrating the French cultural heritage of southern Louisiana - primarily a combination of French, African, Caribbean and Hispanic influences.”

Every music act on each of the five major stages is introduced in French and English. Wandering up and down the streets of downtown Lafayette, I’ve heard French with Cajun, Canadian, and African accents. Thousands of people jammed the center of Lafayette Thursday night. This is the biggest, friendliest block party in the world.

By 7:15 Thursday night, the festival was ON...

Ce Qui Marchent Debout (France - Brass Funk)- Scene Malibu, Fais Do Do Stage

These guys rock. Big-time fusillades of brass, trumpets, saxophone and a percussion system with power that could back up a fracking machine. You can feel the vibration in the pavement under your feet.  These guys are  a grab bag of everything, rock funk Latin rumba and a little bit of rap llte and it’s no small wonder thousands of bots are shimmying to the beat of this cosmic party band.

Soul Express Brass Band (Louisiana - Brass) Opelousas's first Brass Band

Heading back down Jefferson, I hear the unmistakable "taa daa daa daa daaaaa daa..." of a New Orleans brass band. The Soul Express is holding court on the corner of Jefferson and Vermillion, the epicenter of the festival.

Nothing in the world sounds like a New Orleans brass band. The sheer raw firepower of pealing trumpets, glissando raking trombones, a big bad tuba, crackling snare drums, and one booming bass drum, with that particular rolling thunder New Orleans rhythm that inspires foot stomping booty shaking hand clapping behavior from anyone with a beating heart.  Little girls hold hands and dance around in circles. Their big sisters and brothers groove right behind them. I don’t know how spontaneous Lafayette residents usually are, but here they are shaking just about everything God gave them to the beat of the band.

Bombino (Niger - Desert Rock) on the Scene Popeye International Stage

Vocals in Tuareg, band led by led by Omara "Bombino" Moctar, a young Tuareg guitarist from Niger, driven by three guitars and one gigantic drum set that packed the power of a summer storm.

Joel Savoy's Honky Tonk Merry Go Round (Louisiana - Honky Tonk)

A rare event, music inside and not on a big stage outside where they will play later this weekend, Joel Savoy's Honky Tonk Merry Go Round plays at Antlers, a bar on Jefferson. Ample sized stage and dance floor make for happy people. Joel's parents Mark and Ann Savoy were in the audience as were fellow musicians who come onstage to jam. The next day a friend told me Wayne Toups stopped by and sang a George Jones country song with the band. That must have been just this side of spectacular.

Scene Popeye, International Stage, Robert Randolph Family Band (US - Funk/Rock/Soul)

The first song got my attention but as the set war on the band devolved into a mellow Grateful Dead groove, music that meandered, then occasionally exploded with Robert Randolph's impressive frenzied solos. 11 PM, time to head to my motel.

Courtbouillon: A Musical Stew at the Festival International de Louisiane

Courtbouillon at The Blue Moon Saloon
Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Forget that this is a show in a jam packed commercial venue. The three guys sitting side by side on the stage of the Blue Moon Saloon are in their own world. From the feeling of camaraderie onstage, Wilson Savoy on fiddle, Wayne Toups on accordion, and Steve Riley on guitar could be jamming on Wayne’s front porch. Wayne sits in the middle and is the engine pulling this train headlong down a Cajun line that stops in every town in the prairie.

“This next song is the Crowley Two Step,” Wilson Savoy announces as the second song rolls by. It’s one of the few songs they’ll identify by name during the two-hour love fest. Most of the crowd packing the saloon knows the names already. Even pt at large recognizes the melodies of songs he’s heard in previous trips to Lafayette.

You can’t sing Cajun songs without having felt the sting of sorrow or joy of love or the fun of living on the edge. The more Wayne Toups sips whatever is in the little black plastic cup at his side, the deeper into the bayou his songs reach. He’s not just singing lyrics, he’s singing the heritage, culture, and pride that exudes from every cell in his body.

Toups sings with vitality bordering on urgency, every so often letting out a whoop of pure enjoyment following it with a finger-flying flourish on buttons of his accordion and a few fierce foot stomps for good measure. His face soaked in sweat, a diamond earring flashing in the stage light, he banters with Savoy and Riley. After one especially playful duel with Savoy’s fiddle, a big smile spreads across Toups’ craggy face and he claps Savoy on the shoulder.

How often can you listen to three musicians, each famous in his own right, share the same stage? What pulled them together is their love of and prodigious knowledge of Cajun music. The songs these guys sing were old when they first heard them. They reach as far back as Amadee Ardoin, a Creole accordion player who is one of the fountainheads of Creole and Cajun style music and whose songs were some of the first recordings of this region’s music in 1929.

They first teamed up to play a year ago. They don’t appear together often so when it happens, it’s a huge draw. They’re sort of like earth, wind and fire. Toups provides the fire on accordion, Wilson Savoy, intently listening to his mates, provides the playful airy and wistful tones on his diminutive fiddle, Steve Riley, more reserved, is the earthy presence that keeps the show in an orbit fixed on their shared heritage. No drums are needed for this group. Eric Frey, standup bass player for The Red Stick Ramblers and The Revelers, keeps the backbeat in check.

A Courtbouillon (COO-be-yahn) is a thick, rich fish stew, brimming with Acadian flavors. Two hours of Cajun two-steps (like “Quel Etoile”) and pretty waltzes flash by in less time than it takes to simmer a courtbouillon. The songs have been sung in French…a fitting way to begin the next four days of the Festival International de Louisiane.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Festival International de Louisiane: World Class Music

April 26, 2012
Lafayette, Louisiana

pt at large is in Lafayette, Louisiana for the 26th Annual Festival International de Louisiane, five days worth of music and mingling, food and fun, dining and dancing. In the first two days here, I've met Pastel and Pascal of the band Vishten from the Magdalen Islands located in the Gulf of St Lawrence, listened to bands from France,Niger, and the good old USA. This is the biggest street party int the world.

"Festival International de Louisiane is truly a community event drawing together approximately 1,500 volunteers from all segments of the community to work together to celebrate both our diversity and the common human experience that binds us together. Through the arts presented and the joint efforts to produce it, the festival contributes to the spirit of community that is so unique to the Acadiana region.

The annual 5-day festival is held during the last full week of April. Historic downtown Lafayette, Louisiana, is transformed into an entertainment complex featuring six music stages, food court areas, street musicians and animators, arts and crafts boutiques, art galleries, beverage stands, cultural workshops, international cooking demonstrations and a world music store."

The festival was recently voted "Best World Music Festival" in the About.com WorldMusic Reader's Choice Awards.
Stay tuned for reports from Lafayette...

Photo of "Bombino" playing on the Scene Popeye Stage by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

The Filling Station: "Cheers" bar, Cajun Style

The Filling Station
900 Jefferson Street
Lafayette, LA 70501
March 7, 2012

The Filling Station in Lafayette, Louisiana is the Cajun version of Cheers. Everybody seems to know everybody else, when they’re likely to arrive, and what they drink. Some bars have a tendency to be closed societies. It might be easier to get an invitation to dinner with Lady Gaga or Queen Elizabeth than a nod to enter a conversation with regulars. Not so in this former gas station that’s been creatively converted into a comfortable establishment that can fuel you up with food and drink

Toss in a good-natured comment to an animated conversation going on a few seats down and you’re likely to hear some great stories from the gregarious customers.  

What I needed in my first visit to The Filling Station during Mardi Gras last year was high-test caffeine for my afternoon jolt. “I don’t have any but if you wait a few minutes, I’ll make a fresh pot,” said the bartender that time. A different bartender says the same thing today. My kind of place.

My goodness, there’s that tall fellow with a silver mane of hair tucked into a ponytail, the regular I met on my first visit to The Filling Station, nursing a Bud Light.

“Last time I was here, you drew me a map that showed me how to get to the Lundi Gras dance at Outlaws and not get caught in Mardi Gras parade traffic. It worked great and I’m going to use it again to get there for the Lundi Gras dance tonight. That was great hospitality and I wanted to thank you.”

The man smiles. "Glad to help," he says, "We try to help when we can."

He’s been talking to a young woman born and bred in Lafayette. “They sing the songs in French but you can feel them whether you understand them or not,” says his friend.

Mardi Gras week, 2011, pt holding the map to avoid the parade traffic.

“That fits with something that stuck in my mind since a guitar player named Bobby Caswell told me last year on Fat Tuesday in Iota," I say.

"He said, 'You don’t know music until you feel it. We feel it. We sing songs like ‘Les Flammes d’Envers (The Flames of Hell).’ Our music is about heartbreak and hell and we sing it so it sounds like heaven.’” 

“Bobby was playing with a bunch of musicians from East Texas,” I recall.

“Everything east of the Sabine River ought to be part of Louisiana,” Mr. Ponytail says with conviction. “The whole area is full of Cajun culture and music.”

Sure enough, both Cajuns and Creoles who migrated from southwest Louisiana in the 1960s and 1970s moved where work was and pockets of them settled in Port Arthur and Orange, Texas, exactly where most of Caswell’s band hailed from.

When I told Mr. Ponytail and his friend that Caswell’s band brought along two kids from Port Meche, a 14 year old girl playing accordion and her 11 year old brother on fiddle, both singing in pure Cajun, my two new friends had much to share about how music used to be transferred to the next generation. Lots of it happens at local bars and restaurants, which double as social gathering spots.

“When I was growing up, men would come to a small town bar and sit their kids in the back while they played their fiddles or accordions there. I remember times when fishermen would bring a mess of crabs to the bar, boil them up and feed everyone. Not a penny was exchanged,” says the woman.

And when the elders danced along, they taught their children or grandchildren. The same thing happens now. Probably the first think kids in southwest Louisiana learn after how to tie their shoelaces is how to two-step.

I’ve seen children dancing with their elders at Randol’s and Vermilionville in Lafayette, and at street dances in Eunice, Opelousas, and New Iberia. People have differences in politics, sports teams, and religion but you’ll never hear about them where there’s music going on. Music is a religion here. It’s appreciated whether delivered by seasoned pros or amateurs.

“My daddy would sing at 5 AM when he got up to go to work every morning. When I got a little older, I said, Papa can you sing to me at 6 o’clock and not 5 o'clock?’ Mind you, Cajun daddies don’t take any backtalk from their kids. He smiled and said, ‘Yes, I’ll do that for you…once.’”

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Mr. Ponytail asks.

“I’m headed for Tee-Mamou in Iota.”

“We’re having a pig roast here tomorrow. The place is closed but the owner and a bunch of regulars are hanging out in back for the day. If you’re around, come on over.”

I feel like I’ve just gotten that invitation to dinner from Queen Elizabeth or Lady Gaga.

First Filling Station story March 7, 2011
http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/03/the-filling-station-informal-cajun-hospitality.html

Chester "Catman" Landry and pt at large in the news!

October 16, 2010, I met Chester "Catman" Landry in Plaquemine, Louisiana. Chester would be considered a "character" any place in the U S of A. In our brief conversation, I got a sense of rural sugarcane country and made a friend.

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/10/swamp-pop-carnivals-and-characters-plaquemine-louisiana.html

I sent him the photo in the news clipping below as promised when I returned from an excellent trip that covered a great swath of southwest Louisiana. When I got an envelope in the mail last week, I recognized Chester's scrawl immediately.

One of the joys of travel is meeting people like Chester. Trust me, if I ever get close to Plaquemine again, I'll call him up.

Big Fat Tuesday in tiny Iota, Louisiana: VIDEOS

Iota, Louisiana
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"Fat Tuesday", Mardi Gras Day, Courir de Mardi Gras

 

Music at the "Young Musicians Tent"

 

The Tee Mamou Mardi Gras parade, what a sight! The truck cavalcade rolled into Iota at around 3:00 PM.

 

 

  

 

 

Everyone who participated in the courir in the countryside earlier in the day, running after chickens and begging for food, all masked and in Mardi Gras costumes,threw candy to the crowd jamming the side of Duson Avenue and made a racket by pounding or kicking on the sides of the high sided floats (probably that height so they would not lose a kid "overboard" during the parade.)

 

Twenty minutes after the parade passed through the middle of town, masked celebrants returned to the stage, where they danced to the music and cavorted with glee, many of them standing on the front rails of the raised dance floor and begging for money or candies.

Some parents came to the stage to dance with their younger children, then a shrill whistle  pierced the air, the Capitaine cracked a whip and yelled "Everybody down!"

Onto their knees or bottoms they went. The two men who led the parade by triumphantly displaying the red rooster led the kids in the Mardi Gras Song with all the verses. Some of the kids crawled around the stage making begging gestures or acting comically during the song, all part of the bending but not breaking any of the rules they have to learn. Every one of them had to learn the Mardi Gras Song by heart, probably not much of a stretch since they've heard in since they were in utero.

A raucous cheer at the end, a little more cavorting and they stepped off the stage, all of them dancing and begging for loose change.

 

 In the last seconds of the video, a woman  shouts, "Love it…. love it!"
"Where do you live?" I ask.
“Boolerow” she says with a Louisiana accent you could cut with a sugar cane knife .
"You're not from here," she says.
"I'm from Boston."
"I'm from Louisiana," she says
I ask her again where she's from.

After three times I finally get it. Just after i mistakenly click off the video, "I leev in Butte La Rose. I live in da swamp! I come fer dis every year!" she says with a booming laugh.

 

 

Big Fat Tuesday in tiny Iota, Louisiana Part 3

Iota, Louisiana
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"Fat Tuesday", Mardi Gras Day, Courir de Mardi Gras

PART 3

3:30 PM. A convoy of police cruisers, sirens screeching, announces that the Courir de Mardi Gras has returned from begging in the countryside. The crowd pulls back like the Red Sea and stands three deep at the side of the street. Many of them wave and shout to friends or relatives who fill the three colorful wagons rolling down Duson Avenue.

 
Joyous bedlam - sirens braying, band playing, Mardi Gras celebrants shouting and banging on the sides of the trucks carrying them triumphantly through town.

 

Twenty minutes later, the Courir crowd, adults and youngsters, gathers on the dance stage.

Under the leadership of two capitaines, they sing The Mardi Gras Song. For some, it may have been their first courir. Learning every verse is required, though anyone growing up in southwest Louisiana knows the song by heart, and probably learned it before The Star Spangled Banner.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

MORE MARDI GRAS SCENES FROM IOTA

 

One red-feathered chicken, a symbol of a successful "courir", is held aloft for all to see (L). The chickens in the cage in the truck bed will benefit from release back to their roosts, not be cooked up in the ceremonial gumbo as in days of yore.

 

Snapshots of the parade.

After dismounting from the trucks, celebrants mounted the raised dance floor to beg and dance.

Once the Mardi Gras Song is sung, the revelers descend into the street. A masked reveler's right index finger taps the palm of his left hand, I hand over a dollar. As a reward, pt gets a piece of hard candy!

There's that chicken again! Only after the Mardi Gras Song and ritual begging and dancing in the street are celebrants permitted to remove their home made masks and capuchons (hats).

Serendipity strikes. As the revelers disband, I chat with  a woman who's just "unmasked".
"Did you know there's a women's courir, too? My grandmother began it thirty years ago. I've been doing it for years." She introduces me to her son, Trever Frugé.

Amazing. The first "Capitaine" for the women's courir was Gerald Frugé.
 

 

Big Fat Tuesday in tiny Iota, Louisiana Part 2

Iota, Louisiana
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"Fat Tuesday", Mardi Gras Day, Courir de Mardi Gras

PART 2

Music is the thread that keeps Cajun tradition alive. At 11 AM, under a small tent at one end of the street party, a handful of teenage guitar, fiddle, and accordion players line up to play Cajun two steps and waltzes. A “house band” of grown men with guitars, fiddles, and percussion ask the kids what they want to play and back them up. None of the men has to consult a chart. They know every song these kids have learned. Some of the kids are shy. They’re all good.

 

Concessions from the Egan-Iota Lions Club, the Catholic Daughters 1519 of Eunice, St. Francis School, Boy Scout Troop 64, Sister’s Gourmet Nuts, and a handful of other local social groups are selling boudin, gumbo, jambalaya, cracklins, crawfish etoufee, po boys, homemade bread and sandwiches, fried alligator, cookies, syrup pies, glazed pecans and a host of other goodies. The Iota Rule: all of it has to be home made. My eyes glaze over as I contemplate how to taste some of everything. 

Old time Cajun music drifts out the doors of The American Legion Hall at the other end of the street.  Alex Caswell from Orange, Texas, and a bunch of his friends and relatives from Port Arthur to Vinton, Louisiana, play a steady stream of Cajun two steps and waltzes. The little bar in the rear is doing a good business, as is the food table with crawfish etoufee and rice and beans. Entire families sit around the dance floor in folding chairs. They, too, know the songs by heart.

Brother/sister Liz and Eric Kelly of Port Meche, TX play with musicians led by Alex Caswell of Port Arthur, TX.

A raised dance area with a sturdy plywood floor is set up in the middle of town. Les Bassettes, Corey “L’ll Pop” Ledet, then Scotty Pousson and the Pointe Aux Loups Playboys play from 11 AM to closing time at 5 PM.  It isn't an official party unless there's music.

The list of today's Tee-Mamou Mardi Gras sponsors includes local pharmacies, banks, liquor distributors, restaurants, truck stops, roofing companies, hair salons, and a host of local officials.  Buy a string of tickets at $1.00 apiece and you can eat like country royalty. Otherwise, the whole shebang is free.

Across the street from the food concessions is a string of Louisiana Folk Crafts Booths. Mardi Gras masks and capouchons, handmade wooden toys, carvings of egrets, fish and birds, jewelry, art work, clothing, hand made cutting boards, crocheted baby blankets, ceramics, and candles are tempting items behind the booths.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Vignettes from Duson Avenue

Richard “Joe” Miller (R) finds the young guests and emcee Howard Noel, Jr. handles introductions plays drums and sings.  They have a set lineup of youngsters who will play and invite anyone who’s come with their instrument to join the veteran musicians under the little tent to play. This is a tutorial and opportunity for kids to experience  playing for a friendly crowd that absolutely wants them to keep the tradition alive well into the 21st century.  these kids may have iPods and spend time on Facebook but they’re hardwired to their  culture as well and they’ll use social media to deepen their connection with Acadiana.

Around noon I head down to the American Legion Hall. Hot damn, there’s Farland Henry and his wife Carole, two friendly people sitting in just about the same seats where I met them here last year.
“You remembered my name from last year?” he says “It’s an unusual name Far Land,” he says. I ask him where he’s from “West  Orange, Texas,” he says, and gives me their address and telephone number.
“We’ve been married 64 years,” Farland says.
“I knew I wanted to marry him two weeks after we met,” Carole says with a big smile..
“Call us anytime you come down our way,” he says. And he means it. “My mother was born in Indian Bayou,Louisiana.
"Somewhere in the 1930s she met my dad and they moved to Texas. I worked for Dupont for 27 Years."
That was a time when tens of thousands of men worked in American factories and never thought it would ever be any different in the future.

Tourists and locals mix with ease. You're not in Iota unless you love the music and respect the traditions and the people who carry them on.  Louisiana natives appreciate that.

 

Down to the Catholic Daughters 1519 concession for coffee au lait and a  sweet dough syrup turnover. "We boil down cane sugar till it's the right thick consistency and wrap home made dough around it."  At 5 PM, his melt-in-my-mouth treasure washed down with coffee au lait is a divine restorative.

 

Boy Scout Troop 64 sells po-boys; the kid's slide is popular all day long.

The program for the 25th Anniversary Tee Mamou Mardi Gras Folklife Festival, downtown Iota, Tuesday, February 21, 2012
 

Next year i'll get photos of the crafts booths! Just about every business in Iota sponsors the Tee Mamou Mardi Gras Day.

Mardi Gras organizer Larry G. Miller, retired master builder of accordions, makes all kinds of announcements between bands. "Robert Lejeune is writing a history of Iota, it's never been done, if you have any information about your family you’d like to pass on to him he’ll be grateful,” he says to the crowd.
"Money was tight this year. We're doing everything we can to keep the day free of charge, and we accept donations at the concession ticket booths," Miller says to the people listening to the music.

“That fiddle player, Heather Cole-Mullen, with Les Bassettes is from the Boston area," Miller tells me when he finds out I'm from Boston.  "She’s a prodigy, When she was 13, she convinced her parents to send her to Ireland to compete. She didn’t win but did well. She’s the girlfriend of my grandson.”

 

Big Fat Tuesday in tiny Iota, Louisiana

Iota, Louisiana
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"Fat Tuesday", Mardi Gras Day, Courir de Mardi Gras


PART 1
Drive into Iota on Mardi Gras Day, Fat Tuesday, and you might as well be driving into a time warp. Sure there are digital cameras popping and smart phones recording everything in sight. But what’s in sight in and around Iota has been going on for over a hundred years.

A 500-yard section of Duson Avenue, the main street through the heart of Iota, is closed to traffic. If you were doing the speed limit, you’d drive past the town’s dozen stores and the American Legion Hall in fifteen seconds.

Not today. The street is jammed with what could possibly be every one of Iota’s 1399 inhabitants and hundreds of others who’ve come to be part of an authentic, down home, celebration of a town that prizes its heritage. Friends and neighbors greet each other. Little kids trail their moms and dads, wide eyed at all the goings on. Tourists from afar wander around like extras in a movie set.



Some of the kids running around here will be bringing their own families here twenty years from now. A good chunk of the adults remember tagging along after their parents a generation or two ago.

There are Mardi Gras celebrations going on in every city and town within 100 miles. They’re all special but this one has the timeless aura of an old-fashioned snow globe. The concession and folk craft booths in the same spot where I saw them last year. . It’s as if they are perennial plants that bloom once a year.

Somewhere out in the countryside, revelers wearing traditional Courir de Mardi Gras garments are roaming from house to house begging for food and chasing chickens – a hilarious sight and a re-enactment of a Catholic tradition with roots in rural Brittany on the coast of France. In the old days, the beggars would return to town and use the chickens they could catch to make a pot of gumbo big enough to feed every celebrant. The day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the dietary restrictions of Lent was a day for feasting, drinking, and let it all hang out merriment.

The begging is ceremonial now but no less impassioned. The beggars must wear homemade costumes, masks, and conical hats called capuchons, follow the time honored ‘rules of engagement’, and are under the control of a “capitaine,” who wields a burlap whip. Given the fact that the adult revelers are often offered something to whet their whistles as early as 7 AM, it gets a little rowdy but, under the watchful eyes of the capitaines, never unruly.

Plenty goes on before the Courir de Mardi Gras parade enters town at 3 PM.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

You can hear the music from 500 yards down Duscon Avenue.The street's empty because everyone in town is already there!

Les Bassettes play early. Corey "L'll Pop" Ledet and then Scotty Pousson and the Pointe Aux Loups Playboys will follow. The raised dance floor is never empty.

Victor “Frenchie” Kilchrist, WWII Vet, Peanut Vendor, Raconteur Part 2

Vic "Frenchie" Kilchrist
Corner of Vermilion and Jefferson
Lafayette, Louisiana
, Monday, February 20, 2012, the day before Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)

It’s Mardi Gras week and the parades are rolling down the streets of Lafayette every night.  I’m not missing a chance to drive to downtown Lafayette to look for Vic “Frenchie” Kilchrist. Between his peanut roasting machine (that he expertly converted from an 1887 A. J. Deer Coffee Roaster #5) and his jaunty personality, Frenchie’s been a fixture on this corner every Mardi Gras and Festival International de Louisiane season for the past 21 years.

Sure enough, there he is Monday afternoon, his mobile vending station with the fire engine red banner is set up, a huge yellow bag of raw peanuts lying next to the chug-chug-chugging, gleaming, nickel-plated roaster. That roaster has passed 100 years on the chronometer. Frenchie, at 91, is right behind.

I love it that his blue eyes light right up as he remembers me from my last visit (see story). And that before business picks up, I have a chance to load up on more of his stories. Those stories are like his peanuts, once you start, you want more.

“Frenchie” goes to all the University of Louisiana Lafayette girls softball games. “They’re ranked #20 and could win national title,” he says.

Early on when he went to games, he bought peanuts. “They’re rotten,” I said to myself, “I can do better that that.” 

Frenchie did some research and found two old #5 Coffee roasters and began experimenting with peanuts. He got the knack of it and his business heated up. Pretty soon he needed more capacity so bought a larger #6 coffee roaster.

“I quit my job 25 years ago and have been in the peanut roasting business ever since. “

“The Navy sent me to Boston while a civilian oil tanker was converted a Sangamon-class escort carrier, the U.S.S. Suwannee CVE 27,” he says.

“I used to box in the Navy and after that in college,” he says. I’ll bet he still weighs in as a welterweight. I’d also bet that he must have been one tough customer, the kind of boxer who used his head as well as a good right cross.

The U.S.S Suwanee was berthed in the Boston Navy Yard in late 1945 after the war and would be decommissioned two years later. Vic's a diehard baseball fan. "The Yankees used to do spring training in Panama, I remember seeing Whistlin' Joe Page pitch when we passed through there once."

“I loved to go to Fenway Park. I sent a money order for tickets to see a Red Sox pennant game in 1946. I asked the Chief for a jeep. South Boston was loaded with gin mills at the time and the other chiefs who were with me said let’s stop on the way. I told them,  ‘Nope, I’ll drop you off but I won’t stop, and I’ll pick you up on way back if you want to hop off.’”

Frenchie is his own man. He was also getting close to the end of his enlistment. Louisiana was a far better prospect than the brig.

Later that year, Vic says to the Chief, “I’ve only got one and half months left. if I leave now I can go to college next year. The Chief offered me warrant officer papers. That meant I’d have to be in Navy another 24 years!"  "Think about it", the Chief says.

"I'm going home," Vic told the Chief the next day.

"The Chief sent an enlisted man to take me to the train, make sure I bought a ticket and hopped on board, just to be sure I wasn’t pulling a fast one. I was home in time to get in college. It was Southern Louisiana Institute then. Now it’s the University of Louisiana Lafayette with 24,000 students.“

Frenchie’s made some good friends on this corner.

“One fella from Alaska found out I love to fish. He told me if  I brought my peanut operation up there, he’d arrange to have me sell right on the dock and I’d be able to fish for big halibut. I’m still thinking about it.”

The first time I met him on this same street corner at Mardi Gras 2011, he told me he was one of the youngest sailors to be named a flight deck chief at 21 then a Chief Bo’suns Mate two years later. “I worked on the flight deck and saw plenty of wrecks as pilots tried to land their planes. We got hit by a couple of kamikaze planes late in the war.”

I later learn that this was the first kamikaze attack in WWII, that hundreds of men were killed or wounded in that attack, and that Victor "Frenchie" Kilchrist served aboard one of the most highly decorated warships in Navy history.

Remember that next time you pass the corner of Vermilion and Jefferson.

Here are facts about Kilchrist's ship, the USS Suwanee, that “Frenchie” Kilchrist didn’t mention:

After being converted to an escort aircraft carrier on July 16, 1941, the USS Suwanee saw action in Casablanca, Morocco in 1942 where her aircraft flew 255 sorties.

She was ordered to the Pacific in January, 1943, serving seven months escorting transports and supply ships to Guadalcanal and other islands in the Solomon Islands chain. In late 1943, the USS Suwanee was part of the invasion of Tarawa in the Gllbert Islands.

In 1944, she was deployed in Saipan and Guam to provide air coverage and provided air support for the assault on several islands in the Marshall Islands and New Guinea. She was one of the few ships to sink submarines in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

In October 1944, the USS Suwanee was part of the task force in the Leyte Gulf. On October 25, she was hit by the first kamikaze air attack of WWII, and hit again on the following day. 227 men of the 1100 man crew died, hundreds more were injured.

She steamed to Puget Sound for repairs in November,1944 and returned to the Pacific in January 1945 to provide air support  for the invasion of Okinawa and later attacked kamikaze bases in the East China Sea.

In her last action, she supported landings in Balikpapan, Borneo.

The USS Suwanee was placed on the inactive fleet in September 1945 after the Japanese surrender and was berthed in the Boston Naval Shipyard. She was decommissioned on January 8, 1947.

The USS Suwanee's 13 battle stars make it one of the most highly decorated warships in WWII. She set records for the number of days during battle conditions days in WWII.

Chief Bo'suns Mate Vic "Frenchie" Kilchrist was aboard the USS Suwanee for the duration. "We got hit by two kamikazes," he had said to me matter-of-factly. The number of killed and wounded on those two days was in the hundreds.

He didn't say a word about that.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Mardi Gras 2012: Goldman Thibodeaux at Vermilionville

Bal du Dimanche with Goldman Thibodeaux & the Lawtell Playboys (LA Creole)

Dance the afternoon away with Goldman Thibodeaux & the Lawtell
Playboys at Vermilionville's weekly Sunday Dance. 1 – 4 p.m.

Refreshments will be available for this smoke-free all ages show at Vermilionville's
Performance Center. Visit the calendar of events at vermilionville.org
for more info on the performers.

Bal du dimanche is held every Sunday.
$5 admission is for dance only and does not include entry to the park.

Vermilionville, 300 Fisher Rd, Lafayette, LA 70508-2028
Large Wood Dance Floor, No Smoking
Info: (337) 233-4077

Goldman Thibodeaux and the Lawtell Playboys are performing at Vermilionville, a recreated Cajun village in Lafayette. I’ve missed half the set by the time I arrive at 2:30 PM. An hour later I’ve danced to classic waltzes and two-steps, all sung in French, and all born of the joys and sorrows of Creole life in mid twentieth century Louisiana.

Old timers like Goldman are windows into the past. My friend May Louise from Lafayette says he plays “La La”, a nickname for the genre of music that preceded zydeco in the mid 20th century. Goldman remembers listening to the legendary accordionist Amédé Ardoin play at a house party when he was 8 years old.

The group on stage today – rub board, drummer, guitar, bass, and, sitting on a stool at center stage of the barn-like structure built specially for music and dancing, seventy-something year old Goldman Thibodeaux,.

The singing duties are divided between Goldman and his drummer.

Goldman isn’t much on chatter throughout his set so when he talks, you listen. The first story he tells is a funny one about a hat. He tells it in French, milking it out as slowly as he sometimes pulls his accordion during a song, and adds some mugging for effect, and chuckles with the telling.

Despite only understanding every fifth word, I laugh when he finishes because his usually hang-dog visage melts into a wrinkly wry smile.

A few songs later, as the afternoon is waning, Thibodeaux pauses and says, “Places like Vermilionville are special. There used to be places like this all over the countryside. Now few like it are left where you can bring the whole family to listen and dance.”

No doubt there are fewer of the rural bars and restaurants but that doesn’t mean the tradition of parents bringing their kids to restaurants and dance halls is a thing of the past.

Aside from the scattering of kids here with their parents, children are not only welcome but expected at Randol’s Restaurant right up the street in Lafayette and Pont Breaux down the road in Breaux Bridge. Mamas, papas (accent on second syllable) aunties, uncles, gran’papas and gran’mamas cradle kids in their arms as they dance two steps and waltzes around the floor.

When they get big enough, and for some that means a couple of weeks after they can walk, children totter around to the music with an adult. Even teenagers shed self-consciousness to join their parents on the dance floor. It’s not as if people are leading a charge cultural charge to retain their culture. This is simply what people do here.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Mardi Gras 2012: King Cake Street Party with Horace Trahan at Meche's Donuts

Sunday, February 19, 2012

 Allons Dancer et Manger Part II (Come eat and dance)
Join us Sunday Feb 19th, 11am – 1pm for some GREAT music by 
Horace Trahan & The Ossun Express! 
(NO admission fee) 
Concert will be held in the parking lot at Meche’s Donuts in New Iberia. 
403 East St. Peter
It’s our “End of King Cake Season” Mardi Gras Celebration!

A street dance at 11 AM? At a donut shop parking lot in New Iberia? And Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express playing? This I’ve got to see.

The first King  Cake “Allons Dancer et Manger” (Let’s go eat and dance) with Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express was so much fun that owners Debbi and John Smith put this little Mardi Gras street party on their calendar this year. Music and dancing, red beans and rice, grits and gravy…around here you don’t have one without the other.

Now we have to add donuts and dancing.

Dances can begin any time between 8:00 AM and 10:00 PM. Some come to listen, some to dance. And a roof isn’t a requirement. Plenty of dances are held in asphalt parking lots and city parks and local streets.

As advertised, there’s Horace and his band on a stage erected in front of Meche’s Donuts. A small happy crowd of friends, neighbors, and a handful of dancers from all over the country who are in nearby Lafayette for the zillions of Cajun and Zydeco dances going on during Mardi Gras fill the small parking lot off the street running right through New Iberia.

Horace is a fine musician and songwriter. His gritty lyrics to songs like "Keep Walking," "Same Knife Cut The Sheep Cut The Goat," and "You'll Never Make It If You Don't Try" are written by a man who's walked down some rough roads. Earnest and talented, perhaps even shy, Horace often seems reserved on stage. Not today. He’s totally relaxed, extemporaneously adding verses to several songs and singing his ‘message’ songs with more amped up passion than I’ve ever heard. (Listen to samples of “You’ll Never Make It If You Don’t Try” and “When Love Takes Over” and “La Reunion” on and you’ll get the idea.)

Horace is feelin’ the love and he’s sending it right back.

And why not? His lovely wife Chantelle is heaving armloads of Mardi Gras beads into the crowd, his guitar player Paul “Cook” Morvant, Jr.’s mom and his family is standing in front of the bandstand, and stellar saxophone/flute player Doug Garb is a home town boy.

Always in the groove, Jean Prejean from down the road apiece in Lafayette is laying down the bass lines. Young Shane Bernard is crisply making percussion and his dad Rodney Bernard from Carencro is deftly rattling on the frattoir (rub board). Oh, and Rodney Bernard is Horace’s father-in-law!

“Chef Sweeney,” an outgoing Meche’s employee (“He’s our mascot,” laughs an employee) dances through the crowd in an outlandishly fabulous Mardi Gras costume, complete with Mardi Gras umbrella, hamming it up and posing gleefully for photos.

Owners Debbi and John Smith have created a Mardi Gras King Cake on a table so huge you could probably land a small plane on it. Their staff will cut it up and pass out big chunks during Horace’s first break. At the other end of the store, customers are lined up at the counter picking up their favorite home-made-that-morning donuts. Meche's is a destination for families after church on Sunday morning. After tasting the King Cake today, I see why they come every other day of the week, too.

The crowd is the usual Louisiana mix of folks enjoying the music from the comfort of the folding camp chairs they’ve brought along, dancers who never sit down and will dance in asphalt parking lots, grassy fields, or streets, and bystanders who’ve come to see what the hell is going on.

As always down here, people are ready to have a friendly chat. Like the former Navy man I talk with who spent some time in New England during his tours and has returned home to Lafayette to care for his dad. We laugh about New England reserve and southwest Louisiana warmth. When you pass someone on the street here, expect a “Good Morning, how you doing today?” Not exactly a hallmark interaction in Boston, where passersby rarely glance at each other, let alone greet one another. Down here, whether you’re at a dance, diner, or festival, people are engaging, helpful, and always ready to strike up a conversation.

Once we arrive, we don’t leave till the shindig is over. As they say here, this a way “to pass a good time.”

I’ve been to plenty of street dances, but one that takes place at a donut shop takes the cake…and since it’s Mardi Gras week, let’s make that a King Cake.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.


Big line for scrumptious King Cake during the first break.

Chantelle Trahan and pt whoop it up with Chef Sweeney.

The band plays on...


Chantelle and Chef Sweeney lead the party by example!

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

POST SCRIPT 1

Horace always finishes his show with an a cappella version of “Lean On Me." The audience sings the chorus, often linked arm in arm. “We’re in tears sometimes by the time we finish that song,” Cook Morvant’s mom says as Horace finishes the set. When Horace says, "Where ever y'all go this morning be careful, be safe, thank you." it’s not a litany. It's the gospel according to Horace Trahan, a man who’s been through hard times and found the road back.

POST SCRIPT 2

Louisiana hospitality: Rodney Bernard, flashes a wide smile when I re-introduce myself after the show. I first met him New Year's Day 2011 at Slim’s Yi Ki Ki Lounge in Opelousas during the Carrier Family Fund Raiser, “Keeping Roy’s Dream Alive.”  I’d written about Horace earlier in the year, sent my story to his daughter, Horace’s wife Chantelle, and wanted to say hello to her dad.

Mr. Bernard took the time to time to talk with me that day, told me about growing up on his grandfather’s farm in Carenco and how his grandfather, who played accordion, started him playing with spoons on the washboard when he was a kid. I was amazed that he’d take the time to talk with a total stranger, a visitor from Boston, and that he’d extended an invitation to call him up another time I visited Lafayette. Where else does this happen?

“Have you met my other daughter?” he says today and introduces me to Sheila, who introduces me to Peter Nelson, her husband, who introduces me to his father!

People ask me why I keep returning to Louisiana. Simply put, the people of the prairies of this state have a claim on my heart.

Accordion Player Luke Huval: An Old Soul In A Kid's Body

McGee’s Landing and Family Restaurant
1337 Henderson Levee Road
Henderson, LA
Saturday, February 18, 2012
7:30 PM

There may be more musicians in southwest Louisiana than crawfish. There are hundreds of Cajun and Zydeco bands within an hour’s drive from Lafayette. Every native I’ve talked to here knows a musician or has a father, brother, uncle, or grandpapa who plays an instrument.
 
Case in point: Saturday night at McGee’s Landing, a family restaurant in Henderson. The place has a small dance floor. The musicians set up against the wall on chairs and play a few feet from the tables.
 
Joe Hall of Joe Hall and the Cane Cutters is playing with an ad hoc group tonight. Joe says he learned to play the accordion from his granddaddy. Joe’s employer in his day job? Fiddler Terrence Huval, leader of the popular Cajun band Jambalaya (and Director of Lafayette Utilities System, but that's another story).
 
Tonight, the drummer, whose name I didn’t get, sings most of the first set, two steps and waltzes in French. Pretty much standard fare. But I notice that the kid playing fiddle looks like a tenth grader.
 
After the break, Three kids sit in to play on their own: 15 year-old Zack Fuselier on fiddle (who was playing in the first set), 13 year-old Luke Huval on accordion, and his 17 year-old brother Phillip on guitar. Luke and Joel are sons of Terry Huval whose band is Jambalaya. These Huvals are distant cousins to the 13-member Huval family that fronts the Huval Family Band. (You have your scorecard out yet?)
 
From the looks of it, three kids who probably practice once a week in someone’s basement and are getting a chance to stretch their wings here on a slow Saturday night. That’s when lightning strikes.
 
The accordion player begins to sing. If you had your eyes closed, you’d never guess he probably hasn’t even begun to shave. Open them up and you see a musician totally inside his music. His right knee pounds relentlessly up and down with the beat. He sings with urgency, as if his life depended on the effort.
 
The songs are infused with the dark energy that has animated Cajun music for 200 years, bitingly sad, piercingly wistful. This is an old soul in a kid’s body. The songs feel like they’ve been rolling over the waters of the Atchafalaya Basin for 200 years.
 
I put down my fork. I don’t want to miss one beat of this music.
 
Luke Huval has been playing accordion for about ten months. “I pretty much taught myself,” he tells me after the set. Forget talent. The kid is gifted.
 
Zack Fusilier has been playing fiddle for all of two years. He’s been playing with Joe Hall for a year. Joel Huval has been playing guitar for about six months. The three families are neighbors in nearby Scott, a few miles outside Lafayette. Zack’s mom and dad are sitting at a table near band. One of the men from the table gets up and sings a couple of songs with the trio. Does anyone here not play an instrument or sing?
 
Toward the end of the set, Luke gets into a Zachary Richard song “Travail es dur” (“Work is hard”). Stunningly simple, viscerally a blow to the solar plexus. A woman weeps at my table. I have a lump in my throat.

You want history of a culture? Listen to this anthem to survival. And marvel that a 13 year-old kid can transport a room at McGee’s Landing back to a shack somewhere in the bayou way out there across the bay in front of the restaurant.
 
“Luke won the Youth Division at the Cajun Squeezebox Shootout Accordion Championship in Jennings this afternoon,” says Patrick Fuselier, Zack’s dad, as the band packs up to leave.
 
No small wonder. And no small wonder that with kids like this carrying the banner, Cajun music will have an audience for a long time to come.

Photo and video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8tZDaDmA8k&list=UUpO59RlFb0TWCXQLKYfisdA&index=1&feature=plcp

Mardi Gras 2012: Paul Begnaud - 89 and counting

House parties are a way of life in southwest Louisiana. Paul Begnaud has the tradition down to a sweet science - food, music, and a hundred or so of his friends and neighbors. He's had lots of practice. This annual event celebrates his 89th birthday.

Scott, Louisiana
Corner of St. Mary Street and Delhomme Avenue
Friday night, February 17, 2012

When’s the last time you were invited to a birthday party in a bank and finished it in a bar. Ok, the bar part you’ve done, but the bank?

Paul Begnaud is throwing himself an 89th birthday party.  This is the Friday before Mardi Gras. To say that everyone is already in a festive mood is an understatement.

Mr. Begnaud has opened his home, which happens to be the former Bank of Scott (built in 1911), in Scott, Louisiana, and has invited friends from near and far to his celebration.

 

When the party numbers escalated over the years, he turned his gaze across the street at the long-shuttered Bourque’s Bar (built in 1902) and bought it, perfect for an overflow crowd on occasions like this and for watching Scott’s Mardi Gras parade that struts right past both buildings. If he were playing Monopoly, the historic bank and the well known Bourque’s Bar would be two of the more coveted places on the board.

Paul bought the former Bank of Scott in 1970. Imagine a square, one room-bank in a Bonnie and Clyde movie. With its russet red brick façade, it stands out like a ruby on the corner of St Mary Street and Delhomme Avenue. Paul’s magnificent art collection sprawls all over the fourteen-foot high walls. His artistic aesthetic was honed by his career as a clerical tailor and as a consultant helping customers choose fabric and color for draperies after he retired.

He's transformed the bank’s vault (center in photo) into his kitchen. It’s the size of a ship’s galley, except ship galleys don’t have one-foot thick brick walls. The stunning living area practically wraps its arms around you. Walls a gorgeous shade of French yellow ochre and ceiling cerulean blue, it has a genial scattering of tastefully colored chairs, couches, low tables, and lamps, organized in pods for people to gather in small groups. How the man creates a sense of intimacy in such an ungainly space is a miracle. A people person, Paul makes sure the furnishings get a lot of use.

Dessert and drinks are spread out in Paul’s living room (he climbs a short steep metal stairway to reach his sleep quarters in a loft over the bank) and a small patio behind the bank in which Scott’s mayor and Aldermen used to meet.

By 7 PM, guests are socializing at picnic tables’ red-checkered tablecloths in a small garage behind Paul’s “bank.” Neighbor James Martin, is dispensing jambalaya and sides of beans and sweet potatoes. The quartered sweet potatoes steeped in caramel colored brown sugar and pecan sauce are ordinary dishes around sugar cane country but to this Yankee they are an exotic revelation - and a nod to the history of the farmland nearby in which sweet potatoes were a staple cash crop in the late 1800s.

Dinner’s a short stop tonight. The action is across the street in the bar. Paul has hired “Jesse and Company", a road band from Orange, TX, that can play the hell out of any rock 'n roll, swing, and waltz from the 60’s and on. This is Louisiana, remember, and hardly any celebration is without food…and music.


A combination of the wine, the band, and the fabulous grooves of the guest sax player, pulls every dancer to the floor. Sitting on a folding chair against the wall next to the front door, with a grand view of the dance floor and band, sits Paul Begnaud, drinking in the vibe and flashing a huge smile to guests as they walk in the door. Sitting at his side is Georgette, gray hair done up just so, and a smile of liquid sunshine.

Roots run deep in small towns like this. Childhood friend Georgette leans against him and says, “I’ve known him since grade school. My sisters and I used to play jacks with him in the street.  We sent him away because with his quick big hands he always won!”  Paul likes that story.

Band leader Jesse Domingue calls Paul to the middle of the dance floor. Just about every woman in his bar forms a circle around him and takes fifteen or twenty seconds apiece to dance whatever song playful Jesse is serving up. 

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0pD_hgSh54

The night ends with Paul Begnaud surrounded with about forty adoring women. I wish I had a photo of the smile on the man’s face. If there’s one reason I’d love to live to be 89 years old, this is it. 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Paul Begnaud's art collection and furniture infuses his living area with a playful sense of warmth and whimsy. Barnum and Bailey circus posters share space with art from Kenya, New Orleans and Lafayette. Antique rugs in luminously soft colors cover every inch of floor space. The room is a alive with every color in a deluxe box of Crayola Crayons.

++++++++++++

POSTSCRIPT

Guests begin filtering through the door of the bar. The dance floor wasn't empty for long.  Rock 'n Roll band "Jesse and Company," with Jesse Domingue keyboard, Hoytt Cassel guitar, Joe Salazar drums, Robert Rodrigues  bass and special guest Gene Romero on tenor sax made sure of that. Jesse and Paul go way back, they grew up together in Scott.

Paul Begnaud loves women...and they love him right back!

The jambalaya pot Mr. Martin is standing over is the size of a bathtub. Retired from GM 23 years ago, the seventy something Martin does this for fun.

“There are about 2000 people that live in central Scott (overall population 9000), they mostly know each other. We use this pot to make jambalaya for school and church functions. I can cook 100 pounds of meat in this pot and feed 700 people. It took us about an hour and a half to cook 50 pounds today. We let it cool, added the water and rice and cooked it down. ”

Sharing food at social gatherings is probably a Southern thing, certainly an old time southwest Louisiana thing, and is still a way of life in small towns like Scott.

Mardi Gras 2012: Paul Begnaud's Birthday Dance

 

Paul Begnaud has style. His birthday party spills over from the former Bank of Scott, his home since he retired, into the long shuttered Bourque's Bar across the street, which he also owns.

The evening's last dance in the bar: Jesse and Company, the East Texas band Begnaud hired, plays several songs, Paul is surrounded by a host of women who take turns dancing with him. This is definitely a grand way to celebrate an 89th birthday.

Mardi Gras 2012: Cedric Watson at The Blue Moon Saloon

Cedric Watson and Bijoux Creole
Blue Moon Saloon
215 East Convent Street
Lafayette, LA
February 16, 2012

Cedric Watson, even in the rich universe of Cajun and zydeco musicians in Louisiana, stands out for the sheer variety of genres he packs into one set. Whether with his button accordion or shiny fiddle, the guy can play up a storm.

While deeply respecting the culture that produced it, he consciously shows us the far-flung roots of the music that zydeco has assimilated. Riffs he’s picked up from listening to Haitian, Dominican, African, and Cuban music pop up playfully in his songs.

Listening to him sing in Creole French is a treat. Dancing it, with its rich range of zydeco, Cajun, swing, waltz, two-step and occasional rock 'n roll rhythms, is divine.

By the time his second set ends at the Blue Moon Saloon, it is what I call Clown Car Dancing, with an astonishing number of people  seemingly defying the laws of physics, occupying the same space at the same time. This syndrome happens regularly in southwest Louisiana.

With the Clown Car, a ridiculous number of people climb out of a ridiculously tiny car. In Clown Car Dancing, most people turn around after one dance and ask another partner to dance. Who wants to leave a jammed dance floor when a guy like Cedric Watson and his Bijoux Creole Band are playing such mesmerizing music on stage?

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Special guests at the break, Chief Zydeco Mike and the Creole Headhunters

Louisiana Mardi Gras and Carnival Primer

Mardi Gras and Carnival season begins on Twelfth Night (as the 12 days of Christmas) on January 6th and picks up serious momentum until Mardi Gras day arrives.  “Mardi Gras” literally means Fat Tuesday in French and refers to the tradition of eating rich, fatty foods on the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Catholic Church calendar.

In New Orleans, the season beginning on January 6th is called Carnival and the term Mardi Gras is specifically reserved for Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. Carnival is said to be derived from the Latin “carne vale” meaning “farewell to meat” during the season of Lent. A later translation is said to mean “farewell to the flesh.” This may have apocryphal roots but would explain certain pre-Fat Tuesday behaviors in some quarters of New Orleans.

In the southwest region of Louisiana known as “Acadiana,” the whole season is known as Mardi Gras.

Most of the earlier part of the Mardi Gras season is made up of invitation only balls hosted by private social clubs, usually known as krewes. There are Men’s Krewes, Women’s Krewes, Mixed Gender Krewes, Children’s Krewes, and yes, Canine Krewes, as in Krewe des Chiens!

Around two weeks before Fat Tuesday, the public part of Mardi Gras/Carnival kicks in big time with parades, house parties, indoor and outdoor dances, and general merriment. Think of it as the Super Bowl of celebrations. To give you a sense of scale, there will be over 60 parades in the Greater New Orleans area from February 4th until Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, February 21st.

  

Big floats and parades in New Orleans, small floats in Crowley, Louisiana

Nearly every town in Acadiana will host a parade and dance.  St. Martinville, Church Point, Iota, Crowley, Opelousas, Eunice, Jennings, Jeanrette, Breaux Bridge, Hayes, Henderson, Mamou, Maurice, and Kaplan are some of these towns, all of them within an hour drive from Lafayette, the largest of these venues.

Mardi Gras street dances in Iota

Purple, green, and gold colors will saturate the landscape from New Orleans to Lake Charles. Purple represents justice, gold symbolizes power, and green symbolizes faith.

In Lafayette, where I’m heading this week, the first formal Mardi Gras ball and parade was held in 1869 and they've been going strong ever since. The hardest task during Mardi Gras in Louisiana is picking which one of the scores of events going on every day to experience. Nice problem.

 Mardi Gras Courir parades in Mamou...

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Bill Ives: A magnet for Louisiana music, food, and culture

My friend Bill Ives, born in New Orleans, is a big time music lover. Now living in Cambridge, MA, Bill incorporates a ton of his business and cultural interests , including a huge helping about New Orleans, in his blog. His grandmother ran the well-known Columns Hotel on St. Charles Avenue in the 1950s.

Bill spent a week in mid-December driving from New Orleans to Lafayette, Eunice, Opelousas, Henderson, then back to New Orleans. He planned a jam-packed itinerary - restaurants, dance halls, museums - even one radio station where he met with Herman Fuselier, radio host with a deep understanding of roots to blues music, entertainment writer, and TV show host, at his office for KRVS in Opelousas.

Bill and I have regular pow-wows before and after our trips to Louisiana. Check out his latest post about his December trip. You'll get an idea of just how much fun he can pack into one week!

Scroll down the "Categories" list on the right side and click on New Orleans and Louisiana to find great photo essays about Louisiana, including all the posts about this one. And stay tuned...there are more to come!

 

Food, Friends, House Parties: A Louisiana Way of Life

15th Annual Carrier Family Dance
Lawtell, Louisiana
January 1, 2012

“How you doin’?” says the man as we walk off the dance floor wiping the sweat off our faces. Chubby Carrier and his Bayou Swamp Band is in the middle of a smokin’ set of Zydeco at the Carrier Family Festival in Lawtell so I’m doing pretty damn well.

I launch into the litany of reasons I love this part of Louisiana. High on the list is the all-encompassing sense of friendliness I feel from people here. "When I was in Lafayette last March, a man in a local bar drew me a map so I wouldn’t get tangled up in traffic on Mardi Gras day."

“That’s the way we are down here,” the man says. “We aren’t trying to impress anyone, I don’t even think we know that we do it.” Surely there are random acts of kindness performed by strangers at home in Boston. There is nothing random about the friendly behavior here.

“I first came down here in 2008 and my life hasn’t been the same since,” I say with a grin. "I didn’t know much about zydeco and cajun music. This week I flew down here  from Boston to dance to it for five days straight!" . And I tell him I never tasted gumbo or po boys or shrimp etouffee before then. “I never ever even heard of couchon de lait. Now I can tell whether or not gumbo has okra in it.”

Ricky Norman’s eyes twinkle. “I was raised in an okra patch,” he says,” with chickens and corn and pigs all around. We put up most of our own food. When I was about nine years old, I remember my father doing “boucheries”, slaughtering three or four hogs and making all kinds of food from them. A local TV station came by years ago to record the event and a museum in Lafayette has photos showing the whole process."

A generation or two ago, boucheries were usually held at homes on a rotating basis, a way to distribute fresh food to the families in the area in a time when country folk had no refrigeration. Boucheries were also social occasions in which tales were told, updates regarding romance, good or ill fortune discussed, and perhaps singing and dancing.

The hog's meat, internal organs, brains, and intestines were all used for some kind of food. Gratons (cracklins) were made by frying the skin, and boudin, sausage filled with hog’s meat and internal organs and rice, still are favorites here (and unknown in Boston). It is said that nothing was wasted in the process of butchering the hog except the squeal.

Ricky put two kids through college while working on an oil rig in the Gulf, two weeks on, five days off.

“My kids found jobs in California and Manhattan,” he says. “They warn me in advance that they want some home cooking when they come home to visit. Every time they leave, they take a cooler of food with them because they say their friends want to try some of the food they’ve heard them talk about.”

“Something else that knocks me out are the house parties people throw around here,” I shout over the music. “Parties I go to around Boston might have ten to twenty people. I just went to a house party yesterday that had over 100 people AND a live band!”

Ricky claps his hands together. “I'm 56 years old.That’s one of the first things I’m doing when I retire!” he shouts. “People throw house parties here all the time. I have a big concrete patio. I’m going to put a roof over it, get some lights going and my wife and I will be holding our own house parties.”

I'll bet that if I had asked for an invitation, he’d have put me on his guest list.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Keeping Roy's Dream Alive: 15th Carrier Family Festival

15th Carrier Family Festival
January 1, 2012
Roy Carrier’s Offshore Lounge
Lawtell, Louisiana

Chubby Carrier (far right, accordion) and the next generation, on washboard (left), playing next to washboard player Earl Sally

Directions--go into Lawtell on the one way street, turn right at the first gravel street (McClelland), go over the railroad tracks, immediately turn left onto Perry & go to the club. This will be a fund-raiser for renovations to the club so it can reopen on a regular basis.

These are the kinds of directions you often get in southwestern Louisiana. Roy Carrier’s Offshore Lounge was so deep in the country that my GPS could not find the place. I plugged Lawtell Louisiana in the little black box and headed about 25 miles north from Lafayette. Crossing into Lawtell, I jammed on the brakes when I nearly passed a black and white hand-painted Offshore Lounge sign tacked onto a pole.

Yep, gravel street…there are the railroad tracks…another hand painted sign, then a few hundred yards down the road a dirt parking lot in front of a low, rectangular one story building.  A thin gray cloud issuing from a huge smoker floats under the roof of the overhang in front of the club.  Music is pumping from inside. I’ve arrived.

Lawtell has a population of 174. There are more people than that inside this dance hall.

Zydeco dancers are an eclectic bunch, black/white, young/old, urban/rural, from every social class. They’re also loyal. When they heard that Roy Carrier’s musician sons, Troy "Dikki Du" Carrier and Chubby Carrier wanted to honor their late father Roy by reopening his Offshore Lounge, which had fallen into serious disrepair, they flocked to a 2011 New Year's Day Keep Roy's Dream Alive fundraiser at Slim’s Y Ki Ki in Opelousas. At least ten of the areas best bands played that day for zip. The family raised $6000.

Today, Dikku Du Carrier has a one day permit to open for the Offshore Lounge for a fund raiser.  We’ll dance to Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band, Dikki Du & Zydeco Krewe, Dwight Carrier & the Black Cat Zydeco Ro Doggs, Corey "Lil Pop" Ledet, "T" Broussard, and Lil' Pookie.

Dikki Du Carrier needs to raise a serious chunk of cash to pay for a septic system and rebuild according to updated building codes. Today, dance loyalists who've homed into the Lafayette area for New Year's celebrations gladly pay $20 a pop for admission, buy Roy Carrier CDs, T-shirts and fried chicken, red beans and rice, gumbo and BBQ. They also write checks on the spot.

Roy’s family has a long slog to keep Roy’s dream alive – but making dreams a reality was a Roy Carrier specialty. When Roy bought the tumble down roadhouse in 1980, it became a place where he fostered the talents and dreams of some of the best known musicians in Louisiana – John Delafose, Beau Jacques, to name two, and gave young Geno Delafose his first paying gig.

Not surprisingly, Roy's father and uncles were musicians and he began playing with them at age ten and he kept on playing till he died in 2010.

With both of Roy’s sons playing their hearts out on the stage, The Offshore Lounge was showing definite signs of life. In one or two more years,  the place may again become the spot where the next generation learns their chops.

NOTE:
If you would like to contribute to the "Keeping Roy's Dream Alive" cause, write a check to Troy "Dikki Du" Carrier and send to Richard Brainard, 813 SW Alder St. #700, Portland, OR 97205.
As of January 13, 2012, $5500 has been raised toward the goal of $10,000. Read Troy Carrier's letter to learn more about how the Carriers will use the money.

 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Roy's Offshore Lounge might need repairs but the BBQ being smoked is first class.

 

All kinds of helpers dish out the food/pt with Dikki Du Carrier
 

Chubby Carrier and The Bayou Swamp Band/Dikki Du Carrier's son Troy, Jr. on drums and niece on washboard - the third generation of Carriers to play!

 
Fun on the dance floor...Chubby Carrier arrives to play.

Keeping Roy's Dream Alive: 15th Carrier Family Festival Videos

 

 

 

Tulane President Connects with KIPP Foundation, named one of two New Orleanians of the Year

Tulane President Scott Cowen was named one of two New Orleanians of the Year by Gambit Weekly of New Orleans. The  locally owned newspaper has been publishing for thirty years. Gambit Weekly is one of the most successful weeklies in the country, and the recipient of numerous annual awards for editorial and design achievement.

Tulane University President Scott Cowen has announced a partnership with the KIPP Foundation and Teach For America - a huge investment in New Orlean's future.

The New Orleans school system was a disaster way before Katrina. As in much of New Orleans, recovery is a work in progress. The series I wrote about the KIPP McDonogh 15 School for the Creative Arts gave me a window into the charter school movement and a sense that these schools have a chance to restore faith in public education. One school is certainly a small sample but it was a hopeful one.

According to The Gambit news story,

"In 2011, Cowen signed a first-of-its-kind agreement with the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) New Orleans charter schools and the KIPP Foundation to enroll more KIPP graduates in Tulane — and to place more Tulane teacher certification program students in KIPP schools. He also cemented a partnership between the Cowen Institute and Teach for America to increase the number of Tulane graduates who will teach in New Orleans public schools."

I will revisit the KIPP McDonogh 15 School for the Creative Arts on my next trip to New Orleans.

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/new-oleans-charter-schools-and-recovery-part-1.html

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/new-orleans-charter-schools-and-recovery-part-2-1.html

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/new-orleans-charter-schools-and-recovery-part-3.html

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/new-orleans-charter-schools-and-recovery-part-4.html

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/08/revisiting-the-kipp-mcdonogh15-school-in-new-orleans.html

A “Start Your New Year’s Early Party Party” in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana: Video

 

A “Start Your New Year’s Early Party Party” in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

December 31, 2011
A “Start Your New Year’s Early Party Party” in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

You didn’t have to guess which house was 116 Van Buren in Breaux Bridge this afternoon. The live music drifting out onto the street told the story. The owner had invited, oh, about one hundred of his friends, and out-of-towners who he’s known from their previous visits, and people like me who he met two nights ago at the Café des Amis.

Maybe it’s the dance community, maybe it’s a Southern Thing, but I’ve no sooner met someone here than they turn to one of their friends and say, “This is Paul, he’s from Boston,” and they bring me into their conversations without skipping a beat. And, damn if they don’t remember me the next time we meet, offer me a seat, a dance, a drink, but above all, a sense of belonging that’s as natural as breathing for them.

My friends Bernard and Rubia, who I met on my first trip here in 2008, told Bart, the owner of 116 Van Buren, that I’d be at the Café des Amis Wednesday night. Bart, the tall guy I’d seen dancing every dance since the minute I walked into the café, walked up to me and said, “You must be Paul,” and handed me a yellow invitation to his house party. That’s the way it goes here.

Al Berard, fiddle, Forest Huval, accordion

I love my hometown of Boston but every time this happens, I feel like Dorothy…”I’m not in Kansas any more.”

In other parts of the world, a steady rain puts a damper on a party. Not here today. We all duck under the roof over the tiny concrete dance floor that also happens to be the patio of Bart’s house. Between the thick rainy air and the density of sixty people vigorously dancing in a space no larger than a living room, I feel like I'm in a school of sardines at a sock hop.

Couldn’t find a baby sitter for your kid? No problem. Bring him/her along. Adults will come by to talk to them and more than likely ask them if they want to dance.

What are the essentials of one of these house parties? A good local band, a covered space attached to or next to your house, tables for the food and beverages (preferably under a little pavilion) the guests will bring, and a portapottie. The guests don’t have to be told to bring lawn chairs – they’re probably stored in the trunks of cars for most of the people who live around here. Yankees take note: these camp chairs have built in cup holders on each arm. Don’t even consider buying one without this feature.

Then there’s the question of dancing. Up north, men are not known to dance at social functions unless under duress from their women or the influence of alcohol. Here a man will dance at the drop of a hat. With as many women as he can find. The women will all say Yes to an invitation. And they will often make a man feel like a winner of Dancing With The Stars. Dancing is one of the languages around here. It’s the way men and women connect. Slow and sultry, peppy and strong, elegant or rambunctious, all dictated by the tempo of the music and the chemistry of the pair.

People here hail from homes two minutes to 2000 miles away. Some of them, like a small group that Breaux Bridge travel organizer Kay Wright has assembled, have never danced a lick of Cajun or zydeco music in their lives. No matter.

No one can resist the infectious beat of Al Berard’s fiddle, and the accordion, drum and guitar player he brought with him today. The new-comers are learning the steps in that happy mass of dancers or are being introduced to Kay’s friends on the lawn. It’s a fair assumption they will be back, perhaps for Mardi Gras.

That would be a fair assumption for me, too.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Al Berard, fiddle, Forest Huval, accordion,Keith Blanchard, drums,Dwayne Brasseaux, guitar

Everybody dances...Bart thanks his guests - we thanked him back, big time!

"Would you tell me the names of the men in the band?" I ask. "Sure, says Dwayne Brasseaux, give me your pen and pad."

A Honky Tonk Merry Go Round at the ARTmosphere in Lafayette

Honky-Tonk Merry Go Round
ARTmosphere
902 Johnson Street
Lafayette, Louisiana

Thursday, December 30, 2011

Last night was the closest I've felt to being bowled over by a dry land tidal wave, a benign force of nature in keys of A or C or D-flat, that washed over a room full of spectators at a little bar called ARTmosphere in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Joel Savoy decided to organize a celebratory end of the year jam. A talented musician and producer for his label Valcour records, the guy knows just about every up and coming singer, songwriter, and musician in the Cajun community surrounding Lafayette. Tonight, Joel had a honky-tonk merry-go-round in mind. What ensued was a kick out the doorjambs night of honky-tonk, country, rockabilly, and certified rock 'n roll.

With the exception of fiddler David Greely, everybody else who paraded to the stage hasn't seen much of this side of 30. Joel Savoy (fiddle), Chas Justus (guitar), David Greely (fiddle), Wilson Savoy (piano), Rose Sinclair (steel guitar), Eric Frey (bass), and Glen Fields (drums), got the show rolling and then it was, ”Move the chaise lounges back from the shore, mama, this wave is coming on strong.”

Rose Sinclair, David Greely, Eric Frey, Chas Justus, Glen Fields, Joel Savoy, Wilson Savoy

Every one of these musicians could carry a show all by her/himself. They play in bands like The Red Stick Ramblers, The Pine Leaf Boys, Bonsoir Catin, Steve Riley and The Mamou Playboys, Girl Howdy, The Savoy Family Band, Lafayette Rhythm Devils… the list goes on.

Although they know each other, they rarely have the chance to rock out together. The result was playful, pedal to the metal, full bore performances.  They let it loose like kids at recess.

Traditional Cajun music may course through their veins but doesn’t limit their inspiration. Local radio stations across south central Louisiana play an astonishing variety of country, rock n roll, swamp pop, rockabilly, blues, and rhythm n blues. The fire these performers breathed into the songs they covered showed that they’ve been paying attention.

Yvette Landry rocks out

From time to time Kelli Jones, Joel's fiancé, and Emma Young, who often sing with The Mamou Playboys, and JP Harris stepped onstage to solo and backup. Singer Linzay Young, country singer extraordinaire Yvette Landry, mandolin player Daniel Coolik, fiddler Courtney Granger and several more whose names I didn’t get stepped on to the crowded stage when Joel shouted their names.

ARTtmosphere was jammed with friends and relatives of the musicians, regulars from town and, since New Year is two days away, visitors who learned about if from the grapevine – in my case from my friends Bernard Ussher and his wife Rubia, who have their fingers firmly on the pulse of the vibrant music and dance scene here. Dancers had a field day with every style of two-step you can imagine, Mamou jitterbugs, waltzes, swing, Cajun gigs, and steps they made up on the spot. It was that kind of night.

This short list of songs I could remember are a fraction of those performed tonight… from honky-tonk to country to rhythm ‘n blues…  for this reporter, a New Year never got a better jump start than this.

“Don’t Stop The Music” Cajun waltz
“Let’s Fall To Pieces Together” George Strait
“It Won’t Be Long Before It’s Crying Time” Ray Charles
“My Shoes Keep Walkin’ Back To You” Ray Price
“She Thinks I Still Care” George Jones
“I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink”   Merle Haggard
“Hand Me A Bottle” George Strait 70s
“Let’s Have A Party” Wanda Jackson
“Hallejullah I Just Love You So” Ray Charles

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr - Photos of pt by Bernard Ussher

 

The musicians were feelin' it...

and so was pt, dancing with Michelle Kaminsky of Magnolia Cajun Band

Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express Rock The Blue Moon Saloon

Blue Moon Saloon
215 East Convent Street
Lafayette, Louisiana 70501

Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express
December 29, 2011
10 PM

Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express are in the midst of their first set. The dance floor is the size of a baby wading pool. About sixty people want to dance on it.  Newton’s Law of Physics - you know... the one about 2 things not being able to occupy the same space at the same time, appears to be disproved as well over 60 people are dancing shoulder to shoulder and are surrounded like a second skin by another sixty pressed against the perimeter. You dance real small, and occasionally tight, which suits me fine. Nothing like a crowd of intense dancers at close range to charge up a band.

This is just another normal night of dancing around here.

“Well, we have a couple here from Washington DC, first time in Lafayette, first time at the Blue Moon. Where else you from?” says Mr. Trahan.

An avalanche response. Washington, Oregon, San Diego, Philadelphia, Florida, Missouri, Wisconsin, and of course, Boston. New Year's Eve is two days away. Once you have a Cajun or zydeco bug, you will travel great distances to dance to the real deal with people who drink the same Kool-Aid.

It is true that some people love the music but keep their feet planted. Their butts wiggle, their heads bob and they listen to the music as if it were a concert. But most have come to dance. Horace puts on a great mix of traditional zydeco, bluesy slow drags, waltzes sung in French, and a couple of hip-hop tinged zydeco numbers. The dance floor stays packed.

Whatever woes might be going on in your life, problems, challenges, fiscal woes, are booted out of your consciousness as soon as the music takes hold of your psyche and your feet. The blues will come back into focus about an hour after you leave the Blue Moon Saloon, but while you're there, honey, they have retreated underground like crawfish on a cold day in January.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello,Jr.

Pont Breaux Cajun Restaurant and Dance Hall

Pont Breaux Restaurant
325 West Mills Avenue
Breaux Bridge, LA
December 29, 2011

Thursday night, December 29, 2011

“Let's do waltz across Texas in the key of D,” says Lee Benoit to his band. The shiny wooden dance floor fills up and here we are, in another universe, on a planet with music at its center, with a sun that nourishes, heals, blows cares away, or sings about them in a way that turns heartbreak into soothing poetry. That planet, of course, is southwest Louisiana, Breaux Bridge, to be specific, tonight at The Pont Breaux Restaurant.

Gen X, Y, and Z are in scant attendance but there is plenty of Gen AARP. They’re rocking, but not in chairs.

Lee Benoit and The Bayou Stompers have a request for the Beatles “Love, Love Me Do,” and they play it in a two-step cadence! It didn’t draw many people to the dance floor but it does give you the idea that the music sensibility here does not stop at the borders of Louisiana - or of the USA for that matter.

The band plays “Jolie Blonde” (considered to be the Cajun National Anthem) - that fills the dance floor in a jiffy. I can't believe this. The next song they play is “I Want To Put On My Boogie Shoes” to a cha-cha beat that one couple manages to dance to with a jig. Arthur Murray would tear his hair out here.  No gold, bronze, and silver levels of dance lessons. Men and women hit the floor and channel the music in whatever way twitches their synapses.

Next comes a waltz sung in French. Damn, these seniors have some of the smoothest moves I've seen on any dance floor. When Mr. Benoit gets into a good ol’ Louisiana Swamp Pop song, “Why Should I Call Your Name,” I wish I had come here with a date.

I digress to the subject of dance halls. In some, like Randol’s and Pont Breaux, if you don't come with a date, the chances are 90% that you'll spend most of the evening in your chair. Go to a place like Grant Street or the Blue Moon Saloon, and you’ll find a partner for every dance all night long. The place is filled with singles and couples but even the couples switch off and dance with others. My kind of place.

A ruggedly built middle-aged man approaches my table. “How you enjoying yourself tonight? My name is Randy LeBlanc, I’m the new owner here.” A man scribbling in a notepad and taking photographs is  someone to check out.

“This place was closing down last October and I decided to buy it. When he was six years old my son Blazien, who’s always loved music, got invited up to the stage by Lee Benoit. The kid had never stepped foot on a stage. I had taught him how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on his accordion and he did it perfectly. I never forgot that.”

Blazien is 17 now and in high school. “Tonight he’s playing in the band for about 1000 people, and soon he’s going on a cruise to play for a few hundred people.”

Family dance halls like this are where youngsters learn to dance. Don't be surprised to see a teenage boy dancing with his grandmother at places like this.

“I just could not let this well-known family restaurant disappear or maybe become some kind of chain franchise. I wanted to buy this place because of that experience with my son and because I wanted Cajun tradition to thrive. Business picked up since October. Lots of locals have come back and Lee’s band is here every Thursday and Friday for nearly twenty years–it's a very big draw.”

Next thing I know the band is playing a Creedence Clearwater revival song, a souped-up version of “Lodi”. This little quartet of accordion keyboard guitar and drums can cover songs like gravy over grits. Lee Benoit and The Bayou Stompers tonight - Lee, his wife on guitar, daughter on drums, and an electric piano player sitting in for their regular fiddler. They do know how to have fun.

When I return, I’m bringing a date. And I’ll bring the Lee Benoit Band CD that I bought and ask him to autograph it.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

I've met dozens of people who've been so taken by the spirit of southwest Louisiana that they've picked up stakes and moved here... like Janet Wilson, who left Highlands, North Carolina, and closed on a house in Breaux Bridge two days after this night!

Visit with Herman Fuselier at KRVS, Opelousas

Thursday afternoon, December 29, 2011

Louisiana hospitality...Herman Fuselier, on air host of "The Zydeco Stomp" on Opelousas station KRVS, has invited me to visit him after I emailed him during his December 24 show. The St. Landry Parish Visitor Center, on a small parcel of land just off I-49 at exit 23, where he has an office, is one of the "greenest" buildings in the state.

I'm welcomed at the front desk by Miss Gloria. Cheryl Castille (pictured below with pt), on air host of the singer/songwriter/folk roots program "The Exchange", and Celeste Gomez, Director of The St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission, pop out of their offices and greet me warmly.

Herman Fuselier, is as easy going in person as he sounds on his radio program. Thanks to Herman, after our half hour conversation, I've drilled down one more layer into the fascinating history of the music in this part of the country. I would venture to say that south central Louisiana is the most fertile territory for cross-pollination of music genres in the entire world.

Story to follow... 

 

Sustainable features of the center include a water cistern, wind turbine and photovoltaic panels.

 

But the best feature is the people who work inside!

The Huval Family Band rocks The Cafe des Amis

Café des Amis
Wednesday December 28, 2011
http://www.cafedesamis.com/
140 East Bridge Street
Breaux Bridge, Louisiana 70517


The Huval Family Band holds court Wednesday evenings at the Café des Amis in Breaux Bridge. With Brazos on fiddle, Jebb on bass, Luke on guitar and vocals, and Chad on accordions, the family (twelve in number and most of them musicians) must make up their own voting block in town.

By the time I arrive at 8 PM the place is packed with the usual suspects, mostly local folks, including a big table with Wilson Savoy, his brother Joel (members of another celebrated Louisiana music family), and a bunch of their music loving friends.  Breaux Bridge octogenarian Floyd LeBlanc, who has an official chair in the place, is leaning against the bar. Then there’s Elsbetta from Denmark, Jennifer from Texas and Mary Lou from Arkansas, Bart from down the street who invites me to a New Year’s Party at his house around the corner, and others I recognize from previous trips here.

The Huval brothers are playful presences. A roomful of people are tapping their feet, smiles spread across their faces. A little boy pulls his auntie to the dance floor to try out his steps.  

There’s something about this place that makes strangers feel at home. Tourists who are clearly envying the men and women having such a grand time are asked to dance by local dancers. In a Breaux Bridge minute, they ease into the rhythm, their tentative grins widen with each two-step they try.

Of all the experiences they’ll talk about when they arrive home, none will be told with more passion than the moments on the Café des Amis’s worn wooden dance floor and the generosity of spirit that permeates the music here.

For this Yankee, it’s hard to beat dancing a waltz with a woman singing the French lyrics softly in my ear as we navigate carefully around the packed tables. Café des Amis, indeed.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.


Dancers find places to dance between tables, three generations enjoy the music...

and Floyd LeBlanc is right at home on is "official" chair.

St. Landry Parish: Opelousas, Birthplace of Zydeco

St. Landry Parish
Louisiana

OK, we take history seriously around Boston. The thousands of tourists who visit here can visit Paul Revere’s house, the Old North Church, the USS Constitution, Bunker Hill and scores of historic sites in Lexington, Concord, and other places that feature prominently in history books.  The temporary seat of government for the infant United States of America is a quarter mile down the street from my house in Watertown, twenty minutes from Paul Revere's house in Boston.

My impression that we have a corner on the market of American history hit a speed bump when I began researching St. Landry Parish in advance of meeting Herman Fuselier at the St. Landry Visitor Center in Opelousas, Louisiana.

The Poste de Opelousas, an outpost of the French government, was one of the first European settlements in Louisiana. Contributing to its rich cultural history is that the outpost was subsequently governed by the Spanish and was later settled by English, Irish, Scots, and Germans. The fertile prairie land was a godsend to these pioneers who farmed (rice is a big crop here) and raised cattle on the 933 square miles of the parish.

Adding to the mix were black slaves arriving with European settlers in the early 1700s. To further spice things up, people who became known as Creoles, blacks with Caribbean or Haitian roots, blacks who were free people of color, and others with mixed Spanish or French blood, began to settle in the area in the late 1700s when the Spanish were granting land rights to all comers. Less is known of the Attakapas Indians who lived in the area.

Creoles and Cajuns stamped the region with their music. Opelousas is considered the birthplace of Zydeco. Vermillion Parish on its southern border is often credited with being the birthplace of Cajun music but neighboring parishes contest that. Many credit Amadee Ardoin, a native Creole from Opelousas in St. Landry Parish, as the father of Zydeco music. In true Louisiana style, both genres borrow from one another and both have loyal dance followings.

Louisiana might just be the musical crossover capital of the world. Listen to contemporary Creole and Cajun music and you'll hear influences from blues, country, rhythm n blues, honky tonk, and swing along with traditional songs carried forward from generations past. Creole and Cajun - the ultimate koan: they are different and they are the same. Trying to separate them cleanly is like trying pick bits of okra from a good bowl of gumbo.

Opelousas, let alone the other 12 cities and towns in the parish, has a ton of attractions.

Here’s a starter list:

• The St. Landry Parish Visitor Center to see Herman
• Le Vieux Village where the old train depot was located and now houses the •Louisiana Orphan Train Museum.
• Opelousas Museum & Interpretive Center.  The Center is comprised of a Main Exhibit Room, The Civil War Room, The Geraldine Smith Welch Doll Collection, and The Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival Archives.
• The Creole Heritage Folklife Center
• The Evangeline Downs Track and Casino where my friend Bill Ives took in some good music shows.

Gee, I won't have time to do more than a sliver of this itinerary during this holiday week…what a shame. I’ll have to come back.

Photo by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Herman Fuselier's Zydeco Stomp: A Gumbo of Music, Culture, and Community

Zydeco Stomp radio show –A Gumbo of Music, Culture and Community
Hosted by Herman Fuselier
“Zydeco, Blues and You and Me from 12 to 3…”
KRVS 88.7 FM University of Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana

Herman Fuselier is the entertainment editor for the Lafayette (La.) Daily Advertiser newspaper and a music columnist with The Times of Acadiana in Lafayette and Offbeat Magazine of New Orleans. He broadcasts Louisiana music shows on KRVS 88.7 FM in Lafayette and KDCG-TV 22 in Opelousas.

Friday, December 23, 2011

“Herman Fuselier does a great show every Saturday. You can listen to it online,” my friend Bill Ives told me as he recounted a 9-day whirlwind pilgrimage in which he crisscrossed highways and byways from New Orleans to Eunice. Bill’s visit with Herman at the St. Landry Parish Visitor Information Center in Opelousas was one of the many highlights of his trip.

A New Orleans native now residing in Cambridge, MA, Bill planned his trip around visiting restaurants, dance halls, and cultural attractions. Judging by the stories he told me at lunch, he packed it in tighter than shrimp in a po boy from The Taco Sisters restaurant in Lafayette. I take his advice.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Listening to the Zydeco Stomp on December 24th was a revelation for me. “Zydeco, Blues, You and Me, From 12 to 3” is Herman’s tag line. With his playlist of Zydeco, Swamp Pop, Rhythm ’n Blues and straight up Blues, he didn’t disappoint.

By the time his show is over, I have a good a feel for the charm, history, and pride that animate music that echoes around parishes (counties) in southwest Louisiana.

Zydeco and Cajun music are played all over southwest Louisiana. They have evolved from two distinct cultures. Herman has written that Zydeco emanates from a Creole culture that stretches back nearly 300 years from descendants of slaves, Creoles mixed with Spanish, French or American ancestry, and free people of color. Zydeco became recognized as a distinct genre of music in the 1950s.

Cajun music began to flourish in Louisiana when French speaking people migrated to the bayous in southwestern part of the state in the mid 1700s after being expelled from their homes in Acadiana in Canada by the English.

Zydeco and Cajun each have their own dance styles (that's another story). It can get complicated, yes, but the great thing is the way the musical cultures have borrowed from each other. Listen to Herman’s Zydeco Stomp program and you’ll get a sense of the luscious intermingling of blues, rhythm ‘n blues, swamp pop, with a pinch of Cajun.

"Glad you enjoyed the show. I try to make it fun and informative. Zydeco has always been influenced by mainstream music, especially blues and R&B. So I'm just trying to connect the dots," Herman says in an email.

"Clifton Chenier is heralded as the King of Zydeco and rightfully so. Listen to his music and you'll hear Ray Charles, Fats  Domino, Sam Cooke, Glen Miller and lots of other mainstream pioneers. Some of their songs he simply changed to French and made local hits out of them."

Herman's on-air style is warmly personal, evokes a strong sense of place, and demonstrates a deep understanding of how genres of music are interconnected (Fusilier played local artist Lynn August singing a zydeco-style cover of Bobby Blue Bland's "Lead Me On"...amazing!).

Herman occasionally zips amusing voice overs into the songs in his wide ranging playlist and gives shout outs to listeners emailing into him today from North Dakota to Houston. "Merry Christmas to you, your lovely wife and those two awesome boys of yours," texts one of Herman's listeners. (Herman gave me a shout out at the 2:11 mark on his December 24 show!).

It felt like he set aside three hours to put together a puzzle. Song by song I began to get the picture of the roots of zydeco music, the men who played it, and the way their music influenced other musicians.

Down here, if a man sings or plays an instrument, the chances are his brothers or sons or cousins or uncles are in a band somewhere. Herman plays John Delafos, Geno’s late father; Jude Taylor, Curley Taylor’s dad; Clifton Chenier, C.J. Chenier’s late dad…you get the idea. I’ll bet that the only sense of competition musicians here have is who can have more fun playing.

“Zydeco is the blues and the blues is zydeco,” says Herman, “and it doesn’t have to be played at 900 miles an hour to be good zydeco, Boozoo knew that” as  he cues up “Driftin’ Blues,” by the legendary Boozoo Chavis. I was thrilled. I knew the man’s name but had never heard him sing. Great introduction.

Today, Herman plays several songs as a salute to James Brown, ‘The hardest working man in show business,” who died on Christmas Day 2006. Herman got into JB’s slow drag, “Try Me,” and “Santa’s Got A Brand New Bag,” and a handful of other James Brown classics that demonstrated his enormous versatility and surprising range.

The gem of the afternoon for me was the godfather of soul’s bluesy rendition of “Let’s Make This Christmas Mean Something This Year” - as heartfelt as any carol I’ve ever heard, with a powerful message deserving of wide circulation.

Thank you, Herman, Merry Christmas!

Feufollet: A New Generation of Cajun Music

Festival International de Louisiane: Dispatch 5
Feufollet, A Cajun Band
Saturday evening, April 30, 2011
Festival International de Louisiane
Lafayette, Louisiana


In case you had any worries that Cajun music in Louisiana is nearing the end of its genetic line, look no farther than Feufollet.  The players in this band look barely old enough to vote. They have a young following as ardent as any rock group. You could be at an all ages Jimmy Buffett concert with the way they sing the choruses of Feufollet songs except I don’t believe that Jimmy Buffett fans hop up and down en masse to the beat of his songs. And shout out song requests in French.

Saturday night at the Festival International de Louisiane Heritage Stage, Feufollet took Cajun music into a direction that legendary singer Dewey Balfa might never have predicted. But what Dewey would recognize are the themes about love and life that matter to these kids today and the utter fervor with which they sing. And the lyrics – all in French.

Whoa, what’s this? They’re belting out a version of The Four Tops’ “I’ll Be There”  - in French! The front line makes lots of eye contact and feeds off each other’s energy. They’re fearless. If they love a song, they’ll play it.  These are the kinds of kids who ate their peas but aren’t afraid to try new things.

In the early part of the 20th century, Cajun kids would get a beating if they spoke their native French language in public schools. At the Festival International de Louisiane today, every one of the scores of musical acts is introduced in English and French. The ancestors of the Acadians who settled here from the Canadian provinces flat out refuse to let the language of their forebears be forgotten. It’s a matter of pride and cultural cohesion that spills over into food, dance, and music.

Feufollet’s learning curve hasn’t been limited to traditional music. The front line of guitar, accordion/guitar, fiddle and the electric piano are thrashing the music with power chords they might have heard from their parents’ Led Zeppelin collection.

Some of the songs have a vague gig or two-step feel, nary a waltz in sight, and many of the songs seem better suited to listening (or maybe hopping up and down) than dancing.

Anna Laura Edmiston (guitar), Chris Stafford (guitar) Chris Segura (fiddle), Mike Stafford (drums), Philippe Billeaudeaux (bass),Andrew Toups (electric piano)

The next thing you know, they’re doing a cover of “Lucille,” for god’s sake, driven by the fiddle, accordion, driving bass and funky B3 sounding keyboard, and sung to a fare thee well in French in a two step rhythm. The younger crowd, and a good number of their elders, sings the choruses.

You’d think the older Cajuns would regard this song the way 1950s America viewed Elvis, with incomprehension and derision. Not here. They’re proud that the youngsters are keeping a tight grip on their French heritage.  Two gray-haired men in front of me keep nodding their heads and slapping their knees to the beat of each song. Trust me, this isn’t the same music they heard on stage when they grew up.

Both Cajun and zydeco music are passed down from generation to generation. If you were to start counting the fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, and in-laws who play in each other’s bands you’d need a scorecard. Feufollet bloodlines run something like this.

Chris and Mike Stafford’s grandfather, Howard Ratlif, was the original drummer for Bobby Page & the Riff Raffs, who played New Orleans-styled rock and R&B in the late '50s and early '60s. Steve Riley of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys produced their early albums when they were barely teenagers. Anna Laura Edmiston grew up with French being her first language at home. Chris Segura's great grandfather, Robert Fontenot, was a fiddle player and his great uncles were the Segura Brothers, who were recorded by legendary folk historian Alan Lomax.

The last song in the set blows me away. The best I can do is describe it as a souped-up garage band version of the very traditional Cajun anthem, “Parlez Nous A Boire” … with a crashing thunder final burst, in which the young fiddler fans his instrument close to the amplifier, a la Jimi Hendrix, producing a glorious dissonant blast. The future of one branch of Cajun music is budding right in front of my eyes. 

 

 

Rising Tide 6: Recap and Video

Rising Tide 6: A conference on the future of New Orleans
Xavier University
August 27, 2011

"The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery. It's for everyone who loves New Orleans and is working to bring a better future to all its residents.

Leveraging the power of bloggers and new media, the conference is a launch pad for organization and action. Our day-long program of speakers and presentations is tailored to inform, entertain, enrage and inspire.

We come together to dispel myths, promote facts, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels. We aim to be a "real life" demonstration of internet activism as we continue to recover from a massive failure of government on all levels.

Rising Tide started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of the city when a small group of New Orleans-based bloggers decided to expand their on-line advocacy for the rebirth of New Orleans into a public event.

"

Last year’s program, reported on pt at large, was as advertised – inspiring, provocative, informative. Today’s program is ambitious. For the first time, video of the program is online.

Most of the attendees are already up to their digital elbows in some form of advocacy for the Crescent City. The auditorium was a glow with laptops, iPads, iPhones, flashes from digital cameras, and readouts from the video camera that recorded the entire event. The event is a labor of love. Everyone from event coordinator Kim Marshall to the people handing out nametags is a volunteer.
 
New Orleans history is much like its food and music. It has an astonishing ability to absorb influences from immigrating cultures without ruffling its own unique feathers. Every member of every panel is invested in some way shape or form in the growth and preservation of New Orleans, retaining the traditional, and absorbing the new, with a twist that always puts the stamp of New Orleans upon it.

In order to not reinvent the wheel, check this link with a summary of the day's program written by New Orleans native “Maringouin,” a contributor to NOLAFemmes, a group blog comprised of women who live, love and work in and around the New Orleans area.

Rising Tide 6 had an ambitious schedule:
In general, the day felt like trying to drink from a fire hose. Let's take Richard Campanella, who jump started the morning presenting “how new Orleanians came to perceive, delineate, name––and argue about––the neighborhoods of their city.”

Campanella raced through an extraordinarily rich analysis of the creation of neighborhoods, the layout of the city from the 1700s to the present day, in a wonderfully kaleidoscopic web, focusing his lens on municipalities, wards, ethnicity/race, planning districts census tracts, official city designations, historic districts churches/schools, landmarks, planning districts, and neighborhoods.

All of this with a well chosen collection of visuals, maps, graphs, charts, and photographs that managed to stay focused like a laser beam on his subject. Campanella is clearly passionate and steeped in the knowledge of about 20 years of study.

To understand what makes New Orleans so divinely complicated it’s important to have some working knowledge of how it has been developed and the people who were driving forces in that development.

This was a fabulous presentation. Overwhelming in a good sort of way, the way that makes me want open Campanella’s Bienville’s Dilemma or ask the locals I meet lots of questions on my next visit.

One of Campanella's best comments of the day: “accept the possibility of multiple truths.” When considering New Orleans, that’s the best operating principle.

The video of Campanella’s keynote speech is right here!

The second keynote speaker of the day was David Simon, creator of the TV show  “The Wire, ” among others. His series “Tremé” is now in its second season.

The takeaway:
The main thrust of his hour long talk was the notion of “standing,” in particular by using the standard of ad hominem, to reduce somebody else’s voice when they don’t like the message…arguing not against the content but against the person.” When Treme was first proposed, some doubted Simon had the background to tell the story with authenticity. The “ad hominem” argument went something like, “who is he to write something about New Orleans, he doesn’t even live here.”

“Standing is the lamest way of reducing genuine debate and discussion in our politics, our culture, our society,” he said. He’s seen this since his days as a reporter in Baltimore. “Your job is to ask stupid questions. You walk into any story as a person who doesn’t know enough. Did you do your homework? Are you genuinely curious? Are you speaking facts that you know to be facts? That’s it. That’s the only standard I require.” Simon spent the rest of the hour refining this argument with examples related to  writing and producing the multi stranded series Tremé. Fascinating stuff.

Re-Capping The Well: the BP Deepwater Horizon well blow-out:
Panel: Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade; David Hammer, award-winning reporter for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans; Dr. Len Bahr,  former director of the Governor's Applied Coastal Science Program; Drake Toulouse, BP and Gulf Coast Claims Facility critic; Bob Marshall,  The Times-Picayune's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

The takeaway:
The overwhelming sentiment from the panel is that change from legislators in Louisiana and Washington is unlikely since well-embedded American Petroleum Industry calls the shots. The second sentiment, spoken most persuasively by Bob Marshal is that voters in southern Louisiana are unlikely to press for significant change in the way drilling is conducted if it affects their jobs.

“It’s ironic that Republican president Richard Nixon ushered through the Clean Water Act and the EPA and now Republicans are attempting to dismantle the agencies. Can’t we be pro-gun and pro-environment? A cleaner environment would lead to better hunting and better fishing.” Marshall commented to me as the panel left the stage.

Social Media, Social Justice Panel:
Panelists: Jordan Flaherty, award winning reporter from the Gulf Coast; Mary Joyce, digital activist; Jimmy Huck, Jr, professor at Tulane University; Stephen Ostertag, sociologist at Tulane University currently researching the growing social organization of bloggers and its implications for the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and information.

The takeaway:
Jordan Flaherty says that Al Jazeera and Democracy Now have no corporate sponsors and more freedom to write with more objectivity.  Steven Ostertag, sociologist at Tulane University, said newspapers nowadays have no resources to write narratives about neighborhoods or prisons, or hospitals outside the corporate model. Ostertag and Huck agreed that’s where Facebook and Twitter come into the picture.  Ostertag said the worst thing is to be paralyzed. He suggested taking initial small steps. “Like something on Facebook, visit a web page, write an email, bring water to a meeting but DO something."

New Orleans Food - Continuity and Change Panel
Panelists: Food columnists Rene Louapre, freelance writer Todd Price, chef/owners Chris DeBarr and Adopho Garcia, and gourmet food truck owner/chef Alex del Castillo got into a spirited debate about New Orleans food.

The takeaway:
No city can become a great food city without the influence of “new blood” who take in tradition and are not afraid to add their own spin on it. Before Katrina, New Orleans was insular, after Katrina food culture has expanded. New Orleans chefs respect tradition but are fearless when it comes to tinkering with it or setting it on its ear.
Young people who move here are on a mission to contribute to the city and can make a difference in reshaping the city.
Chefs who come here give up opportunities to cook in more prestigious cities - never mind that a New Orleans chef hasn't been featured on "America's Top Chefs".
For New Orleanians, preparing and eating food is part of family tradition and civic pride.

Brass. New Orleans. Music.
Writer Deborah Cotton, “Big Red Cotton,” gets stories from Band Director of Roots of Music; Alejandro de los Rios, producer of the Brass Roots documentary and three members of the TBC Brass Band

The takeaway:
Mentorship is the key to bringing up the next generation of young musicians. Being involved in music programs keeps kids off the streets, teaches them a skill they can use to make a living, and offers them structure they can't get anywhere else. Lawrence Rawlins’ Roots of Music program is a perfect example of this and the city of New Orleans benefits from having the music tradition taught and moved forward. The three young musicians from TBC Brass Band testified in words and music how the program is succeeding.

The panels dealing with Re-Capping The Well; Social Media, Social Justice; The New Orleans Food – Continuity and Change; Brass Bands, New Orleans Music were filled with people who know what they’re talking about, who have standing not just because they live here but because they are honest, straight shooters, and are activists in the way they connect with the public, whether through advocating for justice and equity, or exposing fraud and corporate and political malfeasance, or describing the cultures of music and food.They are all part of the evolving culture of post-Katrina New Orleans.

I would jump at the chance to have a beer with any of the men or women who presented today. If you watch the videos, you'll have a great crash course in New Orleans history, food, music, economy, politics, social fabric, and state of mind.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Xavier University campus; Vendors setting up in hopes of selling books about every possible Louisiana and New Orleans subject from wetlands to history to culture to popular anthology, and vendors selling jewelry, earrings, bracelets, T-shirts, fragrant herbal soaps, and tables full of materials having to do with organizations that are represented here today.

Kim Marshall convenes Rising Tide 6; The TBC Brass Band serenades the audience, an exclamation mark to conclude Rising Tide 6.

pt finally meets Deborah Cotton, with whom he's had email contact for two years, in person. Ms. Cotton colorfully chronicles second line parades, brass bands, and the men (mostly) who begin them and keep the tradition alive.

Reggie Smith, New Orleans Music With An Alabama Accent

Reggie Smith, Tenor sax, New Orleans Music With An Alabama Accent
Corner of Royal and Saint Peter Street
French Quarter, New Orleans
Friday, August 26, 2011

Hang on, there’s something familiar about the wail of that saxophone. Sure enough, in front of Rouse’s at the corner of Royal and St. Peter Street, there's the sax player who fronted the street band I got inspired to write about during Satchmo Summerfest.

Actually, fronted is too tepid a word. This guy pranced, danced, sang, chanted, bantered with the passersby, and played up a storm of funk, rock, gospel, and pop with a distinctly New Orleans accent.

Today, in an electric blue shirt, plaid shorts, and his dreads sticking out from his white band hat with the Cool Bone Jazz insignia, he is more subdued in manner but certainly not in the energy he's putting in his music. I’ve dropped some folding money in his sax case so when he takes a breather, I feel like it’s ok to ask him a few questions. And I continue my learning curve about the life of street musicians.

Reggie Smith, in his late 20s, came here from Alabama two months ago and hasn't left yet. It started in a typical New Orleans fashion.

“I asked if I could sit in with one of the street groups, they said yes, and I got my start. The way it works is that they ask you to wait till they start the next set, divide the tips before I begin the next set with them, then divide the tips again after I've played with them.”

Playing on the street is usually an ad hoc adventure. Few of these gigs are regularly scheduled events and very few of the musicians lead regularly scheduled lives.

“This is how I network here. Sometimes another musician asks for my name and calls me when he has a gig I can work on. If I get a gig and I need a musician, I call one of the guys I know. You've got to love working out in the street or it would be real hard. Some guys look down on playing in the street but not me. I love being out here and starting a party.” Sweat is dripping from the short beard on his chin. It's about 90° in the shade.

 

He begins to play again. The guy could start a party in a morgue. Reggie is playing just about anything that comes into his mind. I hear him rumble out the theme from the old Peter Gunn TV show, then a few shreds of Richie Valens' "La Bamba", and a slow dirge of  "St. James infirmary". Folding money is piling up in his sax case but I doubt it's enough to pay for a serious buy at a supermarket.

Then Reggie gets going on “Just My Imagination,” the Smokey Robinson song with all sorts of trills and flourishes. He could just as easily be on his back porch trying all this stuff out, it's almost like an open rehearsal, with a live audience who happen to be the regulars and the tourists traveling through this busy intersection. Somewhere in his own mind, Reggie’s on a stage.

All these flourishes and imaginings are a form of practice. He took Robinson’s “Just My Imagination” and turned it upside down and inside out and boy was it fun listening to it. You can take it to the bank that some of those wild improvisations will get honed down and played next time he is on stage or on a street corner.

I chat him up again during his next breather. He grins when say that I wrote a story about his “Let’s have a party” attitude when he played with his bunch of street musicians on August 4.

“In Alabama, I grew up in a gospel tradition. I learned jazz in school. When I hear New Orleans music I hear lots of those elements in it. If you want to learn New Orleans music, you buy a Louis Armstrong CD and learn how to play those songs. I know lots of guys who have memorized those songs and can play them just like Louis,” he says.

“When you're playing on the street, you know how well you're doing by the tips that are rolling in. I like to get people involved, get out there and throw a little street party. If we get into a riff that gets the crowd going, we remember what that was. Next time we get together, I might say let's do that Wednesday riff and they'll all remember and play it and we get the crowd going again. If we get into a groove and people aren't moving and involved, we start playing something else.”

His time as his own, he'll quit when he feels like it or if he has another gig or if he feels like setting up someplace else - people or no people, tips or no tips. Guys like this can no more stop playing than they can stop breathing. He's performing in his own world, bobbing and weaving, playing whatever comes to mind, now is playing the theme to a TV show I can't identify, every so often blowing through the reed to make sounds that would scare a raccoon or perhaps romance it. I’m about ten yards away, scribbling notes on my pad that’s perched on lid of a trash bin and feel like I’m in a concert hall.

Wander around the French Quarter and you can fill your day listening to mini-concerts from street corners to Jackson Square - blues, jazz, gospel, brass bands - no cover, no minimum, but be sure you have folding money in your pocket and liberally drop it into the tip jars.

There's a lot of energy in French Quarter street music. And it’s not just for the tourists. This is birthright music, music that honors the legacy of Louis Armstrong, the kid who used to sell coal from a cart near this neighborhood, who learned how to play the cornet at a reform school, and later reformed the entire genre of jazz. If you listen hard enough, you’ll hear riffs that resemble the music played in the brothels and saloons on Basin Street and the neighborhoods around the port of New Orleans.

You’ll also hear how New Orleans is not too proud to add to its legacy. Musicians hear a lick a guy like Reggie Smith brings from his upbringing in Alabama and bam, it gets absorbed with a New Orleans accent, and is echoed on other corners throughout the French Quarter.

“I'll give you my cell number in case you want to ask any more questions,” Reggie says.

This is the way it is down here - open, friendly, engaging, a real southern thing. If I feel like throwing a block party the next time I come to New Orleans, Reggie’d be the first guy I’d call.

Photo and video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Valley of Silent Men Second Line Parade

The Valley Of Silent Men Social Aid and Pleasure Club 26th anniversary Second Line Parade

August 28, 2011
 
Trying to capture the energy of a Second Line parade it's is like trying to hold water in your hands. Try explaining the sensation of a sneeze, or an orgasm, or a fabulous surprise, and you’ll get the idea. None of it would happen without the band, in this case the Young Fellas Brass Band and the social aid and pleasure clubs that support it and the people who come to join it from all over the city, or stand on their porches to watch it, or set up their chairs on the sidewalk, or on the neutral ground (that’s the narrow strip of land in the middle of a wide New Orleans street – when I first read about a neutral ground, I thought it meant some kind of social truce zone!), or follow along for a block or two. When you think of the parade up North, you think of an event that you watch in a stationary position, cheer when it goes by, then go home.
 
Well, that is not the model down here. There is no way you can be in the vicinity of a second line parade and not get involved in it some way, for example, if you walk along, before you know it, you’re walking in time with the thump thump bump and blare of the band. And you're talking to people you've never seen before and may never see again. Actually talking might not be the right word. Joking, joshing, adding your own comments to the joking and high times going on around you is more like it. Everybody around you is yelling, cheering, poking good-natured fun at someone, or getting good natured fun poked at them, and returning it with interest.

 

Video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Valley of Silent Men Second Line Parade

 

August 28, 2011

New Orleans, Louisiana

Jackson Square: Two Minutes of Fun

Jackson Square
New Orleans, Louisiana
Friday, August 26, 2011

The four sides of Jackson Square in New Orleans are filled with locals and tourists, commerce and culture. People come down here to stroll, to chill, to visit the two museums in the Cabildo (part of Louisiana State Museum), to step into the stately St. Louis Cathedral,the oldest cathedral in North America), to walk through the lush green Jackson Square park.

A never ending procession of friends, families, and lovers swirls with seamless ease around  entertainers and artists who make a living here. The square is surrounded on its perimeter by all manner of shops geared to the tourist trade. The park and the area in front of St. Louis Cathedral are great places to sit and relax. If you stay still long enough, you can feel the pulse of the city.

The video: A three minute promenade from one side of Jackson Square to the other in front of St. Louis Cathedral on a typical Friday afternoon - street performers, artists, palm readers, tarot card readers, musicians, and Lo and Behold, inimitable trumpeter Kenny Terry fronting the Young Fellas Brass Band. This guy can get a party going anywhere with his riffs on his well traveled trumpet and his rough and ready singing voice. 

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

       

 

Reggie Smith: Musician, Street Performer in the French Quarter

French Quarter
Royal and St.Peter Streets
New Orleans, Louisiana
August 26, 2011

Last time I saw this man he was fronting a band on the same corner. He filled the street with so much energy I was inspired to break out my note pad and write a story on the spot.

Today, here he is playing solo on the same corner. I chat with him between songs. Reggie Smith's story to follow but I cant resist sending you this little video to give you a taste of Smith-style street music in the French Quarter.

Check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOqRJ1Auozw

Photo and video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Fiorella's Café: Sublime Southern Fried Chicken

Fiorella's Cafe
French Quarter
1136 Decatur St
New Orleans, LA 70116

As they say in cards, you have to know when to hold’em and when to fold’em. If I were to base my hand on the floor that felt like tarpaper and on the men’s room that was of the caliber of a dive, I would have folded my cards and left Fiorella’s before you could say Big Easy.

My friend Bill Ives, a New Orleans native, has raved about the fried chicken at Fiorella's Café. Bill is a guy who takes food seriously. I’m hopeful there’s no connection between the floor that’s stickier than the one at the Maple Leaf Bar and what's going to come out of the kitchen.

The small place has it’s own charm. Lots of kitschy artwork and a faded photo of the Fiorella matriarch adorn the walls, one of which takes a halfhearted stab at the distressed look. The place is definitely not trying too hard. Ten tables, an assortment of deuces and fours, and a four-stool service bar, it’s spare and pleasantly funky. 

It’s the kind of unpretentious place that wraps itself around you like so many others in this city - the only attitude in here is friendly and laid-back. The door to the street is wide open so the 90° late afternoon heat mixes with the overpowered air conditioning and aromas of fried chicken float around under the two ceiling fans. The chicken smells divine.

After about ten minutes, what appears on my plate is what Bill promised. The golden, crusty-crispy batter is so thick it captures the intense heat of the chicken legs and breast that had just been pulled from the fryer. The first bite into a leg burns the roof of my mouth. 

A prudent diner would wait for it to cool. I keep eating. The texture of the batter feels thick in my hands – is there any other way to eat fried chicken? I saved the breast, a hefty piece loaded with white meat, for last. By the time I'm done, I'm behaving like some lobster lovers of my acquaintance, picking up every piece of leftover, gnawing off the batter the way they look for little shreds of lobster meat in parts strewn about their plate.

So this is what real Southern fried chicken tastes like. Served with red beans and rice, it's about as Southern a meal you can get. I notice I am sucking the morsels of batter off my fingers before I wipe them with my napkin.

Thank you, Bill.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. 



 
 

Candlelight Lounge, New Orleans: Musicians and Characters

Seva Venet and Mike Beauchamp, a banjo, a saxophone, and two stories
The Candlelight Lounge
925 North Robertson
New Orleans, LA
August 3, 2011

You never know who the full cast of characters is going to be when the Tremé Brass Band gets going at the Candlelight Lounge. You know that co-founders Benny Jones, Sr., rock steady presence on the snare drums, and legendary bass drum player Lionel Batiste, will anchor the back row, and that irrepressible trumpeter Kenny Terry, trombone player Ed King, and a few other regulars are going to show up. What you don’t know are the wild cards, the guys who founders Benny or Lionel Batiste have invited to sit in.

Sometimes the regulars don’t even know the names of the men who share the bandstand with them. Which is exactly what I learned at the first break when I asked Ed King to name the men who were playing tonight. Ed named the regulars then grabbed the banjo player to help him name the others.

This never fails to amaze me. And it happens all he time down here, in pickup groups of street bands and regular gigs like the Candlelight. Musicians show up, they play, they get paid (not much), and they go home or to another gig. They get to know each other by how they play together.

Banjo player Seva Venet, who shows up to play every two weeks or so, names a few others. Ben Julius McKee, “Call me Jap, and don’t confuse me with a Jewish American Princess!” tuba player Ben Julius jokes as he listens to Seva.

Like other musicians, Seva has another job to keep the cash flowing. “I’m the resident musician at Wilson Elementary School. I use creole music to teach history in a program called KidSmart. My trio is playing at the Jazz National Park on North Peters Street on August 27, come down if you can.”

Photo below: Mike Beauchamp, baritone sax on left, Seva Venet on banjo in second row

I am in for a bigger surprise when I start talking with the baritone sax player, a middle aged, casually dressed man with a salt and pepper beard and a cap with a New Orleans Saints logo perched on his head. I ask him for his name and get a great story.

“I was working at my flower stall at Aududon Park one day and the Tremé Brass Band set up right in front of my stall. A crew was filming them and while they did, they started talking to me. When I mentioned I was a musician, too, Lionel Batiste invited me to sit in here every other week.” This is such a typical New Orleans six degrees of separation story.

Mike Beauchamp performs as a pharmacist in his day job at Tulane University.  “After hours, I’m an urban farmer, I work with a group called Perennial Plate,” Mike says, “I like to stick close to nature.” Growing flowers at Audubon Park does the trick.

“But I’ll tell you, coming here every other week is like therapy for me. There’s so much energy here.”

When I get back to my hotel, lo and behold, I find these links to The Perennial Plate, brassrootsmovie.com, the group who filmed the Tremé Brass Band, and even one from the Huffington Post.

Check these videos out for a good look at Mike Beauchamp, pharmacist, urban farmer, musician, and flower child in a gray beard. When he gets going on his baritone sax, Mike puts every bit of love into his solos as he puts into his flowers at the park.

I can’t wait to return to the Candlelight. The stories the musicians tell are about as good as the music they play.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello,Jr.

Satchmo Summerfest: Satchmo Strut - Frenchmen Street Vibe

The Satchmo Strut

A sort of open house on Frenchmen Street on the Friday night of Satchmo Summerfest
August 4, 2011

Getting into a conversation with a perfect stranger in New Orleans is as easy as finding a place to order a fried shrimp po’ boy.

“Who are those guys?”  I ask a man across the street from the Blue Nile on Frenchmen Street. A brass band is wailing on the music emporium’s second floor balcony. The Friday night Satchmo Strut is in full gear, a regular feature of the annual Satchmo Summerfest.

“The Hot 8 Brass Band is playing inside on the first floor but I don’t know who those guys on the balcony are,” he says.

“They’re The Young Fellas Brass Band,” I report to him after a quick walk across the street.

“What makes this city special?” I ask.

Next thing you know, I’m in a thirty minute conversation with James Fulton, who’s set up camp chairs on the sidewalk for him and his wife Greta to watch the thousands of revelers eating, drinking, and making merry on Frenchmen Street.

“Down here people don’t care about the size of your wallet or clothes you wear or cars you drive, they want to know who you are. Maybe it’s a southern thing.”

So for the next thirty minutes we do just that, covering family, parenting, our professions, things that go right in life, and things that don’t. From time to time, we stop to absorb the energy of a brass band blaring its way down the narrow street, watch people jubilantly join in second line parades behind the bands, and chat with passersby.

James and Greta grew up in the projects in New Orleans, mean places that many did not emerge from unscathed. James made his way up from laborer to construction manager. “We’re not rich but we’re comfortable,” he says.

Married, their kids live on the east bank and the west bank. They live in Madisonville, across Lake Ponchartrain. “We come to Frenchmen Street twice a month, there’s such a good vibe here. My wife loves reggae so we go to the Café Negril a lot.”

James loves playing with his ten year old grandson, spending time with him that he wishes he also spent with his own sons when they were growing up, a familiar refrain from men who’ve had to work hard for every advantage they could get.

“We spend four days here during Mardi Gras, stay with our kids or with friends and don’t go home till Fat Tuesday is done.”

I turn around and see a young couple sitting in the Fulton’s camp chairs.

“You know them?”  I ask.

“No,” he grins. Greta says hello to the couple and lets them sit there while two white women they met there earlier (total strangers) come back to take her someplace up the street they thought was cool.

“That happens sometimes. People see the empty camp chairs, have a seat, maybe even drink a beer from your cooler but no harm. When you come back you just say hello and tell them they’re in your chairs. They say thank you and get up."

This is such a perfect anecdote to characterize the vibe down here. “We set our chairs down and sometimes don’t come back for a couple of hours. The chairs are always where we left them.”

James is getting warmed up on the subject. “At Jazz Fest, we pencil in who we want to see, then we go to Walgreens, buy eight $4 chairs and get to the gate at 10AM when Jazz Fest opens. We put them in the front row of the stages we want, then go from stage to stage all day long. If someone is in our chairs, we tell them it’s ours and they smile and get up.”

“You ever been to a second line?”James asks as The Young Fellas Brass Band swaggers past us, followed by a shim-shamming, hip-shaking band of second liners.
 
"During every second line, there are people out there watching the musicians, young kids who want to play, they watch your moves what you wear, how you hit your notes, how you keep time with the music. These kids who can play want to take your job. One of them or their friends might get into the ear of a band member about your lapses to try to get your job.”

“The same thing happens with the social aid and pleasure clubs,” he says. They try to outdo each other, watch what they wear, how they style their dance, then try to best you.”

“One of the ways musicians make money is to play for Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, those are the places where the band stops during a second line parade,” he says, and adds wistfully, “We don’t support our musicians well enough.”

“This street is where the locals come to hang out,” James says. Then he  rolls off the names of the Rock N Bowl, Vaughn’s, and a few other places he thinks I’d like to hear music.

We start to head off in different directions. “There are still some very rough parts of the city. We grew up in two of them,” he says. And he tells me which streets, “safe streets” he calls them, to use on my walk back to the French Quarter.

To me, this feels like another day in The Big Easy, special and ordinary all in the same breath.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello,Jr.

New Orleans: 17th Annual Whitney White Linen Night

17th Annual Whitney White Linen Night
August 6, 2011
Julia Street
New Orleans, Louisiana


People who run the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans are no slackers. In the fire pit known as the month of August, they come up with a fundraiser to lure New Orleanians out and onto the streets to celebrate a three-hour, six-block long party along the artsiest strip of real estate in town – Julia Street.

All the organizers had to do was get the words White Linen in the title of the event and they got the attention of the locals.  Before we trumped Mother Nature with the invention of air conditioning, white linen was the defense of choice to ward off the rays of the sun for people who could afford it. The white suits and dresses did not absorb the sun’s heat. They not only looked pretty cool, but were pretty effective reflectors of the intense sun.

People down here value tradition and history. They’re altogether willing to dress up in white to relive the genteel feel of the olden times. And practically nowhere on earth do people have promenading down to a social science more than they do in New Orleans.

A person could go snow blind from all the yardage of white linen, cotton, and silk attire. Aside from Aspen, I’ve never seen as much white in one place in my life.

 Julia Street is sealed off, concession stands selling food and beverages and tables and chairs (white, of course) line a long strip from the 300 block to the 700 block. Thousands of partiers purchase strips of tickets to exchange for food and drink. Paper fans are being given away in galleries. Thousands of women and men (yes) idly fan themselves with one hand while cradling an icy beverage in the other.

Note to self: next year, ask if the lemonade is alcohol enhanced. My powers of observation briefly waned after I chugged a glass of Ginger Mint Lemonade. The bartender didn’t mention the Absolut part.

No one mentions the eighty-degree heat and sweltering humidity. To them, it would be sort of like saying hey it’s pretty dark tonight isn’t it? Perspiration glistens on faces of all colors and distractingly on women’s décolletage.

The laughter that punctuates the air neutralizes the fact that my white shirt and white trousers are sticking to my skin. A different band plays from a makeshift stage every few blocks. Every art gallery on the street is open. Strollers file in and out of dozens of trendy art galleries.

As far as I can tell, the fact that there’s some sensational art on the walls isn’t the main draw. Promenaders file in because it’s like a carnival midway and no one wants to miss anything.  Plus the galleries are filled with walking, talking installations called human beings that are easily as interesting to gawk at as the art on the walls.

The food vendors are doing a brisk business but the lines for the beverage vendors suggests they’re giving drinks away for free – they’re not. Nothing like an infusion of a cool alcoholic beverage to help you forget about your upcoming dry cleaning bill.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

MORE PHOTOS

 

Most of the gallery hoppers didn't appear as dilgent as this young lady. The people watching was as good a show as the art on display.
 

Two performance artists handed out tongue in cheek placards in front of one of the galleries. The adventurous toted them around all night long.

Revisiting The KIPP McDonogh 15 School for the Creative Arts in New Orleans

In New Orleans for the 11th Annual Satchmo Summerfest, I can’t resist a quick visit to the KIPP McDonogh15 Charter School for the Arts, about which I wrote a series of stories last August.  http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/new-orleans-charter-schools-and-recovery-part-4.html

The school is part of a massive Recovery School District program begun by the Louisiana State Legislature in 2003 to take over failing schools. The public school system was so riddled with ineptitude and corruption, the Legislature voted to fire all 7500 teachers and employees in the Orleans School District shortly after Katrina.

The Orleans Parish schools are now part of the Recovery School District. The new schools are now publicly funded schools run by for-profit or nonprofit groups that operate by a "charter," or contract. "KIPP is a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success for college and for life."

There’s nothing like the hum of a school in the week before school officially begins. The emotional range between tension, anticipation, and excitement is palpable. Hope is in the air. Hope for a successful year, hope for creating an environment in which learning flourishes, character is formed, and ideals forged.

Less obvious but present is a layer of apprehension as parents, teachers, students and administrators wonder: how will the year go?

I’m looking for April Griffith, Business Operations Manager of the K - 5 school, who gave me an informal tour last August. Cartons of supplies are piled high on spotless linoleum floors. Small groups of teachers are huddled around desks in classrooms discussing curriculum, strategy, supplies, first week activities.

Parent volunteers sell Tshirts and answer questions at a table in the hallway.

 "Is this your daughter? She's so pretty. How did you get her hair to look like that," says the grandmotherly woman to the young mother who's been nervously waiting for her daughter to finish being assessed by reading teacher.

"She's lost a little during the summer but she'll be fine," says the teacher as she walks out of the classroom with the girl.

Young teachers stand back and fuss with the arrangement of cutout letters proclaiming themes and school goals creating a space that says welcome, you belong here, we want you here. Messages of school themes pop up on every wall and stairway, a visual reminder of what the school is all about. Whether they become wallpaper or themes to live by will become clear as the weeks go by.

The sound of “I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” ring out from the classroom at the end of the hall. “That’s pretty good motivational music,” I say to the young man working on the bulletin board outside the door. Probably every New Orleanian has heard that song.

“I use music to help me teach,” he says. “I made a cleaned up version of that song and I call it “We’re Gonna Clean It Up.“

“I’ve lived in New Orleans for a month and half. I love it here.” No cut out letters for him.  A pack of fresh magic markers on the ladder behind him, he’s busy drawing a huge picture that’s going to be his personal proclamation to his very first class of kindergarteners.

For some reason, I feel like weighing in. “I taught ten year olds for 34 years.  Know your stuff, follow whatever rules you set up, and love your kids,” I say.

I could have recited a way longer list but this would do as a cheer from the sidelines. If he’s lucky, and has good mentors, and a strong sense of self and purpose, he’ll make it.

New Orleans schools were crumbling and the system was an abysmal failure before Katrina. It remains to be seen if Charter Schools staffed by young, relatively inexperienced teachers, can make a dent in  illiteracy and inequity of education.

The clock is ticking. In one week, these fledgling teachers will put their minds and hearts to the test. It’s not a stretch to say that New Orleans’s future is on the line.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

 


KIPP McDonogh's ideals will be put to the test.

Satchmo Summerfest: Satchmo Strut - Frenchmen Street

The Satchmo Strut
Friday, August 5, 2011
6 PM to 2AM
All along Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny Neighborhood

The Dancing Man leads The Free Agents Brass Band down Frenchmen Street and the Sweet Street Symphony leads a concert further up the street.

Ed King of the Treme Brass Band wails on his trombone - in Michael's Bike Shop! He'd gone inside to find a new seat for his bike after playing for the Strut with the band. They recognized him and begged him to play - he did, and sang a few verses to boot.

The crowd wanders down the street; pt with Treme Brass Band founder and leader, Benny Jones, Sr. "We're playing at 3 PM tomorrow," he reminded me, "Don't miss it!"
 

We can hear the jubilant Glen David Andrews from inside the Three Muses - and feel the Free Agents Brass Band as they serenade at a stop along the street.
 
 

The Young Fellas Brass Band funks it up from the balcony of The Blue Nile - pt with dancers from Florida he met at The Rock n Bowl Mid-City Lanes the night before.
 

James and Greta Fulton - James regaled me with stories, gave me pointers about the city and listed his favorite  spots for listening to music in New Orleans. He and Greta are reasons this city is special - friendly, engaging people who want to share the story of the city with strangers who, in an hour, feel like they've met a new friend.

Satchmo Summerfest preview: Street Musicians in the French Quarter

Corner of Royal and St. Peter Street
French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
3 PM
August 4, 2011

Other parts of the country might have pollen or smog in the air. In New Orleans, especially in the French Quarter, it's music.

You can hardly go anywhere in the French Quarter without music breaking out somewhere.  Might drift down from a window behind a Spanish style wrought iron balcony or a passing vehicle. 

Then there are the street musicians. (Video link) You can damn well hear them three blocks away, god love 'em, and you start to walk toward the sounds like a moth to the flame, except with way better results that burn you up with lighthearted joy and insouciance. 

You’ll stay anchored across the street from them and start moving your feet and shaking whatever body parts begin to move  of their own accord until you render yourself entirely late for wherever you were planning to go. What the hell, you’re in New Orleans... may as well get on New Orleans time.

These guys would be an ordinary looking bunch of men if you happened to see them on a streetcar or sitting in a diner. Put tubas, percussion, trumpets and a saxophone in their hands and they become street artists who can turn your day around.

They set up on a street corner with nary a soul in sight and before long they create an audience. The musicians might be young, old, black, white, scruffy or dressed outlandishly or to the nines. The Ghostriders, if the CD on the street next to the tip jar is an indication of their identity, are all but the last.

These men might not have two nickels to rub together, but you’d never know it by their music. Playing music is like breathing to them, no choice in the matter, they do it to survive and to feel alive and free and untethered from cares that would probably sink the rest of us.

The sax player sings, hollers, and does a second line ballet routine improvised on the spot. He serenades unsuspecting tourists who walk down Royal or St. Peter Street.  Watching a couple from Denmark or Ohio try to fathom what’s going on and how they react is a great part of the show.

So we put folding money in their tip jars. It’s not enough to pay for what they give us, a buoyancy that lifts us away from our own cares and makes us feel happy. Really really happy.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello,Jr.

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MORE PHOTOS...
 

The folks back home will be entertained by what they see. Millions of pixels a day are used up recording the antics and harmonies the street musicians of New Orleans create.