pt at large

Geno Delafose at The Rock 'n' Bowl, New Orleans

Mid City Lanes Rock 'n' Bowl
3016 S. Carrollton Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118
Geno  Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie
9:00 PM to ?
December 29, 2010

Any dance night at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl is good. Geno Delafose and the French Rockin’ Boogie on stage two nights before New Year’s Eve is downright splendid.
http://genodelafose.net/

The iconic place on South Carrollton is packed – this is the only place in the known universe in which, if you stand in just the right spot, you can hear live zydeco, Cajun, swamp pop or swing music on one side and small thunderclaps of ten pins being crashed into by a massive bowling ball speeding down a perfectly smooth bowling alley on the other. Only in New Orleans would “Laissez les bon temps roulez” include bowling balls in the “roulez” part.

A few hardy bowlers are intent on their game tonight but the big action is on the expansive oak floor in the middle of the place. Dancers from every corner of America have come to New Orleans to celebrate New Year’s Eve (I meet women from Seattle to Boston). This being Louisiana, the celebration begins several days early.

Grammy nominated Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie play non-stop. The tidal ebb and flow on the dance floor lasts two minutes. Dancers glow with the joy of partnering up to channel the music.

The band plays the customary blend of sturdy zydeco with the driving back beat, waltzes, and fabulous bluesy songs that, with the right partner, can make a pair of dancers feel like Fred and Ginger at extremely close quarters. I doubt Fred and Ginger perspired as much and I’m just about positive they didn’t have as much fun.

The Rock 'n' Bowl is a fine place to end a year, begin a year, or celebrate anything in between.

 

Geno and the band always have fun.

  

So does everyone else. A view of the stage and dance floor from the bar (R).

  

A few hardy bowlers - the bowling lanes are in the background of photo on right).

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

KBON "Louisiana Proud": The Voice of the Prairie

KBON 101.1 FM
"Louisiana Proud" Radio
109 South 2nd Street
Eunice, LA 70535
Phone (337) 546-0007
December 3, 2010

On my last visit to Louisiana, I drove to Eunice to make a pilgrimage to the place that plays the most satisfyingly eclectic collection of recordings -  blues, oldies, swamp pop, country, classic country, Cajun, and zydeco - I've ever heard on one radio station. Now I can picture the broadcast booth every time I tune in online as a subscriber to KBON FM.
One of my ambitions is to announce the top of the hour KBON radio tag, "Louisiana Proud KBON 101.1 FM, Mamou, Eunice, Ville Platte, Opelousas, Lafayette, et...Tous Le Monde!" Listen to the cheerful energy owner and founder Paul Marx puts into that five second FCC required announcement and you'll get a sense of the station's  joie de vivre.

I’ve had a hankering to see the inside of KBON FM ever since its low power southwest Louisiana signal lit up the radio dial on my first trip to Louisiana in 2008. That and the fact that I nearly drove into the Atchafalaya Basin listening to the first few minutes of the most amazingly eclectic collection of recordings I’d ever heard – blues, oldies, swamp pop, country, classic country, and of course, Cajun, and zydeco – being broadcast from someplace called Eunice, Louisiana.

I’d had to restrain myself from jamming on the brakes on I-10 and jumping out of the car to dance in the breakdown lane with my traveling companion, a Baton Rouge native who was wet nursed on this music and would have needed no prompting whatsoever to embrace me as we waltzed around the rental car with 18 wheelers whooshing by at 75 mph.

KBON is the kind of down-home station that daily announces birthdays and anniversaries listeners have sent in.  You won’t hear advertising from chain stores, but if you need a chain saw repaired you’re sure to find out where to get it done somewhere in the range of KBON’s studio on 109 South 2nd Street in Eunice.

Ten years ago, Paul Marx was vexed because he knew that local musicians and music weren''t getting enough air play and worse, weren't getting the respect he knew they deserved. He founded KBON. The  “Louisiana Proud” radio station promotes the rich culture and heritage of southwest Louisiana every day of the year.

Don't be surprised to hear the DJ's and guests occasionally break out in Cajun French. Owner and founder Paul Marx does his whole Friday 6 AM to noon show “en Francais!” Louisiana music and musicians are 85% of the weekly programming. And it rocks, Cajun style.

I’ve spent hours listening to KBON’s disc jockeys on a streaming Internet connection. When I arrive at 102 South 2nd Street at 3 PM Friday afternoon, there is “Gumbo” Phil Daigle in the broadcast booth a few feet away from the station’s entrance.

Daigle sees me and waves. A few minutes later, having cued up a couple of songs, he pops up from his chair, hand extended in greeting.

“Hey, how you doing. Just about everyone else at the station is on our big weekend cruise," Daigle says. Sure enough, the place looks deserted, no one at the receptionist's desk, the lights off in a conference room to my left.

“I’m from Boston and a subscriber to KBON. I listen to you guys online all the time and have been dying to see where it all comes from,” I say as I shake his hand.

Southern hospitality kicks in. "I’m on my own here but let me show you around,” Daigle says

 “Just about every musician who’s been here has signed their name on the wall,” Phil says as he gives me a three-minute tour between songs. Hundreds of names, greetings and testimonials cover the station's  light green hallway walls.

Phil retreats to the broadcast booth. I absorb the energy of this “little station that could.” Its 25,000 watts of power reaches up to Alexandria to the north, Abbeville to the south, Butte LaRose to the east, and Lacassine to the west.

This is the second landmark I’ve visited in Eunice that exudes such an authentic sense of place, the first being the Cajun Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Everyone I’ve listened to at KBON has encyclopedic knowledge of music. They don’t just know it, they love it. And there’s nothing fake about every disc jockey’s southwest Louisiana accent. If you’re an armchair traveler wanting a slice of Louisiana culture mediated by the Internet, subscribe to KBON.

Since the station appears empty, the door to the broadcast booth is open. I lean on the doorframe a few feet away from Phil and watch him in action.

“This touch screen console is great,” he says. “The play list is here on the right. This tab on top shows how many seconds of the song are instrumental so if I want to say something about the artist or the song, I know how much time I have to talk before the singer begins.” (I always wondered how DJs managed that.) Just about everything that goes on the air is controlled on that touch screen.

On the desk is a list of the advertisement spots he has to cue up each hour, some pre-recorded (just touch that little icon on the console), some are live. A computer screen at eye level to his right shows the local weather that he announces between a set of songs. A plasma tv is playing Fox News with the sound muted. Hundreds of CDs line the shelves an arm's length away.

During the next hour Daigle answers the phone, gives away complimentary posters and bumper stickers to another walk-in guest, announces the day’s list of birthdays and anniversaries (a long time feature that, given the size of the list, nearly everyone in the listening area makes use of), prints out a weather forecast for the top of the hour, and gives on-air intros to several songs.

While I’m reading the autograph wall in the hallway I’ve got to laugh. There’s Daigle’s voice singing along with the artist on the air and the sound of his hands tapping out the rhythm on his desk - just what I do while listening at home.

“I never get tired of this, it’s something I love, and I get paid for it. I’ve been doing this since right after Paul Marx founded the station,” Daigle says, pointing to a photo of Marx with two fans.

When I ask him about play lists and their library, Daigle walks me into a storeroom with masses of CDs piled up on the floor, in cartons, and on shelves. I've heard songs with pedigrees way back to the 1950s - blues and rock 'n roll that still burn incandescently in the adolescent section of my psyche - on KBON. They're all here somewhere.

“Some day we’ll have this organized,” he says with a grin. I have serious reservations that this is a task any mortal can accomplish but keep my thoughts to myself. There’s enough music here to play for five years without interruption.

“Musicians are always walking in the door to tell us they’ve just cut a new album or bring in a new CD. As often as not, we’ll play a few cuts and talk with them on air while they’re right here.” And add the CD to the pile in the next room.

Now when I listen to KBON online, I can see Daigle’s face, reading glasses perched precariously on his nose, poking icons on the super duper new console and chuckle when I imagine him singing along with a Louisiana musician’s latest song. I can feel the “Louisiana Proud” vibe all the way up here in Boston.

Memorabilia in the station's entryway and autographs on the hallway walls inside.
  

Most of KBON is a model of functionality... then there's the storeroom which is 'in progress'

"Gumbo" Phil Daigle (L) and owner, founder Paul Marx (center in photo on R)

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
For a cool virtual tour of KBON
http://kbon.com/news/new-hd-virtual-station-tour/

KBON "Louisiana Proud": A Tutorial With Todd Ortego

 KBON 101.1 FM
"Louisiana Proud" Radio
109 South 2nd Street
Eunice, LA 70535
Phone (337) 546-0007
December 3, 2010 

Why does this guy’s voice sound so familiar? Halfway through my visit to KBON FM radio station, a lanky man with an easy smile has emerged from behind a closed office door and before you know it we’re talking Louisiana music.

From the broadcast booth, Phil Daigle cues up a commercial for a nightclub in Lafayette – the voice enthusiastically proclaiming upcoming entertainment at The Blue Moon in Lafayette belongs to Todd Ortego, the guy standing right in front of me.

Ortego is the sales executive at KBON. Since hardly anyone at the station wears only one hat, he also hosts “The Swamp and Roll Show” every Thursday from 6-10 PM. A certifiable music freak since music was mostly played on 45 rpm records, he’s got encyclopedic knowledge. On any one of Todd’s shows, you’ll hear a mix of rock, swamp pop, plus back-stories about the music, the artists who made it, and guest chats with the musicians themselves.

My comment that I’m heading to Grant Street in Lafayette to hear Horace Trahan lights him up. Before you can say grits ‘n gravy, Todd is giving me some background. I feel like I’m an audience of one for a “Swamp and Roll Show.”

“Horace’s first public performance happened when he was about 15. He was in the audience at a local show. The MC had heard about this kid who played accordion and sang traditional songs in French so soulfully that people listening would weep. By the time Horace finished, people were pulling out their handkerchiefs. He may have been a kid but he has the voice of an old soul,” Todd says.

“One of the songs Horace revived was an Iry LeJeune song titled, "Vien me chercher" (Come Get Me). Have you ever heard of him?”

By this time, we’re sitting in Todd’s office. He swivels in his chair makes a few clicks on his computer. Out the speakers comes Iry LeJeune singing the song he recorded for the Ace Record Company in 1953.  

“You should know this guy’s name, he re-popularized the accordion in Cajun music.” Ever the evangelizer to an enthusiastic listener, Todd comments about the Celtic influence on the melodies of Cajun music. My jaw is dropping. I have a lot to learn.

“I’d be at Grant Street tonight if my wife and I didn’t have plans we can’t break,” Todd says. He swivels back to the console.  “You’ve got to hear this.” Like a kid who’s sharing a favorite CD with a friend, Todd plays cuts from nearly every song on Trahan’s latest album, “Keep Walking.”

I hear echoes of Iry Lejeune, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley but one thing is clear - I’m listening to a contemporary original, one musical foot in the past, and one-stepping boldly into the future.  

“Funny Things Change, ” one of several songs Horace sings about relationships, this one in English, gets out of the gate with pure zydeco beat with two or three out-of-the-blue sax riffs that for all the world like a James Brown sax line and instrumentation. A wailing saxophone on a zydeco record?

I’m on notice.

“This is an old time two step,” Horace says in the opening few seconds of “La Reunion” and lights into an old time springy two-step with bubbly accordion and French lyrics, a real foot tapper.

When a sly reggae flavor floats over the opening phrases of drums, accordion, guitar, and sax for “It’s All Right,” I know for sure this zydeco band is trying on a new suit. Under it all, there’s a chorus that, like in the first cut, is a message…‘We’re doin' the best we can.’ After a few more cuts, I start substituting the “we” to “I.” This is Horace talking, a man who’s learning the hard way.

Uncle Horace uses a very traditional zydeco beat and instrumentation to hammer out another piece of his mind, this one to his peers, about life with his song titled, “Sad But True.” (see Todd Ortego briefly at open and close of song.

By the time we get to the big saxophone and accordion lines that open “Keep Walking,” I start looking around for the ghost of Bob Marley nodding his head somewhere in Shacktown. There's a great reggae feel to Trahan’s message song with English lyrics. Louisiana seems to be drifting toward Jamaica on some cosmic, creative gulf stream.

The blasting sax and accordion with the big reggae beat that opens “Keep Walking” give off two messages: one is a Horace’s ‘we’re all in the same boat’ sermon. The other, with the Jamaican beat, says we are in uncharted zydeco territory.

“Listen to this one,’ Todd smiles and hits “Mr. Bernard.” “Mr. Bernard” has a lively zydeco beat with driving bass line and lots of traditional Cajun whooos and huhhhs peppered in the story song about Horace asking Mr. Bernard ‘Jamerais marrier’ - permission to marry his daughter. Todd sings along, translating the Cajun French into English for me. The rub board player in Horace's band is Mr. Bernard. He said, "Yes."

Men wearing their hearts on their sleeves in traditional Cajun songs are not unusual. “The Whole World's Waltz” is an accordion driven song in English, Horace's compact little reflection on the vagaries of life.

By the time we listen to “Guilty Till Proven Innocent” and “When Love Takes Over,” I’m wondering whether this reggae feel to the songs is an embellishment Horace and other Louisiana musicians are exploring or whether it’s been in this Creole based music all along and I’m just catching on. The drum, bass, accordion mix is very islandish.

“H D T V” strays so far from the zydeco universe you’d need the Hubble Telescope to see it. It’s cool, it’s fun, and it’s hip-hop! When Horace sings, “H D T V don’t mean that much to me ‘cause I got higher definition in my reality" (sing that to yourself with a hip-hop cadence and you'll get the idea), in hip hop cadence I have no idea how I’d dance to it. But I’m amazed at Trahan’s exploratory nature.

“Canadian band 'Radio Radio' got interested when they heard H D T V,” Todd says. “Here’s another song from that session. He cues up “Same Knife Cut The Sheep Cut The Goat.” Complete with waaa waahhh guitar, flute, accordion, bass, and drums, it’s not hip-hop but certainly reggae. “This one, sung in French and English, was inspired from a Jamaican saying he learned while jamming with Radio Radio. Horace has since contributed vocals on Radio Radio's latest CD."

Most zydeco bands have a few smoky blues songs in their repertoire but few fire them out with a rollicking sax that feels like it’s been shot of a cannon. “You'll Never Make It If You Never Try” with its bump and grind back beat and husky bass and lead guitar defies you to sit still. Trahan gives you the message in French and English. Not on the album, but "I'm On A Wonder," is a bluesy example.

Trahan’s “Merci et Bonsoir” is a pretty little waltz sung in French. I hear echoes of Iry Lejeune in Horace’s achy inflections here and imagine Iry saluting from his grave.

“King of Sand” is a final proclamation of Trahan’s faith in the almighty. The hip-hop cadence is surely a sign that Horace Trahan is forging his own path, respecting but not enslaved by tradition.

In between songs, Todd tells me that the messages in the songs I’ve been listening to have been learned the hard way. Trahan got out of the gate fast and didn’t make it to the clubhouse turn before he faltered. Something about alcohol, drugs and an abrupt turnabout to religion. Now married to a fine woman, he’s on firm ground. His songs are reflections on what he learned in his struggle to get right, with himself as much as with his maker.

There’s more emphasis on Zydeco (Creole inspired) music on this album than Cajun. Zydeco gained popularity 1950s and has been a complement to Cajun and Swamp Pop, another genre that gained popularity in the 1950s, ever since. That explains the horns, the big back beat and a hint of R&B and rock n roll that infuses Trahan’s album, “Keep Walking.”

Todd Ortego’s day was officially over by the time I’d entered KBON. The time he spends with me sharing music he loves is for the fun of it. This impromptu tutorial with Todd helps me understand that traditional music is evolving in Louisiana and Horace Trahan is breaking new ground. I’ll have to keep returning here to see where it goes next. 

In the meantime, I'm driving back to Lafayette to see Horace Trahan and The New Ossun Express tonight.(photos above).

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Family Jewels 10th Anniversary Party Rocks at Sally O'Brien's

"The Family Jewels" 10th  Anniversary Party
Sally O’Brien’s Bar and Grill, 335 Somerville Avenue, Somerville, MA
Saturday, December 11, 2010
7 PM – 9 PM

"The Family Jewels" is the keeper of the "Doo Wop" flame around these parts. Each of the five founders has a pedigree that includes several other bands but the chemistry they have in the Family Jewels is street-corner fraternal. Their music and entertaining style has been drawing a fiercely loyal crowd for ten years. The show at Sally O'Briens Bar and Grill celebrated that milestone. Last year's milestone...https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2009/08/the-family-jewels-doowop-reincarnation.html

Just in time for the holidays, the one, the only, retro singing group, The Family Jewels tumbled down Sally O’Brien’s chimney last Saturday night.  Coated with the musical soot of ten years of history  playing old time “doo wop” and R&B music together, these guys filled the patrons’ stockings with enough playful gems to keep them happy till New Year’s Eve.

Loyal fans of ten years hopped on Dancer, Prancer, Donner, and Vixen and had filled the cozy pub to the rafters by 6:45 PM.  By a little after 7 pm, what can be only described as a love fest in five-part harmony erupted in earnest.
 
Band founders Andrew Mazzone (bass), Asa Brebner (guitar), Steve Sadler (laptop steel), Kevin Shurtleff (drums), and Fred Griffeth (lead vocals) perched on the pub’s mini stage and like Janis Joplin’s Bobby McGee, sang every song they ever knew.

To make things even more explosive, the Family Jewels were joined by Paul Ahlstrand on sax, and Dana Colley on baritone sax. Either of these guys can stop a show – in tandem (“Pretty Little Girl”), they’re Ruth and Gehrig. David Champagne (guitar) came in for a couple of roof raisers to start the second set.

The founders still play this stuff like kids on their first gig. Fred Griffeth infuses his vocals with unflagging, spontaneous energy. Clearly at home in the spotlight, his infectious warmth brings the audience along for the ride. He’s likely to jump down from the little bandstand, as he did Saturday night, and shout, “Give me a little room, I gotta  express myself!” and break out in a fancy footwork routine he’s worked on in his kitchen for a week. People have come to watch these guys have fun entertaining us. The Family Jewels serve it up royally.

Asa Brebner is the foil to Griffeth’s extroverted style. Brebner’s ballads ("Guess I’m A Fool For Falling In Love With You") and upbeat songs ("Driving Nails In My Coffin") are no-frills thrills in which the pure sound of his voice and commanding guitar shine.  

No matter who leads, we get the supreme pleasure of listening to the tight harmonies of yesteryear (“Young Girl”, for example) when music was powered not so much by amperage as by the leverage of human voices cruising along in tight formation. When Griffeth, Brebner, Mazzone, Sadler, and Shurtleff, lean into their mikes, it’s the music equivalent of the Blue Angels.

 The nearly involuntary human response to doo-wop is to get up and move. Dancers mobbed the tiny dance floor and found little islands to dance in near the front door, near the bathrooms in the back and between the crowded tables.

By 9 pm, The Family Jewels had to make way for the next band on Sally O’Brien’s schedule. If not, they might have heeded the chant, “Ten More Years!” that rang through the crowd at the end of the second set and launched the next decade then and there.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. except the last one below.

Sally O'Brien's was jammed by 6:45 PM.

 
Asa Brebner and Fred Griffeth

  

Kevin Shurtleff, drums, Steve Sadler, laptop steel,  Andrew Mazzone, bass...

Special guests Dana Colley, baritone sax, and Paul Ahlstrand, saxophone

 David Champagne rocks the house with Asa.

Napkins waving in a rollicky salute to The Family Jewels...

here in a rare moment of repose.

FIRST set partial list
“That Chick’s Too Young To Fry”
“Crazy Little Mama”
“If I Were A King”
“You Better Leave My Woman Alone”
“Pretty Little Girl”
“She’s So Fine”
“Guess  I’m A Fool”
“What’s Her Name”
“Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb” Gospel with great harmonies
“Young Blood”
“I’m Looped”

SECOND set partial list
“Ka Ding Dong “
“Young Girl” 
“Breaking Rocks”
“I Gotta Wheel”
“Don’t Let Go”
“Driving Nails In My Coffin”
“W I N E Wine”
Encore
“My Big Ten Inch”

Eunice, Louisiana: Rice 'n Crawfish

December 3, 2010
Expedition to Eunice, Louisiana, “The Gateway to the Great Southwest Prairie”

Take the narrow back roads from Lafayette to Eunice in southwest Louisiana and you’re in a deep trough of Americana. On this December day, flat prairie lands roll out as far as the eye can see. Mile after mile of fields bordered by stands of deciduous trees in the distance, are plowed and ready for the next season. Fields with barren stalks of what was a rice crop stick up in orderly rows six inches above water that cover huge swaths of land. Every so often I pass sprawling shallow ponds, the clouds mirrored on their placid surfaces, and assume a rice crop is in its infancy below the surface.

 

Wrong. As I was soon to find out.

I park the car. I get out. I listen. A low, mechanical rumble comes from the combine barely visible on the horizon. And the sound of my own breath at peace in this rolling expanse of agriculture. Look. An enormous canopy of blue, fleecy cloud-studded sky offers benediction to the fields. A white dot of house or two is in the distance. You can drive for miles up two-lane Route 367 and count the houses you see on two hands.
Rice arrived in Louisiana along with Acadians (Cajuns) who migrated here after passing through the Carolinas in the 1700s. They pitched rice seeds into the wetlands near bayous and called what they grew “providence rice,” just enough for a season of food. By the mid 1800s, rice production became commercially viable when railroads were built and New Orleans became one of the first customers for Louisiana long grain rice. I don’t have to remind you what this did to the popularity of rice in the Louisiana diet after that.

Rice is the state’s second largest agricultural export. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you wont be surprised that there’s a festival down here that celebrates rice. Crowley, a few miles south of Eunice, established the annual International Rice Festival in 1936 that now attracts over 150,000 people a year.

It took a stop into the Cajun Music Hall of Fame and Museum for me to find out that these same fields were growing crawfish, and that crawfish and rice are partners in a seasonal dance in 26 parishes (counties) in Louisiana. 

Irene Reed and Dale Matt (pronounce ‘Mott’ in Cajun style) set me straight. Located in a town whose footprint might fit into one of the larger fields I’ve passed en route, the museum is filled with artifacts, photos, instruments, videos and tapes of Cajun music. As far as I’m concerned the real attraction is these two septuagenarians who are sitting at the desk. I’m about to get a history lesson.

“They’re raising crawfish in those ponds and fields!” Dale says, grinning when she sees the expression on my face.

I am mystified. A grossly uninformed Yankee, I thought that the crustaceans were salt-water creatures related to shrimp. Half correct. Crustaceans yes, but fresh water crustaceans that are grown in fields I’ve been driving by for miles.

“I was raised in those fields, it’s a big industry here,” Dale tells me, and gets ready to educate this tourist from New England.

 
 

Flooding the fields, preparing for crawfish season.

While visitors filter in and out of the museum, Dale, her Cajun accent in full bloom, explains the rice field, crawfish pond cycle.

“We start growing the rice crop in water from March to July. When the rice has greened up in June, we add seed crawfish to the water. The crawfish burrow into the ground to stay cool. We drain the rice fields in late July and August. When the rice browns up, we harvest it with a combine. Some farmers try to get two rice crops in during a season.”

During the rice harvest the crawfish are safe from the combines in their underground burrows. “In September and October, when it gets cooler, we flood the fields to make crawfish ponds and the crawfish come out of their burrows and feed on the rice chaff that the combine left in the fields.”

 

The chaff from the rice harvest (above right) will become food for the crawfish.

“By around November, we catch the crawfish in mesh traps that we put bait in. I remember going out with my daddy and hauling crawfish out of his traps and dumping them into a special hold in his shallow bottom crawfish boat. We like crawfish farming because it’s a cash crop. We bring ‘em in to the buyer and get paid then and there. We don’t get paid for the rice until it’s sold. That takes time because the rice in the hull goes to a rice mill to be processed then sits in silos to dry before it’s sold.”

Dale tells me they can harvest crawfish until June when the water warms up and the crawfish burrow into the ground to stay cool. The fields are drained, plowed, leveled, and ready to start the rice/crawfish dance again.

This being early December, what I first thought were rice fields turned out to be crawfish fields in various stages of development.

I’ve been so fascinated by my tutorial, I’ve barely looked at the great collection of instruments, photos, artifacts, displays and memorabilia. But all of that will be here for years, and I’ll come back to see it.

During the past hour, I’ve learned from Irene and Dale how their parents and grandparents cut the mature rice plants down with scythes, laid the sheafs in mound-like haystacks to dry, then thrashed and hulled them. And I learned how country people around Eunice gathered in homes to listen to music and dance. I learned how, as children, they were punished for speaking their native French language in school.

"My mother was from Breaux Bridge and my father from Ville Platte. They couldn't read or write but they taught me our language. It hurt me that speaking the language my parents taught me was outlawed in Louisiana. "

This kind of history has a shelf life that ends with them. That’s what really belongs in a museum.  Someone needs to get out a video camera and get busy recording stories from people like these two women. The “History Channel” is sitting right inside the door of the Cajun Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

The rice crop has been harvested...

 

and stored and dried in the silos.

The Cajun Music Hall of Fame and Museum is where I get my education about the rice and crawfish seasons...

from Irene Reed and Dale Matt...right in the heart of Eunice, Louisiana... 

"The Gateway to the Great Southwest Prairie".

If I ever stay down here for so long that I need a haircut, I know where to go.

Triiibe, In Search of Eden: A Work in Progress

TRIIIBE
"In Search of Eden: A Work in Progress"
Wednesday, October 27–Sunday, December 23
Boston University School of Visual Arts - Gallery 808
808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
Opening Reception, Friday, November 19, 6–8 p.m.
11 a.m.–9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
For more information, please call 617-358-0922.

“This multi-faceted and collaborative project will explore various social constructs interpreted through metaphors of a present-day Garden of Eden. The installation will encompass photography, sculpture, painting and daily performances by the artists, who will be working in the gallery for the duration of the show.”

pt at large’s visit Thursday, November 18, 2010

Most artists work in isolation, channel their muses, then present us with the finished product. The Triiibe collaborative is a different breed of artist entirely, not just performance oriented but creation oriented. Since October 27, Triiibe members identical triplets Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio have been up to their identical elbows creating “In Search Of Eden: A Work in Progress” at 808 Commonwealth Avenue.

This is the most ambitious collaboration the group has undertaken. Founding members Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio and renowned photographer Cary Wolinsky, are joined by as impressive and eclectically talented a team as you can imagine.

Theater director Marie Brown, photo composite specialist Rick Kyle of 5000K Color Studios, graphic designer Babs Wolinsky, creative thinker Sheryl Handler, Sculptor Nick Doriss, costume designer Alison Heryer, designer Lauren Sanders, Wolinsky’s son videographer Yari Wolinsky, and printmaker Gus Kayafas have all had creative input. Plus the assorted interns, friends, hair stylists, makeup artists, accessory providers, carpenters, and even a neighbor or two who become ad hoc members of Triiibe for any given project. Hierarchy is a non-issue. All of them get to put their two cents into the concept.

This installation includes seven huge panels (each named after a variety of apple), triptychs that riff on the biblical creation story, the notion of temptation, and our eternal quest for Eden. The exhibition runs through December 23, 2010.

Once the collaborative conceived the idea of presenting seven triptychs in the showroom windows, the project got poured into Triiibe’s Petrie dish. That’s when the fun began. Imagine creators of Saturday Night Live in charge of an exhibit at the MOMA.

The Triiibe team imagines the theme and a creative scrum unfolds… sketch the composition, identify symbolic objects to include in the photo, formalize the composition, determine lighting, angles, appropriate apparel, fabrics, make-up, poses, and postures. Every tiny detail contributes to the composite of photos that make up each panel. Cary Wolinsky's photography is brilliant - the triptychs are gorgeous.

Wolinsky has already taken the photographs, which have been scanned at Rick Kyle’s studio and assembled into the composite image the Triiiibsters imagined. When you walk through the installation, ask a Triiibe member about the intricate steps it took to produce each image.

They’re not kidding with the “work in progress” title. The completed triptychs on display are the springboard for the rest of the installation. For an art enthusiast, the experience of watching this Triiibe figure out how to best use the space to lay out the enormous space is “Eden” right on 808 Commonwealth Avenue.
 
 

The day I visit the place everyone is focused. An opening reception is scheduled for tomorrow.  Here are Alicia, Kelly, and Sara answering questions from small groups of Boston University students taking tours of the five panels of the seven panels already placed in the showroom windows (the last two arrive tomorrow). Several tarps covered with tape, paint, tools, and lighting fixtures are strewn on the lustrous black and brown granite floors.
 
Spread across the showroom are a dozen members of Triiibe's collaborative team preparing for a public reception the next night. There is Shelly Casilio, the triplet’s mother, making comfy ottomans for visitors to sit on, There is one of the Casilio’s artist friends drawing a complex set of lines Kelly Casilio has designed that will result in a trompe l’oeil painting in a free standing structure built inside the showroom.

 
 

The fact that Triiibe is holding the exhibition in a cavernous 11,000 square foot Boston University School of Visual Arts space that was formerly a Peter Fuller Cadillac dealership is poetic. Instead of trying to figure out whether the salesman is offering a decent deal it feels like you’re sitting in an exotic vehicle wondering what the heck all the buttons operate. This exhibit takes time to absorb. Like the cool car, it’s easy to enjoy just looking at it. The problem comes when someone asks you what’s under the hood.
 
The triplets are not merely trading on their astonishing resemblance to each other. They’re using it to pose questions about our collective identity. Could be a theme about justice, religion, adolescence, identity, the media or politics. By the time they're finished, the installation will include photography, sculpture, and painting. Plus daily performances by the artists, who are working in the gallery for the duration of the show.
 
Performance artists at the core, here they are in socks and smocks talking to anyone who walks in to see what’s going on. They’ve literally opened the thick velvet curtains they’ve installed on the Commonwealth Avenue showroom windows so passersby can see the art and the environment being assembled.
 
Want to know how the individual photos were created and now form a composite: just ask. Want to give your interpretations of what you see? Pipe up. I doubt you’ll find a more direct opportunity to engage with artists who really listen to your take on what they’re doing.
 
We in the audience are creators, too. During the 90 minutes I spend here today, I’ve heard several imaginative interpretations on what the pieces mean to the observers. “Wow, that’s neat, we didn’t see that!” one of the triplets responds to a college kid’s comment.
 
One of the richest experiences in viewing art is feeling how it washes over you, parsing out what it means to you, and wondering what the artists might be intending. And if what the viewer takes from the art is not the same as what the artist intended, no crime, no foul. It extends the reach of the work for both viewer and artist.
 
When the artists are a Triiibe with whom you can talk informally while looking at what they’ve created, you’ve hit the jackpot in a gallery installation experience. 

 
Shelly Casilio, the triplet's mom, and another artist busy making ottomans for you and me to sit on when we come to contemplate "Eden".

Wondering what it's all about and having a chance to talk directly with the members of Triiibe is a 'Delicious' idea.

You can even enjoy the show from the sidewalk!

A Louisiana Cookie Party

A Cookie Party
Abbeville, LA
December 5, 2010

I have called Olga Toups, the Queen of last month’s Giant Omelette Festival, who I met during the festival on the first weekend in November, to invite her to lunch to talk to her about the history of the event, which her late husband, Emery ‘Bichon” Toups had helped to inaugurate in 1985.

“Paul, it’s my 89th birthday today and my friends have me scheduled from today right through Sunday,” Olga says, and adds, “I’m going to a cookie party on Sunday. I think you might be invited.”

A Cookie Party? This sounds like such a ‘southern’ thing. I'd love to see what it's all about.

Arlene White, one of the chevaliers I met during the festival that dominates the center of Abbeville every November, has my name added to the guest list.

“Everyone who is invited brings their favorite dessert, cookie, cake, whatever, or a bottle of wine.  People come in and out throughout the afternoon visiting and tasting the goodies. It’s just a nice sweet social!!” says Arlene.

By the time I arrive at 2 pm, the maison de Hebert (pronounce Aye Bare, accent on 1st syllable) is packed with people on a select guest list. The bar set up at the far side of the living room is manned by three neighbors.  I can barely see it over the shoulders of the guests.

Cookies is such an anemic word for what appears on the dining room table.  The fancier ones have names that I’m too delirious with sugar to remember to write down on my notepad. A high-end pastry shop would struggle to match the delectable bounty.

(The day after the "cookie party," the Heberts make the rounds of local homes for the elderly and distribute everything not consumed today.)

When I wander to the den in the rear of the house, a New Orleans Saints football game is on the TV. The surprise is that half the roomful of spectators, and the ones most vociferously shouting, “Get him!” “Tackle him!” when the opposing team advances down the field, are women. Well dressed and coiffed women, I might add.

The Super Bowl Saints are the pride of everyone in this state. A cookie party does not trump loyalties to the Saints. Mr. Hebert pokes his head in often enough to get the drift of the game, which has the courtesy of ending with a Saints victory.

(Beverly and Bobby Hebert with pt)

The bonds between friends and family run deep in Louisiana. One of the first questions posed to a stranger is, “Where you from?” Janine Dugas (photo R with pt), another chevalier in the Abbeville festival puts it this way: “We want to know who you know so we know how we know you.”

Being a Yankee who writes about his infatuation with Louisiana has its perks. Everyone I meet wants to tell me a story.

By the time I depart, I have an invitation to tour Avery Island, the home of the Tabasco Company, offered by the company’s materials manager, an invitation to visit the Caldwell Bed and Breakfast Inn in Abbeville, and an invitation from Brenda Trahan, executive in the St. Martinville Tourism Department, to visit the Acadian Memorial in St. Martinville to write about “The Great Awakening” installation which will be in St. Martinville on October 7 – 16.

Olga Toups is greeted warmly when she arrives. When we chat, she says she expects to see me next year at the Giant Omelette Festival. Beverly and Bobby Hebert invite me to next year’s cookie party (quite an honor).

"Don't forget, it's always the first Sunday in December," Beverly reminds me. It’s barely the end of 2010 and I’m filling in dates for the end of 2011.

I do have a crush on Louisiana, and right about now, I feel like Louisiana is getting a crush on me.

Grant Street Dance Hall: Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express

  Grant Street Dance Hall
113 West Grant Street
Lafayette, LA  70570-7035
Friday, December 3, 2010035 

 Want a definition of a down home roadhouse dance hall? The Grant Street Dance Hall in Lafayette, Louisiana is on the ballot. Three steps inside the door, the faintly sweet smell of stale beer rising from the hard as nails black stained plank floor is a prime indicator. But, when the humidity is just right, you just might pick up the scent of Louisiana grown Satsuma or Washington navel oranges, lemons, grapefruit, or kumquats that used to be stored here in Grant Street’s pre-1980 incarnation as a fruit warehouse.

More prominent at the moment, every piece of wood in the place – cedar rafters, joists, roof planks – have absorbed enough cigarette smoke to startle the Surgeon General. A chestnut brown thirty-seat bar runs down one side, the bandstand is on the other.   High cocktail tables with stools are situated around the dance floor… a prairie sized dance hall big enough to double as a touch football field.

Southwest Louisiana is a magnet for talent. Roadhouses from Mamou to Opelousas have pedigrees. Albert King, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Los Lobos, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Irma Thomas have played at Grant Street.

9 PM The sound check Horace Trahan puts his band through might have loosened the nails from the roof shingles.

The volcanic rumble of the bass transmits from my butt on the wooden stool all the way through my torso and makes my teeth buzz. Talking is out of the question. The regulars drift in, wave to each other, hug, and begin to chat, mouths close to the ears of the other.

10 PM The Ossun Express’s guitar, rub board, and drums settle on stage with Horace and his accordion in the middle alongside his sax/flute player and bass player.

Horace hits the first song and 30 dancers make a beeline for the dance floor.

Horace sings most of the songs on his latest album, “Keep Walking.” It’s a rare night in Lafayette that dancers have room to really strut their stuff. Tomorrow night will be a different story.

 

 

 

Horace Trahan,accordion, vocals
Daniel Sanda, guitar
Phil Slim Washingon, guitar
James Prejean, bass
Doug Garb, saxophone, flute, harmonica
Rodney Bernard, scrub board

 

Grant Street's dance floor is huge...
 

The building still has the faint smell of drying fruit.
 
 
It's not unusual for a band to play for well over an hour a clip. 
 
 

Café des Amis: Aural Caffeine on a Saturday Morning

Café des Amis
Bridge Street
Breaux Bridge, LA
Way early in the morning: 8:30-11:30 AM
Saturday, November 6, 2010

The insistent beat of a Zydeco band may have a different tempo than the Siren song that lured Ulysses onto the shoals but it can seize control of any who venture close enough to Bridge Street in Breaux Bridge on a Saturday morning.

The gatekeeper has temporarily stopped entrance to the famed Café des Amis at 9:30 AM. Twenty dancers are in one of Dante’s Infernos. Our sin is that we’ve arrived late and the place is near capacity. Our tribulation - we can hear the music but can’t get access to the smooth wooden dance floor a few feet away.

Through the huge plate glass window we can hear Leroy Thomas, his back turned from us as he joyously pumps his accordion, facing the dancers shaking it up inside. We could be on Mars or in Idaho or Poughkeepsie  Oh the pain.

Leroy Thomas and The Zydeco Road Runners roll into a slinky bluesy number that demands action. I tap the shoulder of the woman standing in front of me. She turns. I extend my hand. She folds into my arms. We dance. On the sidewalk.  Close. This, mes amis, is the way dancing goes down here in Louisiana.

Minutes later, we’ve all paid our $5.00 and are inside a café the likes of which you’ve never seen. The music is aural caffeine, the energy level is absurd. Tourists fill the tables that have been pushed toward the edges of the café to create a dance floor. Tourist dine on omelettes and pancakes. For the dancers, breakfast is an afterthought. For some of the more hardy, a cold beer or a Bloody Mary will suffice.

Everybody is dancing, or, in the case of the tourists, wishes they were dancing. Local farmers, oil field workers, government officials, speech therapists, teachers, dental hygienists, secretaries, lawyers, dancers who’ve come from afar to this morning Mecca pack the dance floor from 8:30 to 11:30 every Saturday morning.

“This is the best place to be anywhere in the USA on any Saturday morning.” Leroy Thomas says as he begins his second set. No argument here.

Leroy breaks into a grin. “I want to introduce my father, Leo Thomas, one of the five living legends of Zydeco, to do a few songs with us.”


Leo, dressed in an electric blue suit, powder blue shirt and matching fedora, and red and white striped tie, sings “Why You Want To Make Me Cry Tonight” and several other classic songs. If you think his attire draws attention, listen to him sing. The man has soul and pizzazz. He’s as comfortable connecting with the audience as I am sitting at my kitchen table.

The sweetest thing about it is the smile on Leroy’s face as he plays behind his dad. Love, admiration, pride. We’re in the presence of one living legend and perhaps another legend in the making.

This must be guest star morning. Lee Allen Zeno, renowned bass player for Buckwheat Zydeco, stands in for several songs and shows his stuff. The music community down here is tight - everyone knows everyone else and a whole bunch of them are related by blood or marriage.

Every musician I’ve ever talked to in Louisiana is down to earth and friendly. “Leroy invited me over when he knew his dad was going to sing today,” Lee says when I talk with him after the show. “My brother Ray is a musician, too,” he says and brings me over to meet him. “His band is Zydeco Ray and the Creole Night Riders.”

“My brother makes the best Jambalaya on the planet, Call me up when you come to town I’ll pick you up, spend some time with us in Maurice, we’ll give you some good home cooking then you’re on your own after that!”

He hands me a card with his telephone numbers on it. People ask me why I keep returning to Louisiana. How’s this for one reason?

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
 

  Leo Thomas gets into "Don't Make Me Cry Tonight" to the delight of the audience...

and the admiration of his son Leroy.

By Cafe des Amis standards...

there's still plenty of room left on the dance floor.

Lee Allen Zeno, long-time bass player for Buckwheat Zydeco and his brother Ray, leader of Zydeco Ray and The Creole Night Riders.  Lee has played with such luminaries as Charlie Rich, Dalton Reed, Guitar Shorty, Solomon Burke, Marcia Ball, and Irma Thomas. I had to google him to find that out - these men are as unassuming as they are highly talented

The owners of these bikes might be in the cafe, which is a few doors down from the Antiques store. The famous Breaux Bridge that spans a bayou is in the background.

Friends relaxing at the Coffee Break, a block away from Bridge Street: Bernard, Mae Louise, pt, Rubiah, and Gus (make sure you spell it with one 's', he tells me). They're from Lafayette, Breaux Bridge, and Abbeville and make this Yankee feel right at home.