Mardi Gras in Lafayette: A Cajun Jam at Marc Savoy's Music Store

Marc Savoy’s Music Store
4413 Louisiana Route 190
Eunice, Louisiana 70535-7948
Weekly Saturday Jam

Saturday, March 6, 2011

From the Marc Savoy web site "9:00AM to 12:00PM 
Weekly every Saturday, All are invited to join in, no permission or approval is needed, but we ask only one thing... Please, no more than ONE triangle player at a time. If you're wondering how to find the music center, just look for thirty cars lined up Hwy. 190 between Eunice and Lawtell.

We are open for business, and admission is free, but a small box of boudin or cracklins would make you the most popular guy in there for about 2-3 minutes. Info: (337) 457-9563"

It is raining something fierce. Why am I driving an hour to Eunice? I feel like I’m driving through a car wash without the benefit of the soap. Rain sheets with the force of buckshot pummel the car. The 70 mph speed limit, uh uhhh.

Even the semis have slowed down. If my Louisiana connection Bernard Ussher hadn’t told me that this was an event not to be missed, I’d be sipping my morning coffee back at the Days Inn. (By the time I drove back to Lafayette, I learned a tornado touched down in nearby Rayne while I was on the road to Eunice.)

The long line of cars parked along Louisiana Highway 190 tells me I’ve arrived. The rain has mercifully abated to mere showers. I walk into the unassuming wooden frame building and know immediately Bernard was spot on.

I feel like I’ve entered into an old-time Cajun house party…more precisely, a time warp through which I can see back at least four generations of Cajuns. At the far side of what is usually Mark Savoy’s Music Store showroom, about 20 men and women are in the midst of singing and playing a traditional French ballad.

They know the rhythm and cadence of the song like you and I know our ABCs. They watch each other intently, seeming to know when to add a chorus, when to throttle back, and when to kick their instrument up a notch. Assorted fiddles, guitars, an accordion, piano, a couple of string instruments I’ve never seen before, a pedal steel guitar, and a big string bass are jamming with glowing, loving energy.  Their connection with their music is palpable, as thick as the aroma of boudin and cracklins that guests have set down on Mark Savoy’s business counter at the other end of the room.

In my visits to Lafayette, I thought I’d heard about every kind of music this part of Louisiana has to offer. Wrong.

Packed into folding chairs in the middle of the showroom and lined against the walls is an audience of regulars and tourists. I hear an animated conversation in French and find a middle-aged couple from New Brunswick swapping stories with a twenty-something couple they just met from Quebec City.  The New Brunswick couple told people from Idaho they met in their RV park in Rayne and brought them along to hear this jam session that they heard about on the internet. And so it goes.

“Do you come here often?” I ask the tall man standing way back in a corner next to Marc Savoy’s storeroom. Thus begins a friendship with Buck Presley from Jennings, Louisiana.

“My grandson is the boy playing the piano up there. He’s blind. I’ve been taking him here since he was 11 years old, we rarely miss a Saturday. Marc told me the boy has perfect pitch and asked me to keep on bringing him here. Hayden’s 14 years old now. He started out playing guitar, took up piano and said ‘This is what I want to play.’ He’ll play about an hour today then we’ll go home.”

“How do all these people figure out how to get in the group and when to play?”

“You just go on up there and fit in,” Buck says. “But there’s usually only one piano or one accordion at a time. The accordion or the fiddle usually leads the show and the others ‘take a ride’ during the songs.”

Just about on cue, Mr. Ellis Vanicor begins singing a French Cajun song following up the lyrics with a riff on his fiddle. Mr. Vanicor is a spry 81 years old. The fiddle player standing behind him who sings the next chorus is Mark Savoy’s wife Anne.

“There are about 20 musicians here every Saturday. If the weather’s good, bands will jam in the sun right outside the building,” Buck says.

Buck tells me Marc Savoy has been building accordions here for 44 years. He puts chairs out in the showroom for the weekly jam session. Buck surmises that today’s an extra large crowd because of Mardi Gras. “Mark brings a bus load of musicians to Jazz Fest every year, too, “ Buck says and wonders,  “How do people find out about this little place?”

Buck’s ears perk up. “Marc just sat in on accordion. He makes a difference. He’ll just take a plastic accordion off the shelf and make it sound good.” Sounds pretty good to me.

“This is a gathering place for friends every Saturday,” Buck’s friend Carl Brazell says. “Many of them don’t play music but they love to listen to it. The older people here grew up with it. They spread food around the counters here in the back, so do the visitors. Marc provides the coffee. I bring cracklins and boudin every Saturday.”

Indeed the counter is loaded with boudin, pastries, and the remnants of a pork roast. The cracklins are long gone. Buck brings me over a box of boudin. "You ever had one of these? Just pick it up and try it. It's one of the special things we eat down here." I am famished. The boudin, with a little spicy kick to it, hits the spot. Buck enjoys watching me wolf it down...and hearing me tell him I like it.

Buck Presley is the a quintessential Cajun man. Friendly, interested, quietly but fiercely proud of his culture, and welcoming to strangers who appreciate it. I know I’ll see him the next time I visit Mark Savoy’s Saturday jam, I’ll be looking for him and listening for his grandson.

There’s a poignantly spiritual tone here, one that traces its lineage back to Nova Scotia and France. Many of the people in the folding chairs know the verses of the songs like congregants know their hymns. They appreciate and respect the music but like some forms of religion, this might be a vanishing tradition. Most of the spectators and musicians are well past middle age.

The music has a haunting element that harkens back to the era of Cajun house parties when country people gathered for the simple pleasure of friendship, and the universal comfort and appeal of music.

As today, you needn’t be a player. If you can count to three, tap your foot or tap a rod to a metal triangle, you participate. This is sort of Gregorian chant to a waltz beat. What’s glorified is a heritage that proud Cajuns will never give up, a benediction to the past. This is not lost on the younger faces here today. Some know the words and sing along unselfconsciously. Precisely at noon, the jam completes its final song of the day. But what about the future?

Young piano player Hayden Presley can’t see but perhaps he has a vision. All he needs is a young accordion player, a few fiddles and a bass. Between them, they can keep Cajun music alive well into the 21st century. Marc Savoy and Buck Presley would love that.

 
 

Going in... going out. 
 
 

People from all over the world...like these folks from Canada...

and right down the road. like Buck Presley and his grandson Hayden Presley

and a dance is likely to break out in the back of the room, while the music plays on.

 
 
 
 
 

"Marc is quite a character," Buck says, "be sure to read his comments pinned all over the walls." 

  Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Comments

[Bernard Ussher]

excellent Paul -
once again you truly captured the spirit of life here around Lafayette ....well done .... and well written.

[Melinda Wilson]

Paul, great article. I am really missing Mardi Gras this year, enjoy the food :-).

Melinda

[Mishy Lesser]

Hey, Paul. When you return home, we've got to get together with my good friend and fellow Watertownian, Ken Mirvis (lives through the woods and around the corner). I've been sending him your Mardi Gras blogs and he asked me to pass this along to you. Have you discovered this place?

The joy from your messages is contagious and I'm so happy you are there.

[Ken Mirvis]

Mishy,

Pass a message on to Paul:

If his travels take him back toward New Orleans through Baton Rouge, he MUST stop for a meal at Hymel’s in Convent. It is my single favorite restaurant in the U.S. The crawfish bisque is simply unbelievable, as is the ambience (along with damn near everything on the menu).

It is a combination Goodyear Tire store, gas station, and seafood restaurant.

I attached two pictures for him. It is right on River Road near Gonzales, about 40 minutes or so south of Baton Rouge.

[Paul aka pt at large]

Mishy and Ken,
Thanks for the feedback - literally from Ken! I'll put Hymel's in Gonzales on a future itinerary. Ken's photos of the place and the dish of crawfish are gorgeous.

[May Louise White]

Hi Paul,

You have really caught the true essence of the weekly jam session at Marc Savoy's!!!!! Until one has been there and felt the spirit and warmth and soaked up all the wonderful old music, it is almost impossible to comprehend the real scope of this event. But, you, with your amazing talent with words, have done just that for your readers.

Happy Mardi Gras,