pt at large

Sarah and The Tall Boys:

Sarah and The Tall Boys
Johnny D’s
Somerville, MA
August 24, 2012

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Sarah and The Tall Boys. That’s what I thought. Sarah and her boys fly way under the radar but for how much longer? She put on a lights out show at Johnny D’s last night and has a grinding tour schedule that could be a glide path to the stratosphere.
 
Remember Janis Joplin’s line in “Me and Bobby McGee?”
 
 “Windshield wipers slapping time, I's holding Bobby's hand in mine, we sang every song that driver knew.”
 
I swear that in Sarah’s nearly two hour set, she sang close to twenty songs bam bam bam one after the other, maybe a minute to tune her rhythm guitar in between, occasionally give a line or two of intro, “I wrote this song with my father in law,” sings “The Mess You Made Of Me,” then on to the next one. Mostly written by Sarah, the songs feel fresh, lived in, a closely observed emotional life put to music. Taken as a whole, listening to her set is like riding a country rock blues bronco - at a gallop.
 
This woman can belt out zesty country two steps and downshift to searing, smoky ballads, throw in a few split register notes at the end of her phrasing, reminiscent of Susan Tedeschi or Janis Joplin, but you don’t think of anyone else but Sarah when she’s on stage.

She sings with a raw gutty conviction that resonates between your heart and your hips. Nothing filters the immediacy of her delivery.That gravelly voice sings of lust, heartbreak and hell-raising in the tradition of Janis Joplin. When she finishes a song, you cheer and wait for the next one you're pretty sure will barrel from the stage with the hypnotic sway, rumble and roar of a freight train.

And if you like to dance, as a bunch of people did last night, you don’t sit down very much. Watching dancers groove to her music seemed to energize Sarah, as if she needed any higher octane. Her energy level is intense.
 
The band drove here from another gig, plays tomorrow in CT at 2 PM and Wrentham, MA later in the day and has gigs from Burlington, VT to Washington, D.C. in six of the next eight days. Add together the potency of her voice, the variety of her set list, and the non-stop parade of songs, and you have the best value in your concert dollar you’re likely to have anytime soon.
 
It takes several songs to realize what a tight quartet you’re listening to. No showboating, guitar thrashing, or posing for effect.  A steady bass and drum efficiently underpin Sarah's songs. The Tall Boy on lead guitar uses just enough creative firepower to complement Sarah’s vocal range, which by the way, can blow you back on your heels or make you involuntarily hold your breath when she pours it on in a raw bluesy ballad.

Brushing her long black hair from her face, straightening her black eye glass frames back up the bridge of her nose between songs, Sarah is the antithesis of a diva. Were it not for the brown and tan cowboy boots, she could easily be mistaken for a kindergarten teacher in a print cotton dress, the kind who hugs her students when they walk in the door.

Several times in this small club she pauses to thank us for coming out on a Friday night to see their show. Last year, Sarah and The Tall Boys, one of whom (bass player) is her husband, were invited to perform on the main stage at Rhythm ‘N Roots weekend in Charlestown, RI, advertised and rightly so as “New England’s Hottest Festival of Music and Dance,” where Grammy winners are standard fare on the program. Sarah and her fellas rocked the big place. Listen.
 
This year, Sarah and The Tall Boys perform on the Rhythm ‘n Roots Main Stage on Friday August 31, Sarah hosts a songwriting workshop then performs on the Workshop Stage on Saturday and caps the weekend performing at the Main Stage again Sunday afternoon. Not bad for a kid who grew up in Providence and moved to Chicago to launch her career.
 
Two friends of mine who know talent and love to dance said, “Go to this show tonight.” It’s only a matter of time before Sarah and The Tall Boys are nominated for a Grammy in the “Alt Country Blues” category. I’m lucky to have friends who are way ahead of the curve.
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PS from pt at large: If I had brought along a note pad and camera, I'd include a set list and have a few photos to boot.

Satchmo Summerfest 2012: Louis Armstrong's Legacy

Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong
Satchmo Summerfest August 4 - 5, 2012
Site: Grounds of the former U.S. Mint

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1900-July 6, 1971) was the grandson of a slave. He grew up in the roughest, poorest, part of New Orleans. He learned how to play the cornet in the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs where he spent time for firing a pistol in the air at a New Year's celebration when he was 12 years old. He grew up and lived most of his life in a racially segregated country. What were the odds that he could and would change the way jazz was played in America? He became the first black to host a sponsored national radio show in 1937. By the time he died in 1971, he was an internationally known and beloved musician and personality.

Going to Satchmo Summerfest is like getting a crash course in the history of jazz from planet New Orleans. Two dozen bands, noon until 8 PM Saturday and Sunday - 16 hours of live music simultaneously under two big pavilions at the old U.S. Mint at the edge of the French Quarter…positively stellar.

Satchmo, the beloved Louis Armstrong, is the sun around which New Orleans music evolved. Wikipedia cites 68 pages of songs performed by, written by, or associated with Louis Armstrong. That doesn’t come close to the songs that he covered over his fifty-year career.

Not every song in every set was recorded by Armstrong but every band paid homage to Louis, told stories about his songs, stretched them out, goosed them faster, slowed them down, laid down inventive Satchmo-like solos with trombones, saxophones, clarinets, pianos, banjos, every instrument on the bandstand.

But trumpet players are the Zeus’s of New Orleans’ pantheon. Trumpeters like Connie Jones, Kid Merv, Travis Hill, Clive Wilson, Wendell Brunios, Kenny Terry, Leroy Jones and the estimable Kermit Ruffins own this town.

When a trumpeter hits notes that dogs can hear across the river in Algiers, and notes that make the hair on the back of your head feel like they’re carrying AC current, or invents phrasing with the power of nuclear fusion or the seductive caress of a lover, you’re in the universe first explored and mapped by Louis Armstrong.

“When you play these songs with this kind of groove, you owe it all to Louis Daniel Armstrong. That’s the spirit that influences us to this day. Louis lived in an era in which he wasn’t supposed to do what he did, and succeed like he did. We owe him,” trumpeter Wendell Brunious said as he introduced his set, one of the last on Sunday afternoon. Virtually every bandleader acknowledged a debt to Armstrong.

What kind of groove?  Improvised, visceral, and creative. Jazz before and after Louis is like motion pictures before and after Technicolor. Armstrong crashed into the jazz scene with the same force as the meteor that spelled the end of the dinosaurs’ era. Before Louis, musicians tended to play set pieces.

Armstrong’s fusillade of an introduction to “West End Blues” in 1929 danced around like a live wire. After that, it is said that trumpeters would split their lips trying to match Armstrong’s improvised style. The age of the solo as a creative music form had dawned.

On top of his technical skills, Louis Armstrong was a natural entertainer. He had this gravel pit of a voice, incongruously listenable, helped popularize a style of singing called “scat,” and had an incandescent and playful presence that vaulted directly from the stage to the audience, as he proves at the Newport Jazz Fest in 1958.

Born around 1900 in New Orleans, Louis learned to play the cornet in reform school when he was 12 years old. In the next twelve years he played with Kid Ory, Joe “King” Oliver, and Fletcher Henderson, all big names at the time. He had his first song hit the charts with Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’” in 1929. By the time he died in 1971, he was one of the most recognizable names in America. He’s been called “the most influential musician in the history of jazz.”

When you fly into town, you land at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Enough said.

“We want to remind you that this whole weekend of music is absolutely….(host emcee puts hand to ear)…”
“FREEEEE!” a thousand spectators shout back.

“The way we keep it that way is for you to buy beverages and food and Satchmo Summerfest merchandise, lots of it!” This is one of the few events where no coolers or outside beverages or food are allowed inside the grounds – and no one complains.

About two-dozen local restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and alcohol companies sponsor the event. People in NOLA know how to handle their liquor. I don’t see one inebriated spectator.

And that gets me to the people here. The crowd looks like a hundred pages of New Orleans census book showed up, with their kids.

To me this is a really big deal. I mean, I flew here from Boston and stayed five days. For them, it’s just another chance to hear fabulous music.

The city is bathed in it: The Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest), The French Quarter Festival, The Voodoo Music Experience, The Vieux To Do, the Essence Festival, The Ponderosa Stomp and a bunch of others.

For New Orleanians, this kind of deal with music, food, beverages, is the woof and the warp of their social lives. Perfect strangers chat easily with each other. The fact that they’re here is enough to establish they have something in common. It’s what they do. They tote their camp chairs or blankets or pieces of cardboard, plant them under a tent, and they’re set for the afternoon. Their space is still there if they take in a set at the other tent. They listen. They cheer. They dance.

“We've got plenty of room on the dance floor. You don't need to know how to dance, this is New Orleans!” the leader of The New Orleans Moonshiner says at the Cornet Chop Suey Stage.

That about sums it up. The snooty factor is zero. Moms and dads are on the wood dance floor with their tots, joining a septuagenarian who’s been a fixture here for decades, and an assortment of enthusiasts are on the move and in the groove.

You know how Red Sox fans sing along with “Sweet Caroline” in the middle of the eighth inning at Fenway Park? This crowd spontaneously bursts into choruses of songs all weekend long, from “Sunny Side Of The Street” to “Bourbon Street Blues” to “Give Me A Kiss To Build A Dream On” to “Wonderful World,” and a bunch of others.

As I look around at the thousands of black and white people at Satchmo Fest, I wonder if this racial mix would be together here if it weren’t for Louis Armstrong. Louis came in for criticism for not taking a political stand during the racial tumult of the 1960s. His persona was dissed by the more strident youth in movements of the day.

Music can be ammunition for discord or harmony. Louis had his own way of making statements, with lyrics sung before some of those detractors were born. In 1929 he recorded “(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue?” a song from a popular musical. The lyrics include
‘My only sin,
Is in my skin,
What did I do,
To be so black and blue?’

In lyrics from another version, he sang

‘I'm white inside, but that don't help my case,
Cause I can't hide what is on my face,
I'm so forlorn. Life's just a thorn,
My heart is torn. Why was I born?
What did I do to be so black and blue?”

It took guts for a black musician to sing that song in that period. In my mind, Armstrong was a universally accessible bridge that kept social channels open during a time of extreme racial tension through his virtuosity, the medium of music, and his very being.

And it took guts for him to record “What A Wonderful World” in the midst of the tensions of 1968. But more than guts, it required heart. Louis Armstrong meant what he sang. We feel his sentiments through his gravelly voice and somewhere in the heart of every listener, we want to believe. And we feel his heartbeat in New Orleans' music to this day.

Satchmo Summerfest 2012: Sunday August 5, 2012

Satchmo Summerfest

400 Esplanade Avenue at the old U.S.Mint, now part of the Louisiana State Museum.
August 3-5, 2012
New Orleans, LA

If one photo could capture the essence of Satchmo Summerfest, this might be it...music as a bridge between young and old, black and white, every strata of society. One of the most influential musicians in America responsible for building this bridge was New Orleans born Louis Armstrong.

A dozen bands on performed on Sunday between noon and 8 PM, six at the Cornet Chop Suey Stage pavilion and six at the Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage pavilion, same deal on Saturday with a dozen different bands!

If you wanted to know more about the life and times of Louis Armstrong and his impact on jazz, there were fourteen one-hour seminars on the third floor of the old U.S. Mint.

During the first two years I caught Satchmo Summerfest, I marveled at the range of music - the joy, expertise, professionalism, and pride with which it was played. This year, instead of attending seminars upstairs in the U.S. Mint, I scribbled notes as bandleaders introduced songs, cited the names of composers, dates written, whether they’d been written or covered by Louis Armstrong and anecdotes of their own.

When I returned home, I spent a week googling data. The next time I hear a few bars of a particular song, I’ll know that it’s “Wolverine Blues,” that it was written by Jelly Roll Morton in 1940 and recorded later by Louis Armstrong. I know why cornetist Buddy Bolden was the subject of Morton's "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say;" and more about  Fats Waller; the complex history of the song “Iko Iko;” and how Louis Armstrong's solos in songs like "West End Blues" 1928 (listen to how Armstrong phrases his brief trumpet opening solo), 1955 changed American music forever.

In Louisiana, if a man plays an instrument, chances are that someone else in the family is a singer or musician. With The Paulin Brothers, at least four of Ernest "Doc" Paulin's six sons are in the band and the third generation of Paulins to perform.

During their set they cover several songs recorded by Satchmo - Wolverine Blues (composed in 1940 by Fats Waller), Struttin' With Some BBQ (written by Armstrong's wife at the time, talented pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong), When It's Sleepy Time Down South, (still covered by Wynton Marsalis) and What a Wonderful World , recorded by Armstrong in 1968.

Clive Wilson's Satchmo Serenade at the Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage

An educator to the core, Clive Wilson tells anecdotes about Armstrong or the song’s history. The bandleaders all weekend long make the point of connecting their music choices with Louis Armstrong - whether the songs appeared during the Armstrong era, or were played by Armstrong, or influenced by Armstrong. Speaking of influence, Wilson took up the trumpet after listening to a New Orleans Brass Band on tour in his hometown of London. He traveled to New Orleans in 1964 to learn from the masters and never left!

All weekend, musicians put their own spin on the Louis Armstrong style, whether it's playful, energetic, lyrical, and with some of the younger bands, stretched way out. One of The Satchmo Serenaders songs was "Old Rockin' Chair" often recorded by Armstrong and His All Stars with Jack Teagarden. Their timing and rapport were classic.

Kid Merv and All That Jazz, Cornet Chop Suey Stage  - “If you're not here to have a good time, I feel sorry for you!” Kid Merv says as he's introduced to the crowd. During the 16 hours I was at the US mint over two days, I didn't see one soul he had to feel sorry for. “I was so excited I woke up at 6 AM to iron my clothes!” he jokes. An hour later his clothes were soaked through but his high energy was not dampened one little bit.

Kid Merv, recently featured in New Orleans' OffBeat Magazine, gets going with “Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” written in 1931 by Duke Ellington and often played by Satchmo who took liberties with the lyrics. Kid Merv is having fun up there, mugging and dancing and bantering with the crowd.

“Watching Katrina took it out of me, playing this made me feel better” he says as he plays “Sleepytime Down South” in slow dirge tempo. His rendition of “What A Wonderful World” has a playful rumba lilt to it. “Sunny Side Of The Street” (recorded by scores of singers from Billie Holiday to Judy Garland and of course Armstrong) , an uptempo ”Route 66” and “Rag  Mop” precede a lovely “Give Me A Kiss To Build A Dream On.”

“Thank you, Uncle Lionel. He showed me everything I know,” Kid Merv says, referring to “Uncle” Lionel Batiste, legendary and loved bass drummer of the Tremé Brass Band who died on July 8.

“Uncle Lionel taught me this song. We were out drinking beer one night and I kept trying to get it right. Uncle Lionel would say 'Shade it just a little bit… no, not that way… no, not that way… Yeah that way.'"
It’s not likely that Uncle Lionel taught Kid Merv everything he knows. But the influence Lionel Batiste had on fellow musicians, especially younger ones, and the sense of joy he brought to his street, his neighborhood and his city is undeniable. Kid Merv definitely got the message.

Rebirth Jazz Band - The backdrop to both stages of Satchmo Summerfest show a big black and white photo of "Uncle" Lionel Batiste, the legendary bass drummer who died on July 8, 2012. The riotous Rebirth Brass Band was one of at several bands that played a cover of Armstrong's  "What A Wonderful World." 

Leroy Jones and New Orleans Finest opens with Paul Barbarin's "Bourbon Street Parade." Kids in New Orleans probably learn the words to this not long after learning "The National Anthem." Is there any trumpeter in this city who can't shoot the lights out of any place at any given time?

Don Vappie and The Creole Jazz Serenaders - Cornet Chop Suey Stage

Like most of the other bandleaders, Vappie offers mini history lessons before the songs - he's a professor at Tulane University, what do you expect? Vappie talks about the introduction of the banjo in America as a modified version of an instrument used in Africa and played by slaves. “Hey, if you want to learn more, take my class!”

Chances are you’re familiar with a Dixieland type banjo style. Throw out any ideas you have of that sound. In the hands of Don Vappie it swings, jazzes, lilts, croons and yes, can play the hell out of Dixieland too. His full range doesn't come across on the CDs I've checked out online so seeing him live is the best ticket He’s loose, in the moment  patter is a hoot. And of course a big audience at Satchmo Summerfest gets him wound up like a Swiss watch. I would come back to see him in a heartbeat. That wouldn't be hard to do since he's a fixture at several New Orleans clubs.

I havent heard every band this weekend but several have played rendtions of "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say," and that's how Vappie begins his set. Buddy Bolden was known in the early 1900s in New Orleans for his extemporaneous style and overindulgence in wine, women and whiskey. Jelly Roll Morton played in brothels, known then as 'sporting houses,' and wrote this song about Bolden. Around this time he changed his name from Ferdinand Mouton to Jelly Roll Morton. Jelly Roll was black slang for both male and female  genitalia. And here I thought the nickname was because the man had a commanding sweet tooth!

 “Eh la Bas!” (“Shake That Thing”) sung mostly in French, takes the the place down, people dancing and shaking their things all over the place and shouting back 'Eh La Bas!' as a refrain every time Vappie sings it. This is one of those New Orleans moments that makes this city so damn wonderful. The margins between performers and audience are permeable, everybody gets it, is having fun, letting go, shedding the outside world for precious moments when we are all connected by the Crescent City’s magic music.

Jeremy Davenport must be doing something right.  The Ritz Carlton music room in New Orleans is the Davenport Lounge. Jeremy invites to the stage winner of this year’s  "Seeking Satch" competition (for sixth – twelfth graders) James Michael Bradford.

Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony ,a change of pace, more Aretha than Louis, but a refreshing complememt to today's music. Their opening song, "Ain't No Sunshine When He’s Gone" is a the equivalent of a fine restaurant offering you a refreshing little taste of sherbet between courses, this one hits part of the palate that is connected to your pelvis.

"For Your Love," then an uptempo “Ballin’ the Jack” with intense bass and then a trombone solos by one of the few female musicians on stage all weekend, a snappy arrangement with close harmony. Solid Harmony has been featured at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.Remember what I said about music being a family affair? Topsy's daughter is one of her trio.


Kermit Ruffins and His Barbeque Swingers -

There’s something of the imp in Kermit Ruffins. He’s funny, irreverent, spontaneous, non self-aggrandizing, a showman without being a showboat, generous with his time on stage, genuine, and fun loving. When he’s up there performing, he’s not at work, he’s having fun.

Kermit romps through “What Did I Do To Be So Black and Blue?” (1929 Fats Waller and Andy Razaf)

And "Big Butter and Egg Man" (1926, The song name was a 1920s slang term for a big spender, a traveling businessman in the habit of spending large amounts of money in nightclubs)

Kermit and the other trumpeters here play on the shoulders of Louis Daniel Armstrong. The repertoire is as rich as the history and the lives of the men who continued to ride the wave Armstrong generated in the 1920s. The songs  performed today are recognizable by music fans from all 50 states and a pile of countries on both sides of America.

Lord only knows how many top-flight trumpeters there are in New Orleans. If you can make it as a trumpet player in the Crescent City, you’ve passed the Armstrong test. People outside New Orleans would be hard pressed to know Kermit Ruffins name - here you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know who he is.

Like other trumpet players, he begins the classic songs with a standard and recognizable structure so that within a bar or two we all know what song he’s playing. What we don’t know, and most likely Kermit doesn’t know, is how the song’s going to sound in the middle.

You watch him light into phrase after phrase, eyes closed or fixed on some object in space visible only to him, notes hurtling out in staccato or long searing bleats that perk up dog’s ears several blocks away. Where’s he going with this, I think to myself. How can he top that? How does he DO that?

"Aint Misbehavin'", Kermit blows this one fast with his BBQ Swingers - piano, drums, bass and Kermit, that’s all he needs! Then, an uptempo "Jeepers Creepers," a 1938  jazz standard.

Kermit puts his own spin on "Sunny Side Of The Street" often played by Louis with his gravelly voice and endless ad libs and interpretive shadings. Kermit ad libs, replacing "If I never made one cent, I'll still be rich as Rockefeller, there will be goldust at my feet, on the sunny, sunny side of the street” with “If I never made one cent, I’d be rich as Uncle Lionel, with roses at my feet, on the sunny side of the street” a tribute to the late "Uncle" Lionel Batiste. The crowd cheers lustily.

The guy is a hoot, plays a few bars of "It's A Hard Knock Life" before a swinging "Bye Bye Blackbird," another song Satchmo played and sang frequently. “All Aboarrrddd” Kermit hollers and finishes with "What A Wonderful World,"and right about now, that's what it feels like to me.

 

Not sure of the identity of the first trumpeter, Yoshio Toyama, Kid Merv, James Michael Bradford, Jason Harrelson, Wendell Brunios, join Kermit for the high-flying trumpet finale, if you could  die of trumpet delirium, you might have gone to your heavenly reward right here.

“Only in New Orleans…where we got the REAL music lovers” Kermit shouts, pointing to us. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…” he says about a hundred times and we all feel like he’s looking right at and talking right to each of us.

Earlier in the day....

High noon. If yesterday felt like a sauna, today is like a steam bath. Who cares? Certainly not Rosa "Tambourine Lady" Washington or "Spy Boy" Ricky Gettridge.

 

Festival organizers held a Second Line Umbrella Decorating Station inside the Mint on Saturday and Sunday. Kids could decorate an and keep the umbrella then march from the second floor of the Mint to the Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage behind the Treme Brass Band on Saturday and the Rebirth Brass Band on Sunday. They could keep the umbrella - and have a totally New Orleans memory to boot!

Sitting in front or standing in back, thousands of people attended the free event organized by French Quarter Festivals, Inc.

Marye, her sisters Ingrid and Cyndy and Momma Rita. Their grandfather worked right here in the U.S. Mint, their father worked for the railroad. "Momma  used to get us six kids up on Mardi Gras morning at 6 AM to sit out on the street and wait for Pete Fountain and his band to pass by," Marye says. She grew up few blocks away and still lives around there.

pt with Kid Merv and his friend Zelda (whose great grandmother’s sister dated Lionel Batiste!)


Whether you danced or watched from the street, you had a good time at this event organized by French Quarter Festivals, Incorporated.
 
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

A Birthday Salute To My Editors

A Birthday Salute To My Editors

A writer should be so lucky…two editors to remind him that nouns and verbs need to agree, that even spell check cant tell the difference between of and off, that enthusiasm is good but so is sequence and sufficient detail.

When it comes to my writing, Susaan Straus and Rebecca Wilson tell it like it is… candid, concise, and clear. They’re interested in content and style and don’t worry that panning what I think is a fabulous paragraph will hurt my tender feelings. That is an enormous gift to a writer.

Both of them recently celebrated their birthdays. Big time Happy Birthday wishes from a grateful writer.

Satchmo Summerfest 2012: Saturday August 4, 2012

 

"Satchmo Summerfest, the premier American jazz festival dedicated to the life, music and legacy of New Orleans' native son, Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong." The festival is absolutely FREE, draws thousands from around the block and around the country. The beverages and merchandise we buy underwrite the cost of organizing the festival produced by French Quarter Festivals, Inc. up on the grounds of the old U.S. Mint at the edge of the French Quarter.

The entertainers are well-known to the community, the whole weekend feels like a block party with fabulous music. Familiies of all confiugurations, young, old, black, white, in all sorts of New Orleans attire flock to this weekend event.

Saturday is the usual 90 degrees in the shade August afternoon in New Orleans. This is the second year the organizers erected tents to protect from searing sun or dramatic downpours.

There's a 101 year old trumpet player in this series of photos, can you spot him?

“When I was younger I used to make fun of the old guys who played sitting down. I want to thank whoever put this stool out here for me today,”  Connie Jones says. "That look of panic on my face was when I realized we did not have an ending for Beale Street Blues but Ed (Wise, standup bass player) took care of that.” Connie Jones and His Crescent City All Stars know how to have fun.

They cover Eubie Blake's 1914 "Chevy Chase" and a later song Blake wrote with Andy Razaf, "I'd Give A Dollar For A Dime," and Armstrong songs "Someday You'll Be Sorry" and "Swing That Music."

This was an all-ages audience. I'll bet some of the adults here got their first taste of music when their  parents brought them to shows like this.

Hey, mom, this is fun,do that again! You can even have fun sitting down.

101 year old Lionel Ferbos plays with Lars Edegran (piano) And His Ragtime Orchestra.Ferbos is a link to the past and a source of pride in New Orleans’s musical present. To say that he is getting on in years is an understatement, he needs a wheelchair to get around these days but has no trouble managing his trumpet. After all, he's been playing it for 85 years.

To the delight of all, Ferbos takes the vocal lead on "My Creole Belle, " written in 1900, and the 1919 composition "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate and "I'm Sorry I Made You Cry." His voice might be wobbly  but there's nothing wrong with his trumpet chops.VIDEO SOON.

 

Lars Edegran on piano leads his tight Ragtime Band. Edegran opens with a song recorded by Jelly Roll Morton in 1939, "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say". The song was based on "Buddy Bolden's Blues," sung by Bolden around 1905. An early version of Bolden's song was titled "Funky Butt," one of the first references to "funk" in popular music.

Edegran's band plays rags by James Scott and Scott Joplin (one Joplin rag was "Elite Syncopation," better known as the theme for the film "The Sting"), "Kiss Me Sweet," a song Armstrong played with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in the 1920s, and a lovely rendition of the Cuban song "Siboney."

 

Les Edegran and Lionel Ferbos relax after their one hour set.

 

pt at large with a jazz legend; hey, this is eight hours of music under two pavilions from noon until 8 PM, gotta sit down sometime.

Forget Dairy Queens, Snow Balls are the sweet cooler of choice in New Orleans.

Yoshio Toyama, "the Satchmo of Japan," plays with the flair and enthusiasm of his hero, Louis Armstrong. His story, how he and his banjo playing wife moved to New Orleans when they were married in 1968 to learn jazz, and have built a world famous Dixieland Jazz band that plays tons of Armstrong music, is worthy of a Hollywood movie.

They started the Wonderful World of Jazz Foundation in 1994. The back story is tragic. In 1992, a Japanese exchange student was shot and killed in Baton Rouge when he mistakenly went to a house he thought was hosting a Halloween party.

Shaping a purpose from their grief, Yoshio and his wife started their foundation two years later to promote non-violence through music. Since 1994, every year they come to Satchmo Fest, they bring instruments they've collected and donate them to New Orleans public schools (over 800 instruments to date). After Katrina, they raised $80,000 to help professional musicians get their lives back on track.

New Orleans musicians returned the favor in 2011 after the tsunami devastated Japan. They organized a fund raiser to help Toyama's foundation replace a rehearsal room and instruments that were lost in the tsumani and had belonged to a children's swing band.

Treme Brass Band trombone player Ed King and snare drummer and band leader Benny Jones, Sr. know me as "Paul from Boston."

Kenneth Terry plays trumpet with the Treme Brass Band and several others/Kenneth Terry with 16 year old John Michael Bradford (Preservation Hall Junior Jazz Band) who won this years Seeking Satchmo competition.
 

pt and Mark "Pinman" Perez; listening to music from the Coronet Chop Suey Stage from the shady edge of the former U.S. Mint, now part of the Louisiana State Museum, on Esplanade Avenue at the edge of the French Quarter.

Dancer Jennifer Jones, if there's a party, she'll find it;

Preservation Hall-Stars - piano Marie Watanabe, trombone Corey Henry, sousaphone Jeffrey Hill, clarinet Bruce Brackman, banjo Paul LeBlanc, trumpet Will Smith, drums Grammy winning Ernie Ellie Elly. “All these guys play with different bands,” a woman who gives me these names says. Sure enough, I see Jeffrey Hill, Corey Henry, Kenny Terry, and others playing in other bands the rest of the weekend.

When they open with "You Are My Sunshine," the crowd sings right along. When they cover “Jockimo Fee Nah Nay” the band has fun with the choruses, and ad libs one - "See that man, didn’t want to  go to hell, he went to go to heaven, and got to Slidell” - it gets a huge laugh from audience, perhaps excepting any one from Slidell, a city across Lake Ponchartrain.

They follow a boisterous rendition of "Hello,Dolly" with another of Armstrong's favorites "When It's Sleepytime Down South," which he recorded over one hundred times in his career.

Delfeayo Marsalis and The Uptown Swing Orchestra ,about sixteen men in black, varies in age and race.The band begins in familiar territory – Professor Longhair’s “Go to the Mardi Gras” first recorded down the street at Cosimo Matassa's studio (Governor Nichols St.) in 1959. You could probably hear this song all the way down on the bank of the Mississippi about half a mile away, and they were just getting warmed up. 

A few songs later, “Symphony In Riffs,” by Benny Carter, originally composed in 1930 and re-scored decades later, this is as pure a jazz arrangement as you will hear all day, brilliant, with an assemblage of mostly younger players Marsalis has put together. Later, the Mardi Gras Indian anthem “Oh nah nay,”  Freddie Green’s “Corner Pocket,” ("Freddy may have been better known as a pool hustler than composer," Marsalis says, but this one composition is a classic); Horace Silver’s “El Señor Blues,” and a warm rendition of Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World,” one of dozens of tributes to Satchmo that fell like rain drops all day long.

New Orleans bands rarely end with mellow. Delfeayo Marsalis fires up serious licks on his trombone and his band closes with a totally ripping version of “L’ll Liza Jane" a song that has roots way back to the mid 1800s. Nothing mellow about that. This is the most richly marbled a set of the day.

Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. and the Wild Magnolias -These guys are Creole infused pack of dynamite that rocks  between traditional songs and Funk with Bourbon Street stamped all over it. Piano, saxophone, trumpet, two sets of drums, lead guitar, bass, and Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr., son of Big Chief Theodore Emile “Bo” Dollis who masked first for The Wild Eagles then The Wild Magnolias, two 'tribes' of Mardi Gras Indians.

Bo Dollis, Jr. is a showman of the first-order. This Chief has great stage presence. Along with the Bourbon Street funk, he can carry off a sweet version of “Give Me A Kiss To Build A Dream On,” a song composed in 1935 and first recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1951. Film buffs  might remember the song in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle."

Treme Funktet with Corey Henry Trombone and Travis Hill trumpet, funky with an urban social justice edge, a song whose title sounds like Tropical Guns, a take down of violence on the streets. They play at The Candlelight Lounge on North Robertson in the Treme, right near where Corey Henry was born.

The groove is not lost on Mark "Pinman" Perez, who has a whole posse of women dancing to the beat. Mark has extraordinary connections. He got me a "Media Pass" the next day!

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Lena Prima at the Hotel Monteleone Carousel Bar

Hotel Monteleone
214 Royal Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
Friday night August 3, 2012

The Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street at the edge of the French Quarter is classy, elegant, a genuine piece of New Orleans history - and a destination for tourists and locals alike. It's famous Carousel Bar & Lounge was enlarged in 2011. Now in addition to food and drink, music is on the menu. Sort of.

Lena Prima, daughter of Louis Prima, one of New Orleans’s favorite sons, is the headliner on Saturday nights… touted on the hotel's website as “an extraordinary musical and vocal experience, come early, bring your dance shoes.”

9:07 PM Lena begins with “Let The Good Times Roll.” Her band’s piano, bass, drums, sax, trumpet, trombone–her men in black - have a swinging big band sound.

But what’s going on in this long rectangular lounge with the huge bay windows facing Royal Street? The music sounds great but good lord, we have a room full of talkers yammering over some very classy music. Jaysus, we are not in an elevator.  For all intents and purposes, the people in the pods of divans and easy chairs in the middle of the room are on another planet. They’re not even watching.

An afterthought of applause ripples after each song.

The room perks up briefly as Lena has fun with a medley of her father’s bouncy, up tempo Italian flavored songs, "Buona Serra," and "Oh, Marie," all the while playfully singing back and forth with her band, who respond with the choruses.

Finally, when she sings an up-tempo version of “That Old Black Magic,” one couple gets up to dance, three feet in front of her and not well but it might be a start.

Lena continues the set with zest, an homage to Louis Armstrong, “A Wonderful World,” then “I Want You!” another of her father’s hits, she is working the room with her late father's characteristic flair.

As if anyone notices.

I’m standing fifty feet back and can hardly hear her. “Basin Street Blues” is next, followed by “You Rascal, You,” and “For Once In My Life,” with a catchy Latin beat. Not a foot taps, not a head nods.

If I were to quiz one of the loungers in the divans to identify the song they just heard, they’d get an F.

Lena completes the set with her father’s signature song “Just A Gigolo,” and a rowdy rendition of “I Ain't Got Nobody.” The management must have sprinkled fairy dust over the room. Three couples get up to dance.

Lena’s got talent but I can't take this crowd. I'm heading over to Frenchmen Street where patrons understand that music is something to listen to, dance to, sway to, make love to, and feel alive with.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

 

The Clover Grill: Breakfast Bourbon Street Style

The Clover Grill
900 Bourbon Street   
New Orleans, LA 70116
Friday August 3, 2012

“If you are not served in 5 minutes, relax, it may be another 5.  This is not New York City”

Every breakfast joint worth its salt has to have a wisecracking counterman to go along with the hash slingers and waiters. At the Clover Grill, that would be Robbie from Oakdale, Louisiana. A diamond stud in his left nostril, assorted tattoos on his arms and bowed legs, he fills the place with as much queenish attitude as the smell of bacon frying on the grill.

Anywhere before noon on Bourbon Street, the Clover Grill is the only place of business showing signs of life. Families from the Midwest and locals eat side-by-side, conversation often spreading between tables and counter stools, often abetted by something outlandish Robbie has just said.

The place is fabulously retro. If a film director wanted a period piece from the 1950s, he wouldn’t have to modify one damn thing here. This is quintessential Bourbon Street. We’re not changing anything, we are who we are, and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.

Red counter stools, gray Formica countertop, gray and black tiled floor, a row of metal tables and chairs under the windows facing Bourbon Street, funky pinkish paint on the walls, it’s the kind of diner your grandmother might have frequented if she wasn’t too fastidious and had a yen for tasty and inexpensive food. My check for two eggs, bacon, a mound of grits, toast AND coffee with endless refills costs $6.83 with tax.

The “American range” grill and gas burners directly across from my stool are missing a knob or 2 and would win no awards for spotlessness but the food coming off of them looks and smells delicious.

The line cook at the grill has an economy of style and unflappable dispostion. Within five seconds she dips a long necked ladle into a metal pot, spills butter into a pan, pulls two eggs off the stacks of cartons, cracks each at the edge of a blackened skillet, slides them in and with a deft flick of the wrist pitches the shells into a trash barrel under the counter. Two minutes later she casually grips the skillet's handle and another flick of the wrist flips them sunnyside over, and slides them onto a plate to be loaded with the rest of the order. Watching her ply her spatula to bacon, burgers, hash browns, and grilled onions is to witness performance art.

The clatter of plates is punctuated by outbursts of laughter and welcoming greetings of “Hey, Baby!”

You’re in clover at the Clover Grill.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Breakfast - at 8 PM

Stanley Restaurant
547 Saint Ann Street
New Orleans, LA 70116

If location, location, location, is the gold standard for both real estate and eateries, The Stanley Restaurant is the Fort Knox of food emporiums in New Orleans. Located at the corner of St. Ann and Chartres in the shadow of St. Louis Cathedral, it is at the edge of Jackson Square, a must see attraction in New Orleans for about one hundred reasons, all of them good.

I am starved. Serving breakfast all day long is all I had to know about Stanley's. Ten seconds after being handed the menu, my eyes fix on the “Omelette Sandwich”– eggs, smoked ham, smoked bacon, American cheese, grilled sweet onions and spicy mayonnaise on toasted whole-grain bread–$9.50. Sold.

If I were being served a sandwich like this in Boston, chances are it would be served with a bottle of ketchup. With one hand, my waiter lays the plated sandwich on the granite tabletop. With the other hand he grips bottles of Tabasco Pepper Sauce and Crystal, Louisiana's Pure Hot Sauce.

A couple of shakes of each bottle, two pools of red sauce, and I begin wolfing down the large crisply toasted sandwich, pausing every few bites to swig ice water to cool my mouth and pat myself on the back for beginning to eat like a New Orleanian. Nevermind that my nose is running.

As I leave, my waiter suggests I come back the next morning for the specialty of the house–Breaux Bridge Benedict: housemade boudin, smoked ham, American cheese, poached eggs, and Creole hollandaise on French bread – $14.

“It's a tower of food, the best breakfast in New Orleans,” he says, “You'll have to photograph it to believe it.”

In the Crescent city, I’ve begun believing anything about food.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Apparently, the food at Stanley's inspires customers to take notes; the venerable St. Louis Cathedral, as good a place as any to give thanks for a good meal.

At the corner of Chartres and St. Ann, the Stanley Restaurant is prime location; menu - the tip of the iceberg.

A familiar duo on tabletops in Louisiana

Candlelight Lounge: A Consistent Wednesday Night Glow

The Candlelight Lounge
925 North Robertson
New Orleans, LA
August 1, 2012

9 PM
Benny Jones, Sr. waves to me from the bar. I walk over to chat.

“How long did you know Lionel Batiste?” I ask.

“I knew him for fifty years, we came up together in the Treme, we both lived around St. Philip Street,” he replies.

“It must be hard not seeing him standing in his corner of the bandstand.”

“I miss him but you got to keep the music going.”

There you have it - New Orleans music culture in a nutshell: You got to keep the music going.

Musicians are going to die, get addicted, get arrested, get married, move away, disappear, whatever, but the music, this music, brass band style, with all it’s absorbed from Creole, Spanish, and French cultures and in gospel traditions from Baptist churches – that’s going to keep on going. It’s one of the strongest links to New Orleans’ history, its black history.

Listen hard enough and you’ll hear call and response between musicians and instruments, and one musician trying to top another in rhythm or power or phrasing or crowd-pleasing gesture, traditions introduced in America by slaves from West Africa.
 
Benny Jones, Sr. talks as fast as he rattles his snare drum, and has a thick New Orleans accent to go with it. When I shake hands in greeting, I feel thick callouses padding his fingers and palms. I’ll bet he could pick up a porcupine and not feel its spines.

On the few nights of the week The Candlelight is open, it’s a quiet neighborhood bar. On Wednesday night, Benny wheels the big bass “house drum” from a back room and sets it in the corner of the makeshift stage.

10 PM
Most of the musicians who will play have arrived. Benny ambles over to the back row and begins to riff on his snare drum. Things are about to happen.

Three minutes later, tuba player Julius “Jap” McKee opens the night, “You’re about to hear some real New Orleans music.” He holds a big plastic jar in air emblazoned with the word TIPS, “We tend to play even better when this gets filled up,” he grins.

By 10:55 the jar is getting more full and the Treme Brass Band is sounding good, real good.

At the break I sit down next to Ric Frank, the tenor sax player who’s been responsible for reeling off some pretty impressive solos.

“I know Ed King (trombone) and Jap and Benny but can you tell me who the other guys are who are playing with you tonight?”

“Stackman, what’s your last name?” Ric Frank asks the sax player he’s been jamming with for the past hour. In the next few minutes l learn that Elliot “Stackman” Callier is the other sax player, Kid Merv trumpet, Mike Hughes bass drum and still haven’t found last name of other snare drummer Calvin.

It still amazes me these guys play so damn well without knowing the names of the guys in the band.

“Somebody calls out a song, what key to play in, and we begin to jam,”Ric says. Geez, don’t they rehearse? Intuition, experience, creativity, piggybacking onto riffs someone else is playing, how the heck could you rehearse that? And that's exactly why this music grabs you by the lapels. When it isn't pinning you to the wall, it's pushing you out of your chair like a jack in the box.

Ric Frank is serious about his craft. Leader of the Jambalaya Brass Band in New York City, he's come to New Orleans on a grant to study clarinet. He’s studied with Phil Frazier (founder of The Rebirth Brass Band 1983, tuba); Kirk Joseph (founder of Dirty Dozen Brass Band 1977, sousaphone); highly-regarded clarinetist and retired New Orleans music teacher Joseph Torregano; elite early jazz clarinetist Evan Christopher; Dr. Mike White (Xavier University professor, clarinetist whose relatives played for Kid Ory and King Oliver); Charles Joseph (co-founder Dirty Dozen Brass Band 1977 with brother Kirk, jazz trombonist).

Each one of these mentors is steeped in the music culture and history of New Orleans. Passing that on to an aspiring student is a gift as important as teaching techique. Ric Frank has been paying attention.

Music is often a family affair in New Orleans. Phil Frazier's brother Keith, another founder of The Rebirth Brass Band, is married to Benny Jones, Sr.’s daughter, which probably led Ric Frank to becoming acquainted with the Treme Brass Band and sitting in tonight. The next time Ric comes to New Orleans to study with one of his mentors, the chances are he'll be back here at the Candlelight Lounge.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ed King (trombone) Ric Frank and "Stackman" Callier (saxophone), Julius McKee (tuba); back row: Mike Hughes (bass drum), Calvin and Benny Jones, Sr. (blue shirt, on snare drums).

Audience participation is part of the entertainment.

Ric Frank wails on tenor; Ed King rallies the crowd

Kid Merv -if you play trumpet with Treme, you gotta be good... he is.

By the end of the first set, just about everybody is on their feet...

and Kid Merv is one of the reasons.

First set list, thanks to Ric Frank:

Bill Bailey, Paul Barbarin's “Secondline", Food Stamp Blues, Blue Monk, High Heeled Sneakers