pt at large

Festival Acadiens et Creole 2012: Michael Doucet and Mitch Reed

Festival Acadiens et Creole: Michael Doucet and Mitch Reed at the Louisiana Folk Roots Atelier
Lafayette, Louisiana
Sunday, October 14, 2012

Either one of these two men can mesmerize an audience with their stories before even unpacking  their fiddles. The audience in the Folk Roots Tent eats it up.

"Mitch, why don't you tell us a story?" Michael says. Mitch Reed, born in Mamou and raised in Lafayette, looks at Michael Doucet as if he's just offered him a beer.

"Every so often I go back to my hometown in Mamou and sometimes want to visit the graves of my distant relatives. There is this old guy who rides around town on his bike with a beer in his hand and is the self-proclaimed caretaker of the cemetery - he runs you out of there if you can't tell him the name of the person whose grave you're trying to visit. One time I got in the gate and he started run me off. I got nervous and forgot my relative's names but before he got to me I looked at a few names on the headstones and told him that's who i was going to visit. He turned around and pedaled  off."

Michael Doucet counters with a Boudreaux and Thibodeaux (central characters in much South Louisiana humor) story so delightfully convoluted that I can't even begin to retell it. The hundred people seated under the tent are howling with laughter. These guys could tell stories until it's time to milk the cows.

I'm trying to take a picture from the side of the stage and woman says, "Go right up front and take a picture." I'm trying to be polite and not get in people's way and Sarah gently nudges me toward the stage.

Sarah, like every other local I've met here, is a font of information. She takes fiddle lessons from Mitch on Mondays and Wednesday nights at a place called the Front Room, in Scott. His next lessons began October 27, Sarah will be there.

"Where does he come up with these stories," I ask.

"When he was a little kid, older people took him to listen to music. He met Dennis McGee, Dewey Balfa, and Canray Fontenot (who I Iater find out was considered the greatest black Louisiana French fiddle player of our time). "I go to hear Mitch's  stories about as much as I go for the lessons."

"We sing a lot of songs about dying. We're like that," Michael Doucet says dryly. "We're all going to get there, and that sticks in our minds around here." He sings "Les Fleur." "It's about a man about to be hanged, who says collect your tears to water the Cherokee Rose tree. I have no idea what this means, except it is a story about dying." Like so many cajun ballads, the song is haunting, and melancholy but vaguely cathartic.

The woman watching me scribble notes introduces herself. Jen Reed, wife of Mitch,friendly and engaging, tells me she was born in Lunenburg, MA, moved to nearby Fitchburg,  graduated from Simmons College, and ended up down here.

Mitch and Michael play a lovely waltz titled "La Robe La Parasol."

Mitch tells of being taken to Mulate’s when he was a 13-year-old. "I want to play like that," I told my dad. "I wanted to preserve dance hall music and be a part of carrying on this tradition."

I do a double take. There is  Gina Forsyth hollering appreciation when either one of the two fiddlers cranks out some over the top riff. Gina's been playing fiddle with Bruce Daigrepont at Tipitina's in New Orleans for the past 17 years, probably the longest running Fais Do Do dance in the country.

Gina is transfixed, knows the lyrics and probably the fingering on the fiddle for every song they play. She's driven from New Orleans to hear Michael and Mitch. "I'll head back to New Orleans to play with Bruce as soon as the set is over," she says.

Cajuns had to struggle to keep their French language and heritage alive in schools and society. Michael Doucet tells about a time he and fellow musicians got an NEA grant to teach Cajun music in the public schools around Lafayette. "The schools didn't want the music, they had no interest in acknowledging Cajun culture, thought it was backward and ignorant." Sometime in the 1970s it began to re emerge and has been going strong ever since.

That corresponds to what I've heard from men and women in their 50s 60s 70s who recall that if they spoke French in school they would be paddled.

If you wanted to have a crash course in  where Cajun music came from, and the stories behind each song, this was the place to be. Michael Doucet is in his 60s, Mitch Read in his 40s. Between them they are a treasure chest of Cajun music history.

They agree on one last song. Mitch hollers out what he says was a traditional refrain he heard musicians shout when he was a kid, "Folks this is  genuine Cajun breakdown music as heard in Evangeline. Let's go, boys!" and they fiddle up a storm.

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

These two fiddlers are having fun making music and telling great stories about the music they play and the people about whom it was written.

Fiddle player Gina Forsyth loves what she's hearing. Mitch's wife Jen, a Massachusetts native, now firmly transplanted in Lafayette.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Festival Acadiens et Creole: The People pt 2

Festival Acadiens et Creole: The People pt 2
Lafayette, Louisiana
Sunday, October 14, 2012

"I've lived here all my life and never been to one of these festivals," says the lean black man with a smile. "This is really good. When I went to school here at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, one of my teachers, Miss Joe, taught us a little about all these dances - some Cajun, some zydeco and some two steps and good lord didn't I see her out here dancing a few minutes ago."

"Where you from?"

"I live down by St. Martinsville, a place called Cypress Island, my mother takes care of Dr. Ralph Bourgeois, who was our family doctor for about 60 years. She's about 85 years old right now."

"You ever hear of Catfish Island?" he asks. "That's a big pond where they raise a lot of the catfish that people eat around here."

One minute you're standing around watching what's going on and the next you're talking to the man, woman or couple next to you like you were next-door neighbors. That's why this part of the country draws me like a magnet. I've been talking to Ken, who tells me he's 57 years old and is on his way to search for Ms. Joe. "I I remember how to do some of those dances," he says with a smile, "and I want to try some with her."

There's Doug Borel, Louisiana born and raised, now living in East Texas. "This is Derek Landry, he's a DJ at KBON. He has a show every Saturday morning." Doug knows I write about Louisiana and is helping me make another connection.

Starved, I find a vendor selling shrimp jambalaya, "What do people put on this for dressing?" I ask. "Try some of this," he says, and ladles a generous spoonful of chicken étouffée onto the heap. "Come back tomorrow for more," he says with a smile.

I pull up a chair at a nearby picnic table. Soon I'm joined by two couples and, you guessed it, spend the next half hour talking. Rather than dance, they had gone to one of the smaller stages and heard Balfa Toujours and T.K. Hulin and his band, Smoke, featuring Charlene Howard, Steve Adams and Jamie Hulin. T.K.Hulin, at 69, is one of the all time Swamp Pop singers in Louisiana. I'm crushed. Swamp Pop is the best belly rubbin' music to come from Louisiana. I would have loved to hear it sung by one of it’s pioneers.

Richard Conques, "conquest without the T", he says, born in Lafayette, now lives in Alexandria with his pretty wife, the sister of the other couple who've joined me at the table.

"You're from Boston?" they exclaim, standing up to smooth out their Kelly green Doyle's of Boston T shirts. They recently spent a one-week vacation in Beantown. They packed it in - went to Hanover Street, walked the Freedom Trail, took a famous Duck Boat Tour, and a “Whale Watch”  where they were thrilled to see a mamma humpback  and two of her calves. Small world. Here we are trading stories about Boston in Lafayette.

"You should come down for the Mercredi Dances in Carencro in the spring and fall," says Richard, recently retired. I understand French but Cajun French is a dialect all its own. I ask him twice to repeat the French word for Wednesday  until i understand it.

"We drive 100 miles down from Alexandria every Wednesday to listen and dance," they say, "but for this festival, we stay overnight. Were going to the French mass tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM which is right here in the park and will be here for the rest of the day."

I guess you could say that music is pretty close to being a universal religion in southwest Louisiana.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Festival Acadiens et Creole 2012: Let's Dance!

Festival Acadiens et Creole:
Lafayette, Louisiana
Saturday and Sunday, October 13-14, 2012

 Dancing in the dust was never more fun than this.

Whether you're holding on to your partner or your drink, you're having fun.

"Antoine Melancon is one of the most sought after dancers around here," says the woman in white (photo above on left) as she makes a bee line for him right after that dance. Antoine lives in nearby St. Martinville and keeps the beat with his feet better than any guy around.

There were lots of children on, or in some cases, above, the dance "floor".

My first dance with a desperado! Susan's not robbing a bank, just keeping the dust at bay.

It's hard to sit still in any music festival around here. I am dancing by myself next to my friends Bernard and Rubia (who took the photos) when this young lady stands up from her chair and declares, "I don't know how to dance, but..." and holds her arms out to me. "You're dancing with Whitney, a Creole girl from Thibodaux," she says with a grin. We do just fine.

Festival Acadiens et Creole: The People

Festival Acadiens et Creole
Lafayette, Louisiana
October 13 - 14, 2012

THE PEOPLE

Yes, they're dancing in the dirt. After a few hours, the grass underfoot was ground down, leaving the kicked up parched earth to swirl underfoot like a low level Kansas dust storm. After every act, an attendant hosed down the "dance floor". Fifteen minutes later, dust was flying again.

Louisiana native Jackie Simien (white top), News Anchor at KBMT12 Houston, TX drove up for the festival. She wrote "Bonjour Tee Belle," a book for kids about Creole culture. October is Creole Heritage Month.

Music, socializing, eating, dancing - a way of life in southern Louisiana

Preston Frank, Ed Poullard and Friends are on the Scene Ma Louisiane stage. "See that man playing fiddle, that's my cousin Ed Poullard. His mother is my grandmother's sister," says Kathy Willis, the tall woman I'm dancing with.

I swear, everyone around here knows everyone else, is related to them or has been married to them, lives near them, works with them or knows someone who does.

Kathy points to a man walking by her. "Hey,  you look familiar, don't you live in Lawtell?" This sets off a five-minute conversation. Within a matter of minutes, they know who each other's mother is, who they married, where they live, and who they're connected to now. "Really, Terrence Simeon’s brother is a bishop?" Kathy Willis exclaims to the man from Lawtell during their genealogical conversation.

"My Lord, here's my former high school principal!" Kathy Willis says and hugs Larry Miller who now lives in Iota, Louisiana. After a few minutes of reminiscing, the man from Lawtell looks at Miller and says, "I met you down in Florida wants where you were selling accordions, I was about 11 years old. You asked me, 'Can you play this thing,' and I said "In my dreams!"

Turns out that Larry G. Miller is also the maker of Bon Cajun handmade accordions,T fers, Cajun Spoons, and Scrub boards. Larry is on his way to see his grandson Blake Miller, a founding member of The Red Stick Ramblers, playing at the Heritage Stage on the other side of Girard Park. Small world. Gotta love it.

Dance with a drink in your hand? No problem.

Start 'em young and teach 'em to dance.

As I said, start 'em young...

Time to go home

Festival Acadiens et Creole 2012: Pure Louisiana

Festival Acadiens et Creole
Lafayette, Louisiana
October 13, 2012

Every time I rave about a weekend or festival here, my Lafayette friends say, “The Festival Acadiens et Creole is better.” They were right. This is the Big Top of Lafayette Festivals.



If you had to pick just one event to give you the astonishing range of  Louisiana culture – The Festival Acadiens et Creole would be it. The powder keg of the weekend is the fifty Cajun and zydeco bands that play over 76 hours of music on two large and three smaller stages. Thousands of spectators stream into Girard Park in Lafayette, a good chunk of them from every region of the USA.



The Festival Acadiens et Creole has all the ingredients that make southwest Louisiana unique - food, music, and the local people who make this part of the planet so special.



FOOD

I smell it before I reach the front gate. About twenty of Lafayette’s restaurants and caterers set up vendor tents. The result, especially for a Yankee like pt at large, is jaw droppingly exotic. Walking into the main entrance of Girard Park at 1:00 PM Saturday was like walking a gustatory gauntlet.  I’m tempted by the aromas of hot soft-shell crab, seafood and artichoke lasagna, barbecue boudin, crawfish fettuccini, corn and crab bisque, meat pies, catfish courtbouillion, wild game jambalaya that are wafting through the 84 degree sun baked air.



Dessert? Funnel cakes, snow cones, peach cobbler, bread pudding and pralines. To folks around here they are as common as Fenway Franks, clam chowder, or fried clams are to Bostonians.

 



SHOPPING

Shopping isn’t on pt at large’s to do list but if it were, he’d wear out his credit card. The arts and crafts tent section of the park included wood furniture, jewelry, Houma Indian crafts, gourds, pottery, kaleidoscopes, stained glass, soaps, musical instruments, photography, pen and ink drawings and silk.

CULTURE SUR LA TABLE
(Culture on the Table)
A really cool place to eat lunch and sit down for a spell was the Culture on the Table tent. On one of the rare times I left the music areas, I watched The Dance Troup Dix Acadiens from Nova Scotia perform a dance history of the expulsion of the French Acadiens from Nova Scotia in the 1750s. Most of the other four hourly shows Saturday and Sunday featured local chefs demonstrating ways to prepare pork, boudain, and other specialties from their restaurants and how to use Creole seasonings to give the dishes their signature taste.



KIDS
Scores of young parents pushing strollers or with a few kids trailing along set up camp on the grassy areas within earshot of the stages. Radio stations like KRVS and KBON are the musical version of Sesame Street for kids here. It’s likely that the kids in strollers hear it at home. It’s a good bet that their parents grew up listening to it and probably were taken to places like Randol’s Dance Hall and Restaurant before they were old enough to ride a bike but young enough to learn to dance on their mommy or daddy’s shoes.

This festival is all about reinforcing culture. Although there’s a fenced in playground with state of the art equipment and rubberized ground surface, most kids gravitated to La Place des Petits to listen to storytellers, get their hands on craft making materials, and get their faces painted.



"Festivals Acadiens et Créole invites all the little folks to La Place des Petits! Enjoy French games, crafts, and music focusing on the rich traditional culture of Acadiana. Be sure to check out the tent behind the Folk Roots Workshop near the playground at Girard Park both Saturday and Sunday for tons of fun and a great way for les petits to learn about the heritage of francophone Louisiana."



MUSIC

This is a 76 hour All Star Show. Fifty Louisiana bands perform on five stages from 11 AM to 7:30 PM Saturday and Sunday. By the last set, we’re dancing in the dark. Choices are painful to make. For every minute I spend at one stage I’m missing something equally good on another. Saturday I’m seduced by the well-known musicians on the two big stages. My penance? I miss acts of local musicians like T.K.Hulin (swamp pop), Balfa Toujours (Cajun) and Lawrence Ardoin (Creole) who rarely travel out of Louisiana and are playing on the smaller stages. 

The front of the big stages is often lined three or four deep with admirers. Every act brings their A Game. These are their people, musicians put a little extra hot sauce into every song.



GIRARD PARK 
500 Girard Park Dr.

With 33 acres of gently rolling hills, the park is a great drawing card. It’s got something for a family, for couples looking for a romantic retreat or a spot to exercise off all that etouffe you’ve been eating. Features include an outdoor pool, 1.25 mile jogging trail, work-out station, covered pavilion with restrooms and grill, open play area, tennis courts, hitting wall, basketball courts, backstop ball diamond, covered picnic areas, restrooms, handicapped restrooms, water fountain, children’s playground with baby equipment, 9-hole disc golf course, four petanque courts, pond, natural wildlife, and historical or commemorative markers. And it’s a great setting for a music festival.



THE PEOPLE
Maybe it's a Southern thing. Eye contact is natural. Just about everyone greets one another walking down the street. Conversations aren't forced but natural. Overhearing local people meeting each other for the first time is a lesson in genealogy as much as geography. Once one's place of birth or residence is established, I guarantee the next one will be "Who's your daddy?" or "What's your mother's maiden name?” or something like, "Are those the Fontenot’s from Carencro or Opelousas?" Once that starts, I've stopped being surprised at how quickly somebody's uncle will be the other person's cousin's brother's fiancée or next-door neighbor. Whoever invented the term "six degrees of separation' would have a field day listening to these conversations.

Whether you’re eating, shopping, or learning how to make a better étouffée sauce at the festival, you can hear the faint sound of music wafting from one of the five stages in the park. Music is the roux that holds everything together in southwest Louisiana. It’s more than entertainment. It’s a common denominator that crosses lines of class, race, age and ethnicity. The Festival Acadiens et Creole earns its title as the Big Top of Louisiana music festivals.

+++++++

A few of the Saturday BANDS...

 

Ed Poullard (fiddle), Preston Frank (accodion) and Friends. The "friends" part is a standard part of nearly every band's makeup, especially at a festival. One of the "friends" might be a headliner from another group, a cousin, nephew or niece who is learning to play, some of them as young as five years old. You wonder whether this music has a future? There's your answer.

The Savoy Family Band, Marc and Ann, sons Joel and Wilson, an enormous pool of talent with the same DNA. Marc Savoy's inspiring bio

 
Walter Mouton and The Scott Playboys (young and old). "My hands and my head our just starting to feel good and now it's time to quit!" says old time accordion player Walter Mouton at the end of his set that began an hour before.

The Lost Bayou Ramblers - If there were metal instruments in the band they'd be a  heavy-metal Cajun band.  Their loud and gritty style, pleases the crowd with a raucous treatment of traditional music, high amps, crashing of the drums and insistent big assed bass overpowers the violin an accordion but no one seems to mind. The dance floor, or shall we say the dustbowl that was a lawn around eight hours ago, is filled with dancers and fans line up in front of the stage to take pictures and gawk.

By late afternoon, every time the dance floor fills up, clouds of dust kicked up by flying feet are reflected in the setting sun, women's legs are caked in dust.  A few people look like desperados, having resorted to wrapping a bandanna around their mouth and nose to filter the rising dust.

 
Cedric Watson and Creole Bijou; The Red Stick Ramblers


Feufollet includes sons and daughters of other popular Louisiana bands.

Cedric Watson and Feufollet address the crowd in French. These two young bands, Creole and Cajun, want to be sure listeners connect their music with the cultural heritage of southwest Louisiana

 
BonSoir Catin, up and coming group of Cajun rockers

Festival Acadiens et Creole 2012: Entering Girard Park - videos

part 1


part 2

Judi Suzanne Tamburello Patti: A Tribute

Judi Suzanne Tamburello Patti
October 18, 1943- July 23, 2004
A tribute from a brother to a sister on her birthday, originally written days after her death in 2004.

My sister took in a shallow breath and exhaled. Pockets of oxygen made faint crackling noises as they escaped from her lungs, life giving oxygen no longer pulsing through her blood vessels. Outside, a summer breeze rustled through the fully foliated trees. Birds, airplanes, the cars passing by in the street, all continued their daily passages. Inside the room, silence. Deep eerie silence. As water escapes through cupped hands, something physical was escaping the room. In one breath, my sister became an abstraction, a memory. Gone. Dead.

Hoping for recovery had not been a choice. The cancerous meningioma that grew in her skull, mouth, and neck was choking the life out of her. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink. She had been horribly disfigured by three massive cranial operations. She had run out of options.

“Under the surface,” as her doctor explained it, with the effects of pain killing morphine during her final days, she did the only thing she knew how to do, the thing she’d been doing since 1977 when she was told that she had a voracious fibrous tumor growing in her cranium, a tumor that could not be excised thoroughly, and would likely recur to bid for her life. She fought.

What kind of arsenal do you need to fight death? Hope, faith, and love for others help. When all else fails, you can even try denial.  Over the years, Judi tried them all. Above all else, she lived for others.

A writer of sympathy and congratulatory notes, a sender of flowers, an attendant at funerals and wakes, she had love to burn. As a justice of the peace, she married hundreds of couples. Her nuptial service was invariably personalized. She’d use a crystal of information she’d learned from the couple as she interviewed them before the ceremony then use her wedding ceremony as a setting in which to place it. She was, above all, a people person.  Ministering to people’s pain, acknowledging their joys, was a way of life for her. She wasn’t giving it up without a struggle.

Over 27 years, the tumor knocked three times. She slammed the door shut three times. It knocked again this spring, then shoved with a force that she couldn’t overcome. “The trajectory is certain,” her doctor said, “maybe 24 to 72 hours.” Against the grain of every life-affirming notion I’ve ever held, I shoved too. I wished she would die. Nothing in my life had ever made so much and so little sense.

Her two sons, care givers, several close friends and I witnessed her teeter on the edge of eternity several times before surrendering. We sped past Dr. Kubler-Ross’s five stages of dealing with death and invented our own. We told funny stories about my sister’s idiosyncrasies, joked about one of her oft used quotes, “I’m fine,” that she uttered whether after major surgery or major triumphs, and talked directly to her, remembering her doctor’s comment that although she was not conscious, she could likely hear what was going on around her. Our laughter, an antidote to sharing a room with the specter of mortality, helped us cope with our own inability to stay within the red zone of death for days at a time.

In an act of reverse midwifery at life’s end, we even cheered her along her labor of exit as she struggled to breathe and let go of her moorings to life. “Go see dad, he’ll be so glad to see you.” Encouraging your sister to die? There is no user’s manual for witnessing death.

Over a period of six days at my sister’s bedside, the polarities of humanity- life and death, joy and fear, the known and the unknown, converged toward a celestial destination. One lovely July afternoon, my sister crossed the ultimate latitude, leaving us behind, and joined others over the horizon. We waved goodbye with relief and acceptance. And certainty that she was in a better place.

The gift my sister gave us is that we discovered we could survive in those extreme zones of contradictory feelings and emotional anguish. We used what she had used during her years of being indentured to pain and uncertainty, the comfort of one another’s love. She would have liked that.

Photo: Judi marrying my dear friends Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani in 1995.

The Olde Tyme Grocery: Big Time Po'Boys

Olde Tyme Grocery
218 West Saint Mary Boulevard
Lafayette, Louisiana 70506
October 12, 2012


“The Olde Tyme Grocery makes the best oyster Po’boy I’ve had outside New Orleans.” No further discussion is necessary for today's lunch destination. My friend Rubia Solis, raised in the Upper 9th Ward and now settled in Lafayette thanks to Katrina, has the credentials to judge in this matter. "Right down the street in the 7th at Touro and St. Claude was Martins, credited with 'inventing' the poboy in 1929 and still standing until I was in my early 20's. Plenty of po'boy memories from there," she adds.

A shiny deli case, racks of snacks, tall coolers filled with drinks, and an order counter take up most of the space just inside the Old Tyme Grocery's front door. Some serious food prepping is going on behind the deli counter.

The unassuming little former neighborhood grocery store is a hangout for University of Louisiana Lafayette students and well known to local lovers of Po’boys. Today it’s doing a brisk take out business, a parade of shrimp and crawfish Po’Boys in the lead.

If you’re too hungry to take your food anywhere, and that would be my dining companion and me, a cozy little dining room with wooden tables and chairs, funky posters, and walls lined with bric-a-brac is in an adjoining room. The three women at the table behind us are talking about wedding plans, the two guys on the other side of the room are talking football scores.


We are in luck. Today is Friday, the only day the grocery serves fried catfish Po’boys. The fried oyster Po’boy, dressed with lettuce, tomato and Mayo, and added octane thanks to Louisiana Crystal Hot Sauce, is scrumptious as advertised. The fried catfish Po’boy steals the show. The thick, crisp, crusty brown coating that blankets generous-sized pieces of catfish is beautifully seasoned and has a spicy kick.

The Festival Acadiens et Creole, two days of music and dancing from 11 AM to 7 PM, begins in nearby Girard Park tomorrow. It is essential to carbo-load. We’re getting a head start.
 


Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

L'Angelus Family Band Rocks Bach Lunch: Videos

L'Angelus (Lawn-jay-loose) Family Band
Bach Lunch
Parc Sans Souci
Lafayette, Louisiana
Friday, October 12, 2012

A pop version of the New Orleans classic "Iko Iko." The band is just getting warmed up.
 

"Genevieve", a gritty swamp pop song written by Dennis Norris, lead singer for “Randy and the Rockets” in the 1950s, performed by Steven Rees. Drummer Johnny Rees pounds out a relentless rhythm on his drum kit, check out his fancy drumstick twirling flourishes. Note the little girls sitting in front of the stage - thrilled to be so close to their favorite band. One of them has been practicing Paige's move of flipping her hair since the first time she saw her when she was three years old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsJ5AxAN2xw

 

"When The Saints Go Marchin' In" - The youngest kids in the family, three biological, two adopted, are learning how to rock on trumpets and trombone. Look at their theatrical finish, they've been paying attention to Katie, Paige, Johnny, and Steven!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsJ5AxAN2xw

 

Mamma Linda Rees belts out a song - you see where her kids get the inspiration. As "Linda Lou and The Lucky 4," she took her kids on the road when they were young. Katie, Paige, Johnny, and Steven owe their mom and dad for their faith in them.The religion that's at the core of their family values in no way constrains the exuberance of their music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CWabl0quG8

 

L'Angelus Family Band Rocks Bach Lunch

L'Angelus Family Band
Bach  Lunch
Parc Sans Souci
Lafayette, Louisiana
Friday, October 12, 2012

L'Angelus Family Band

These kids rock! Period. The twenty-somethings don't just sing. They’re more like the Cirque du Soleil meets Motown. They dance, shimmy and sway on stage with infectious energy and play the daylights out of guitar, base, drums, and fiddle/swamp pop saxophone.

They play Louisiana roots music – Cajun, zydeco, swamp pop, rhythm n blues, and cover pop songs like Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" as if bouncily poured through a New Orleans snow cone.

Born and raised in nearby Breaux Bridge, LA, the four Rees siblings got their musical baptism when the family moved to, of all places, North Dakota. They began singing along with their mom Linda, whose voice soared in the choir at Catholic masses, and later when she began singing in local coffee houses.

Their dad knew talent when he heard it. Fiddles, drums, guitars and saxophones filled Christmas stockings. In 2002, before you could say Road Band, “Linda Lou and the Lucky 4” started to tour county fairs and coffee houses the Midwest and Southeast USA. Fast forward. The family now lives in Nashville and tours regularly.

The siblings, now in their 20s, take turns singing lead vocals. Katie, (27) plays guitar, Paige (26) plays bass, Johnny, (25) is the drummer and Stephen (23) plays fiddle, saxophone, pennywhistle, and harmonica

I’d never heard of L’Angelus (say Lawn-jay-loose), a name that reflects their Catholic upbringing and the spiritual nature of two of their CDs. They’ve performed in Ireland, at big festivals like Gator By The Bay in San Diego, the Texas Rice Festival, and scores of Catholic-oriented venues across the country. One look at this video and you won’t confuse them with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

VIDEOS: http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2012/10/langelus-family-band-rocks-bach-lunch-videos.html

Partial Set List (I'd have listed more if I hadn't taken a break to dance.)

Cover of Van Morrison's “Brown Eyed Girl”, Johnny Rees, drummer on vocals
Iko, Iko (a New Orleans classic) Paige, Katie, Steven
Assorted Cajun waltzes
"Genevieve", a gritty swamp pop song written by Dennis Norris, lead singer for “Randy and the Rockets”i= in the 1950s, sung by Steven
“Les P'tits Yeux Noirs” (Little Dark Eyes) a classic Cajun waltz
"Saints Go Marching In" by the youngest members of the family playing miniature trumpets and trombone (see video)
“Rice and Gravy” Katie,Steven, Paige vocals

L'Angelus is joined for one song by their mom Linda, who took her kids on the road in 2002. The band is now based in Nashville, check out their schedule, if they appear near you, get tickets!

Two moms who'd been sitting on the stage steps with their kids approached the stage to see Paige. "My daughter has wanted to meet to you since the first time she saw you when she was three years old. She loved the way you flipped your hair (see photo of Paige behind her mom above) when you whipped your head around and has been practicing it ever since.”
Imagine how you feel meeting one of your idols when you're five years old. The little girl is in heaven.

Watch drummer Johnny Rees's fancy drumstick twirling flourishes on the second video "Genevieve"; pt with Paige and Katie.

Lafayette Bach Lunch

Celebrating 22 years, Bach Lunch is a free lunch hour series featuring different musicians performing from noon to 1 p.m. on Fridays during the spring and fall, sponsored by the Lafayette Science Museum, The Lafayette Consolidated Government, Acadiana Bottling Company, Inc., and KRVS-F.M. Lunches are available for purchase from popular area restaurants. The series is held at Parc Sans Souci in downtown Lafayette at the corner of Polk, Congress and Vermilion Streets. For more information, call 337-291-5544 or visit www.lnhmpmuseum.org.

 

I keep saying this, but this seems to be another one of those "only in Louisiana" affairs, in this case the “Bach Lunch” at noon every Friday in downtown Lafayette. Music and food are the Yin and Yang of Southwest Louisiana. Intertwined with those are the people who make the music, dance to the music, listen to music, and may have been conceived to the sound of it. My Lafayette friends Bernard and Rubia told me this is a "not to be missed" event. Their track record on suggestions is nonpareil. I go. Their record is intact.

I find a place to park downtown at 11:30 AM, spot two moms and five kids with backpacks and blankets marching purposefully down the street. There's only one place they could be going.

Parc Sans Souci is already filling up with people plunking down blankets and camp chairs. As usual, the little islands of shade under trees are first to fill up. This is Friday, a school day, but either a couple hundred kids are playing hooky or the schools have organized one giant field trip. "Did you do that all by yourself?" A dad says to his three-year-old kid who has just released a camp chair from its carrying case. Around here learning how to dance, appreciate music, and mingle with hundreds of others around food or music focused events is next in line with learning the ABCs.

Based on the title of this event, and hailing from from New England, I expected to see a string quartet leading the proceedings. Uh,Uhh. A long line has formed to purchase a "box lunch" from any of several local eateries. Oh, Bach…music, I get it now! Music and food, why am I not surprised.

The park is filling up with business types taking a long lunch, young parents with their kids, retirees, posses of teenagers, and a good helping of the dancers our who are in Lafayette for the annual Festival Acadiens et Creole.

By noon as L'Angelus hits the stage, the Parc Sans Souci is crowded, By 12:15, it’s rockin’. At 1:00 PM sharp, the concert finishes. By 1:15, the place resumes its lazy work day demeanor.

 

The fountain is always a draw to kids; the Parc Sans Souci Stage is visible through the water in  center photo.
 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Pepin's: A Little Taste of Cuba in Lafayette

Pepin’s, "Home of the Cuban Sandwich"
601 Ridge Road
Lafayette, LA
Thursday, October 11, 2012

José Sanchez is a man who’s never forgotten his Cuban heritage.  You can hear it in the Spanish accent that still flavors his speech. Pepin’s, his little roadside stand on the outskirts of Lafayette, might be the only place in Louisiana where you can wrap your hands around a “Cubano” sandwich. “This is a taste of Cuba I can offer right here in Lafayette,” he says with pride.

That’s exactly what he told me when Lee Allen Zeno, bass player for Lil' Buck Sinigal, introduced me to him at the Festival International de Louisiane in 2011 and when I met him and his wife Donna at the same festival this year. It was time for a taste of Cuba. By the time I drive several miles to the outskirts of Lafayette, I was ready for a treat.

José bought the store in 2002. It had all the inside architecture he needed - a kitchen, deli counter with warming ovens, a small kitchen, big coolers to hold soft drinks and beer, a couple of aisles to display snack foods, and enough space for a few tables. Even though I’m there at 2 PM, a steady trickle of customers enters to order cold beverages, hot boudain, fried chicken, sandwiches and lottery tickets.

“Hey, you made it!” he exclaims. “Let’s make you a Cubano.”

It’s the best Cuban sandwich I’ve ever put my teeth into. Inside two pieces of firm pressed bread are layers of thinly sliced ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, thin sliced dill pickles, and sauce of mayonnaise, butter, mustard and a few secret ingredients that Jose learned from his father.

“The bread is the key,” he says.  “That was the missing link. I had tried other breads from other bakeries but they couldn’t stand up to the press and hold all the ingredients together. Now I have the frozen dough flown here from Florida and finish baking it here.”

It took him a while to settle on the food that he’s now known for. “I gave up making meatballs and pasta and other items that didn’t sell. Now I sell fried chicken, boudain, hamburgers and sandwiches. I buy local and don’t have to order in bulk any more. My best sellers are shrimp, catfish po’boys and of course the Cubano.” One minute later, a local restaurateur comes in and orders half dozen of them for his staff.

José inherited his love of food and music from his dad. “My father, whose nickname is Pepin, owned restaurants and music clubs in Cuba,” he says. He inherited his father's love of music. By 1994, he was a regular on the dance floor and became a popular zydeco dance instructor. In 2010, he was featured playing percussion on a few tracks of "Zydeco Junkie," recorded by Chubby Carrier and His Bayou Swamp Band.

Jose’s odyssey to Lafayette began when his father managed to flee Cuba with his family in 1964. By the time José enrolled in LSU in Baton Rouge, he’d spent years in Spain and Puerto Rico. In 1974, he hitchhiked from LSU to Lafayette on a whim. One weekend here was all it took for him to decide this was where he wanted to live. I’ve met dozens of transplants from all over the USA, even from other parts of Louisiana, who’ve made Lafayette home.

There are now three generations of the Sanchez family living in Lafayette and southwest Louisiana has one small outpost of Cuba in its midst.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Courtbouillon Holds Court at The Blue Moon Saloon

A courtbouillon is a briefly boiled liquid. When wine, vinegar or lemon juice is added to it, they contribute their own flavors and draw flavors from the original boiled ingredients. Put Wilson Savoy, Wayne Toups, and Steve Riley on a stage and they draw inspiration from each other. Bass player Eric Frey keeps the music boiling at just the right temperature.

The Moon Saloon
215  E. Convent Street
Lafayette, LA
October 10, 2012
http://www.bluemoonpresents.com
2012 Festival Acadiens et Creole.

9:05 PM
Courtbouillon is several songs into their set. Wilson Savoy, fiddle and accordion, Wayne Toups accordion, Steve Riley guitar and for a rollicking trio of songs on accordion, and Eric Frey on standup bass, have seized control of the premises.

I don't know what's more fun - listening to their renditions of deep-in-the-Bayou Cajun two-steps and waltzes or watching them play together. These guys have something special going on.

Immersed in music since they were young, and having played with so many other musicians young and old, well-known or obscure, their repertoire contains more songs than the number of crawfish in a boil pot. And if one of them feels like playing a song that others are less familiar with? No problem. He takes the lead and plays it and the others will fill it in with sterling solos.

Either one of these guys is capable of stealing a show. In this one, they're more like robbers who give money back to the bank. When one of them pulls off an over-the-top riff, the other two look at him with a "how the hell did I get so lucky to be up here playing with him" grin. This is clearly a lovefest.

The Blue Moon Saloon is packed. And hot. Perspiration glistens on faces, necks, and arms. The three-tier long bench on one side of the room is packed. The dance floor is about the size of your kitchen. The perimeter is packed with listeners or men or women who would love to dance but can't figure out a way to penetrate the mosh pit of a dance floor.

Except for a few macho males who feel like proving a point and put their partner at risk by trying to plow through the dance floor, the rest of us dance elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, and use the sardine can conditions as a way to get his close as possible to our partners.

Wayne Toups would draw attention if only for the fire engine red pants he's wearing. He can sing sweetly, plaintively, or playfully, but when he belts out a song in a gravelly voice from somewhere deep in his gut, the lyrics rumble through the room like a fire truck.

I doubt they came to this show with a set list. After a palaver between songs, they come up with the title, one of them introduces it, perhaps with a little story, and off they go. If you want a tutorial of Cajun songs, listening to Courtbouillon is a good place to start.

Before the set ends, Wilson Savoy and Steve Riley strap on their accordions. The amount of air the trio jubilantly compresses through the bellows of their instruments is enough to float the Goodyear blimp. Even the dancers stop to witness the dense harmonies and musical bantering between the three smiling men. This virtuoso band of brothers is a perfect Courtbouillon.

What a great way to kickstart my visit to Lafayette for the Festival Acadien et Creole.

 
Wayne Toups belts out a waltz; these guys know how to have fun together.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.


 

The Revelers Charge Up the ARTmosphere

 ARTmosphere

902 Johnston Street
Lafayette, LA, 70501

October 12, 2012
The Revelers

9:15 PM

Arriving from La Poussiere, things are a little different at ARTmosphere. The Revelers  are a magnet for dancers and draw a far more diverse dance crowd. These guys rock.

These guys are a little piece of heaven on earth for the dance crowd. Their repertoire is deep - Cajun, swamp pop, waltzes, Texas two steps, and a hatful of honky-tonk. Each member of The Revelers plays in other bands.

The Revelers  are Daniel Coolik (fiddle, electric attire, vocals), Glenn Fields (drums and vocals), Blake Miller (accordion, fiddle, acoustic guitar, vocals), Chas Justus (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals), Eric Frey (bass, vocals) are founding members of two solid Louisiana roots bands, The Red Stick Ramblers and The Pine Leaf Boys. That's an ocean of talent, folks.

The whole musician scene in Lafayette is sort of like a giant Lego set that you can disassemble and assemble at will, depending on the kind of music you want to produce – Cajun, honky-tonk, zydeco, country, rock, alt, even a little blues. You'll hear all of that here at ARTmosphere.

The crowd is mostly college-age, with a smattering of middle-aged dancers who haven't hung up their dance shoes and have fun showing the kids they still have their groove.

Small dance floor, sweaty people, big smiles, all is right with the world. Show up and The Revelers take care of the rest. Bands down here feed off the dancers. The more enthusiastic the audience, the more dancers on the floor, the more amped up the band becomes. In this case, the dancers being only a few feet from the performers, the energy transfer is clear and present.

Photo by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Pine Leaf Boys at La Poussiere

October 12, 2012

La Poussiere
7:30  PM The Pine Leaf Boys

The place is jammed with the usual suspects – locals who love to dance or listen to Cajun music and dancers who have flocked to Lafayette for the annual Festival Acadiens et Creole.

The women here… they’ve all come to dance. Fast, slow, at arm’s length or in close embrace.

This place in Breaux Bridge is a regular Friday and Saturday night destination. Dozens of locals arrive early to stake out their chairs that line the long tables on each side of the dance floor. Come a little later and you can find an empty barstool to use as your base of operations for the night.

 
The dancers, however, rarely sit down. They’ve come here to let loose – whatever The Pine Leaf Boys serve up, couples flock to the smooth blonde wood dance floor.

 
Black and white townsfolk around here mix together amiably every day but certain dance halls seem to have unwritten codes. Some clubs like this one in Breaux Bridge attract an exclusively white crowd. One local resident says this club has had a history of being decidedly unwelcoming to a black clientele. 

Some clubs like El Cido in Lafayette attract a black clientele but welcome, or at least are tolerant of, white dancers. 

The best bet for seeing a very mixed race crowd is an outdoor festivals  like the Festival Acadiens et Creole or the Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette or one of the First Friday events held in places like Opelousas where Cajun and zydeco bands play in cleared out parking lots and half the town shows up. 

Music is a great equalizer and crosses racial divides, just not everywhere.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

The Whole Gritty City - Kickstarted!

As follow-up to my post of October 8, I'm happy to report this message from Richard Barber, producer of "The Whole Gritty City".

"Congratulations!
 Thanks to you and 610 other backers, THE WHOLE GRITTY CITY - Launching the Film has been successfully funded."


As a backer of the documentary film, I will get an invitation to see the premier in New Orleans or NYC,  an on-screen credit in the film's credits and an invitation to the film party and music afterwards. Guess which city I'm choosing for the premier.


"The Whole Gritty City is a documentary feature film that plunges viewers into the world of New Orleans marching bands. It's a story of mentors helping kids get past the lures and dangers of the streets and make it to adulthood, as they pass on a powerful musical legacy."


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/378525271/the-whole-gritty-city-launching-the-film?ref=email

45 Hours Left to Kickstart "The Whole Gritty City"

I rarely send along a direct plea - this is an exception. Readers of this blog know about my love of New Orleans and Southwest Louisiana. Music is their common denominator.

From my New Orleans friend, videographer and writer Deborah Cotton, I've seen how music can literally save kids' lives. Too often, blood is spilled on the streets, the places where kids congregate. The film "A Whole Gritty City" tells the story of men like Wilbert Rawins, Jr. who care about those kids and the music their generation must pass on to the city that created it. Passing on the gift of music will keep both a tradition and a generation alive.

Yes. The documentary film "A Whole Gritty City" has been made.

No, the filmmakers havent scraped up the money to cover sound mixing, color correction, titles, graphics, insurance and legal costs.They've raised $47,107 as of 10:45 today. Their goal is $50,000.

I realize this sounds like an NPR appeal but raising less than $3000 in the next 45 hours will get the job done. I've contributed twice.

Check out this link and the two videos on it. If you like it, send a contribution.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/378525271/the-whole-gritty-city-launching-the-film?ref=email

"The Whole Gritty City is a documentary feature film that plunges viewers into the world of New Orleans marching bands. It's a story of mentors helping kids get past the lures and dangers of the streets and make it to adulthood, as they pass on a powerful musical legacy."