Satchmo Summerfest, New Orleans, LA Saturday, August 5, 2017
Benny Jones, Sr., leader of the Tremé Brass Band, checks in to the festival grounds. An hour later, as they began their third song, the rain intensified, thunder then lightning rolled in like a rowdy and scary cosmic second line parade. An organizer stepped to the stage, "We are canceling the show. Please walk into the U.S. Mint building, we want you to be safe. Take your camp chairs with you, they might not be here when you return." Standing in a couple of inches of rain, it occurred to me that one lightning strike could fry about 300 of us under the tent.
"Didn't It Rain" Oh my, it was pouring buckets, I'm thinking that John Boutté put this on his playlist as he heard the rain pelting down on the pavilion over his head.
Boutté and his band of first line New Orleans musicians...Oh yes, one hour later, lightning, thunder and ten inches of rain canceled Satchmo Summeriest, organizers told us to leave the tent, head inside to the shelter of the U. S. Mint...an ironically prophetic song choice.
Rain cascades off the tent covering the stage and audience sitting inside.
Fifteen minutes later, The August 5 pounding torrential rain drowns out John Boutté singing "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught," a song whose theme resonates more today than the time in which it was written for Rogers and Hammerstein musical "The King and I" first performed in 1951.
New Orleanians love their music but this is getting a little crazy. Proof is that here they are huddled under a pavilion while a monsoon rages outside it. They might even stand in the rain to twist and shout to the lyrics of the theme song to the TV series "Tremé,"practically a New Orleans anthem. The lucky ones are under the tent, stay there partly because of the fabulous music, partly because they'd be drenched the moment they tried to exit the tent. The grass is squishy super saturated - I am up to my ankles in water as I stand in it.
By the time the Tremé Brass Band sets up, thunder and lightning are on the way, sanity will surface when the promoters tell us the festival is canceled and to head for shelter inside the brick U. S. Mint (now a museum) immediately for our own safety. We do that.
Shortly after John Boutté and band end their set, The beloved Tremé Brass Band takes the stage.
Three songs later, the show is cancelled. The torrential rain has won this round. Street flooding begins.
Everyone has a hustle, figure that Jackson Square is as good a place as any to make a buck, tarot card readers, psychics, brass bands, painted pantomime artists, and now, tap dancers.
Thursday afternoon August 3...a man of the street steps up to sing impromptu verses of "What A Wonderful World." He'd been clapping time as he listened to the music and sidled up in front of the band to sing the first choruses of the song. "I've been singing all my life," Rodney says when I chat with him afterward, "someday I'd love to sing with a group on the street."
It's a fair bet that he's never studied music but, like just about everyone in this city, feels entitled to express himself with a voice that makes up in conviction what it might lack in finesse. When you think about it, Louis Armstrong's own voice was honed in the streets, not the choir, and he made his gravelly voice one of the most distinctive in the world.
"Sing it, man!" says the trombone player as the fellow steps up to sing, and later, "Let's hear it for the man!" Only in New Orleans.
Friday night August 4, same corner, 9:30 PM. The last act at the Satchmo Summerfest at the old U.S. Mint concluded at 8:00 PM but music around here hardly ever takes a breath. Lo and behold, here's The Swing Band holding court in front of Rouse's Market again.
One by one, New Orleans' siren call drew members of this band into the streets of the French Quarter and Jackson Square last year. Kismet and a stew of years of the tradition of busking in the street collided by happenstance when they met and found a groove together.
"We met in New Orleans last year, played on the streets for about three months, then the trumpet, guitar, and drummer traveled the country in an RV busking tour around America. The band all met up again in February." So says Sarah Shaffer, wife of the trumpet player and artist of their lovely CD cover, as she chatted with me and kept an eye her three-year-old daughter.
All of them have moved to New Orleans, some share living quarters, and they're here to stay. Some of New Orleans' best known musicians got their start on the streets. It's hard to fathom this from afar. I would never have understood the power music has over this city had I not witnessed it myself.
Jim Shaffer, trumpet; Rob Montgomery, drums; Tyler Hotti, guitar; Vincent ?, trombone; name?, tuba player.
It may not be an easy life style but for young men and women like this, it's all about the music, and it's all that matters.
Twenty four hours after Doreen Ketchens played, the streets of the French Quarter were flooded when 8-10 inches of rain fell in a three hour period. I was in the midst of it at Satchmo Summerfest, when the festival was canceled as torrential rain, thunder and lightning tore through New Orleans, the streets flooded, and the city’s pumping stations could not drain the water fast enough. Story to follow.
The remnants of Harvey are heading toward southwest Louisiana and New Orleans. Doreen’s version of “The Sun Gonna Shine On My Back Door Someday” (link below) may be a fateful and wishful foreshadowing for southwest Louisiana, and are certainly so for coastal Texas all the way inland to Houston, America’s fourth largest city and flood prone. Scary.
August 4, 2017 Corner of Royal and St. Peter Street New Orleans, LA
You can hear some of the finest music in New Orleans right on the streets of the French Quarter. Free. Fabulous. Soulful. Traditional to Funky.
Once you’re under its spell, you’ll gladly reach into your pocket and drop some green into the tip bucket. You’ll be rewarded by a hearty ‘Thank you’ or a grateful nod as a musician is in the midst of singing or playing a tune that stopped you in your tracks. New Orleans has a music heritage as rich as any cream sauce you’ll get at the dozens of restaurants that serve to die for food every day.
In a city with scores of bars and clubs devoted to music, this is not heresy, it’s a fact.
Exhibit A: Doreen Ketchens, whose spot on the corner of Royal and St. Peter Street is her permanent bandstand. Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans Band has played there so long and so successfully that it’s inviolable territory to any other act if she’s there.
Like many other New Orleans bands, Doreen’s band is made up of family. Husband Lawrence plays sousaphone and trombone and of late, teenage daughter Dorian Ketchens-Dixon sits in on drums.
Try to square this up, Since 1987, this stout woman rocking out in her camp chair in the street (literally) has played for four presidents, in every continent except Australia, and in concerts sponsored by the Jazz At The Lincoln Center and the U.S. Department of State.
She’s played before audiences of thousands. I’ve watched her play to a street audience of a dozen and I’m telling you, she still brings it with the pride, force, and heritage into which she was born in the Tremé neighborhood a few blocks away. Her energy is palpable. The size of the audience makes no difference to the volume of her voice and clarinet and her commitment to serenade the street with the vibrant music of her heritage.
It’s surreal. Cars roll past her band on Royal and St. Peter Streets, customers enter and exit Rouse’s Market ten feet behind her, destination-oriented tourists walk past and I feel like I’ve got a better seat than I’d have if I were watching her in Economy Hall at Jazz Fest.
Doreen’s made over two dozen CDs. Doreen’s Jazz Volume XX gives you an idea of her range, traditional jazz, Dixieland, gospel, popular, a good helping of Louis Armstrong covers, all of it stamped with her vocal styling that set her apart from other vocalists in New Orleans (and that’s saying something). She’s developed a touch of Armstrong gravel with a unique pitch that you can hear a block away. The signature sustained high notes she pipes from her clarinet make me hold my breath.
If you can’t make your way down to Royal Street, this gives you a good idea of what you’re missing.
Admirers chat after songs, many pose for photos and, more importantly, drop folding money in the tip jar - notice the three different labels on the jars! As culturally entertaining as the scene is, it's a main source of income for Doreen and other musicians who busk in the streets here and on Frenchmen Street, a fifteen minute walk away.
Sales are usually brisk here. CD sales are musician's bread and butter; Husband Lawrence Ketchens on tuba and daughter Dorian Ketchens-Dixon on drums. Doreen and Lawrence bring the culture and music of New Orleans to classrooms across America and the world as they travel.
"Saint James Infirmary" Listen to the clarinet at the 2:30 mark.
As sweet and gracefully swinging version of "The Sun Gonna Shine On My Back Door Someday" that you're gonna hear.
The corner of Royal and St. Peter Streets - note that one lane of the street is marked off for musicians to set up and play...ever see that anywhere else? Several bands play in that space, Doreen's Jazz New Orleans, one of its most widely known acts, has a lock on that space any time they want it.
And when rain threatens, Doreen's band, Doreen's Jazz New Orleans, moves under the porch across the street, in an intense version of "Home of the Rising Sun," complete with her signature solos.
Hours later, a flash flood would cancel Satchmo Summerfest and flood the streets.
Bayona Restaurant 430 Dauphine Street New Orleans, LA August 3, 2017 French Quarter
2 PM New Orleans, LA Some days pass by in linear order, others organic with a hit of synchronicity. In the French Quarter, bet on synchronicity, which is how this traveler ended up eating at Bayona on this night. I happily dine in places like Déjà Vu, comfort food New Orleans style, so my interest in reading the Bayona menu across the street from my hotel was more out of curiosity than intent...or so I thought.
“There’s a full menu of tonight’s dishes just inside the door, consider having dinner here tonight.” The woman with a distinct presence, a green tilak painted on her forehead, is on her way inside. I don’t often eat at high-end restaurants, but there’s something direct in that invitation. She means it.
8:30 PM A thunderstorm is raging. I really want to head to The Rock 'n Bowl for a great dance. Walking from my hotel on Dauphine Street to Canal Street and waiting for the streetcar to take me 13.2 miles to the end of the line on Carrollton Avenue then quarter mile walk to the Rock 'n Bowl is beyond crazy.
That invitation from the concierge at the Bayona Restaurant is a downright rational option. Laurie recognizes me with a smile. A minute later, she’s seated me at a finely set table for four.
The interior is low-key elegant with burgundy painted walls, white trim around windows and moldings and recessed lighting, and wall sconces that give off a glow inviting and intimate - let's call in an aura. The mirror on the wall next to me makes the room appear larger, capturing the warmth of the burgundy walls. Understated elegance soon followed by attentive but not overbearing service. One look out the window and I'm ready to settle down for a long meal.
A couple of families and their daughters are celebrating a birthday at a nearby table. The chatter is indistinct, white noise, sort of like the persistent sound of waves lapping onto the beach.
“What do you like on the menu tonight?” says I as my waiter approaches.
“The Berkshire Lamb Chop with smothered greens and a French Creole sauce.” says my waiter. “There’s usually some variation on a pork dish on the menu, tonight's is an exceptionally good one.”
“That’s the one for me,” says I. Of note - no bread or rolls served before dinner.
Sometimes I hesitate before digging in because the presentation is so carefully laid out. Then the aroma takes over and so does my knife. The first cut through the nearly 2-inch chop needs no pressure and reveals a pink, moist chop. The sauce…that’s when I begin to consider the thunderstorm and the chance meeting with Laurie as a sign from above.
Those smothered collard greens and Creole sauce are made from smoked onion, Crystal Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, reduced game stock, Creole mustard, Dijon mustard, cream, I learn from my waiter… “I make it all the time at home!” says my born and raised New Orleans friend Rubia. This city is quite possibly the sauce capital of the world.
Serendipity, synchronicity...however I got here feels right. Maybe this aura business began the moment Laurie invited me to the restaurant this afternoon. And it seeps into mine as I leave. "You were a teacher? A noble and underpaid profession. Several members of my family were teachers." Her mother taught at the grammar school across the street from Louis Armstrong Park. My grandmother was the first Italian American to teach public school in my hometown.
Born and raised in the Tremé, Laurie reminds me that it is the oldest community of free people of color in the country. The Candlelight Lounge on North Robertson deep in the Tremé, not far from Armstrong Park, is always one of my first stops on any visit to New Orleans.The Wednesday night residency of the world famous Tremé Brass Band is not to be missed.
"Do you like poetry?" she asks, and says that her poet grandfather was the first to use the term ‘beatnik’ and spent most of his life around San Francisco. Next thing you know and we're talking about The City Lights Bookstore.
This is getting pretty amazing. It has a tendency to happen in New Orleans with frequency. And one of the only upsides of big time thunderstorms, at least on this night.
"The Sidewalk Swing Band" on Royal Street: A Satchmo Warmup
Thursday afternoon, August 3, 2017, French Quarter, New Orleans
One of the most popular corner for street buskers to play, corner of Royal and St Peter. It's the permanent spot for the iconic Doreen Ketchens, whose camp chairs are stacked on the side of Rouse's Market. "Little Miss Liza" is a staple of swing and brass bands all over town. My singing on the video will not get me invited to sing along with the band anytime soon. The enthusiastic fellow in the black cap and New Orleans T shirt (clapping along at around the 4:45 mark and throughout) will become a self-appointed vocalist for the next song. Things like this happen in New Orleans, where from time to time it seems like music is the glue that holds the city together.
A man from the streets named Rodney, who's been dancing along with the music, steps up to render his impromptu version of "What A Wonderful World," at the 1:28 mark a band member shouts out, "Sing it..." in acknowledgment. The spirit of Louis Armstrong still casts an upbeat life enriching shadow over many parts of this city, especially the French Quarter.
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