Upcoming: Jon Cleary's Philthy Phew @ le poisson rouge

Upcoming: Joe Krown Trio @ Sullivan Hall

Stream: First track from Dr. John's "Locked Down"

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Click to listen to Dr. John's 'Revolution'

New Orleans legend Dr. John – a.k.a. Mac Rebennack – teamed up with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach to record his latest album, Locked Down. "Watching him come up with parts was just so awesome. Mac is fearless," says Auerbach, who produced the set. "Like that Farfisa solo on ‘Revolution' – that’s a first-take solo. He just goes for it, man. He told me he hadn’t played a Farfisa organ since 1969 when he was with Doug Sahm, and he killed it." Locked Down won't be in stores until April 3rd, but you can stream "Revolution" today.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-stream-dr-john-teams-with-black-keys-dan-auerbach-for-revolution-20120229#ixzz1nn7KtNKn

NY Times: New Orleans Saint’s Brooklyn Revival

By BEN RATLIFF

A NEW record by Mac Rebennack, a k a Dr. John, the blues-and-roots potentate, is no big thing per se; it happens every few years. Neither is Dr. John returning to his late-’60s coordinates of super-informed funk, representing the rhythmic trip of West Africa to the Antilles to the American Gulf Coast; he did that recently on “Tribal,” released a year and a half ago. 

But “Tribal” probably didn’t go far beyond Dr. John’s own specialized listenership. What’s newsworthy about “Locked Down,” his new album, to be released by Nonesuch on April 3, is that he’s being nuzzled by someone young and much listened-to: Dan Auerbach, singer and guitarist of the Black Keys, the post-garage band that recently sold out a Madison Square Garden show in 15 minutes. Mr. Auerbach collaborated with Dr. John in a set at the Bonnaroo festival last June that I liked very much, with two drummers, backup singers and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. In it Dr. John sang old songs with twisted histories, and the show vibrated with bass, organ, low brass and quiet funk. 

Soon after that they recorded “Locked Down” — Mr. Auerbach produces and plays guitar — which is a bit more preening and academic. It’s all original songs, clearly grown out of studio jams. There’s a single drummer here, one of the two from the Bonnaroo show: Max Weissenfeldt, of the German rare-groove band Poets of Rhythm. The keyboardist and bassist, Leon Michels and Nick Movshon, are from the El Michels Affair, one of the bands associated with Dap-Tone records from Brooklyn and the world of retro-funk that brought you the sound of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” record. (They’ve also both played in the touring version of the Black Keys.) The guitarist Brian Olive, once of the Soledad Brothers, whose own solo album “Two of Everything” was produced last year by Mr. Auerbach, is part of the same fraternity of backward-looking obsessives. 

This record will find some fans among those who loved “Back to Black,” and it should. But have you ever wondered how hip is too hip? “Locked Down,” with its down-cold James Black drum rhythms, distorted Fender Rhodes keyboards and free-range, organically farmed reverb, is a useful test case. (By the way, go back and listen to Dr. John’s complicated, spaced-out record “The Sun, Moon & Herbs,” from 1971, when all recordings were analog: are we trying to out-hip that on its own terms?) If Dr. John weren’t grounding it with his casual essence, it might collapse under the weight of its own studied scuff. 

But some of it is beautiful, and I look forward to hearing it live. One can do that right around the release date of the record, when Dr. John comes to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for “Insides Out,” a residency spread across three weekends. March 29 to 31 he’ll perform in “A Louis Armstrong Tribute,” which is just what it sounds like but different, including performances from Arturo Sandoval, Rickie Lee Jones and the Blind Boys of Alabama. April 5 to 7 he’ll be performing “Locked Down” with Mr. Auerbach and band; and April 12 to 14 he presents “Funky but It’s Nu Awlins,” with guests from his hometown, including Donald Harrison, Davell Crawford, Ivan Neville, Irma Thomas and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

In Pictures: Kermit Ruffins & Bonerama @ Hiro Ballroom

photos taken by Dino Perrucci

Bonerama w/Kermit Ruffins - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/19/12



Bonerama - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/19/12


Bonerama - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/19/12


Kermit Ruffins & The BBQ Swingers w/Bonerama - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/19/12


Kermit Ruffins & The BBQ Swingers w/Bonerama - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/19/12



Kermit Ruffins - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/18/12


Derrick Freeman - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/18/12


Kermit Ruffins & Dirty Red - Hiro Ballroom, NYC 2/18/12

NPR: Shannon Powell: New Orleans Rhythm, Straight From The Source

It is said of Shannon Powell that he's part of New Orleans' musical DNA — that he knows things only local drummers know.

LISTEN TO THE STORY HERE

Powell, 49, is the A-list drummer in town. He's played with Dr. John, Harry Connick Jr., Nicholas Payton, R&B guitarist Earl King and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
He got his start as a teenager with the legendary banjo player and guitarist, Danny Barker. Powell has also toured with jazz vocalist Diana Krall and jazz musicians John Scofield and Marcus Roberts. Currently, he fronts a contemporary jazz band called Powell's Place, with Jason Marsalis, of the Marsalis dynasty, on vibes.

Sitting at the drums in his shotgun house in the Treme neighborhood, Powell demonstrates the basic New Orleans beat: "New Orleans drummers accent on the four. One-two-three-four." He's playing what he's saying: "one-two-three-four."
He switches to a seductive samba beat. "African rhythms, Brazilian rhythm, calypso," he says. "It's all related."

Perhaps that's the genius of Shannon Powell: It's all related.
  Source Material
They say drumming is an essential part of the language of New Orleans. The beat resides at the core of all New Orleans music — the jazz, the funk, the R&B, the funeral parades. Even beyond that, kids walk home from school with drumsticks beating on the sides of buildings or pounding on cardboard boxes during parades.

Powell does that, too. Like the early New Orleans drummers, he spends a lot of time off the skins, throwing in rimshots and hitting woodblocks and cowbells.

Like most New Orleans drummers, Powell is upstaged by trumpeters, clarinetists and trombonists. But he is one of the greatest drummers this musical city has ever produced.

Powell lives in the heart of one of the most famous musical precincts in America: the Treme, which gave its name to the HBO series. His house faces what's now called Louis Armstrong Park, where two centuries ago African slaves gathered every Sunday in Congo Square to drum and dance.
Around the corner was the Caldonia bar, where the great blues pianist and songwriter Professor Longhair lived in an apartment upstairs.

"I used to pass by there on my way going to school," Powell says from his front porch, where he is hanging out with his uncles. "I could hear Professor Longhair upstairs on the piano playing. And then, right in this block here before you get to the corner, there was a building — it was a house where Allan Toussaint had a studio and The Meters was in there recording."

Gospel music wafted out the door of the church next to Powell's house. Jazz funeral processions passed by on the street, on their way from the burial ground to the bar.

"See, I was surrounded by all this music," Powell says. "Like my uncle says, I'm part of the source." He indicates his uncle, Charlie Gabriel, a well-known clarinet and saxophone player, who agrees with his nephew: "He [is] the source. That's what he is."

Traditions

In terms of style, Shannon Powell would place himself staunchly among the traditionalists — in food as well as music.

He's having lunch at Willie Mae's Scotch House in the Treme; its succulent, cayenne-battered fried chicken is considered some of the best on earth. He orders red beans, white-meat chicken and unsweetened tea. He seems to know everyone in the dining room.

The drummer is known as something of a curmudgeon when it comes to new New Orleans music. He complains about everybody from Trombone Shorty to the Rebirth Brass Band. The latter just won its first Grammy, for Best Regional Roots Album.

"They playin' one style of music and callin' it something else," Powell says. "Don't say we playin' traditional New Orleans music if you playin' rock 'n' roll, that's what I'm sayin.'"

"He's not the only person in the history of New Orleans jazz that has said there needs to be the continuity of the tradition," says Nick Spitzer, a folklorist, New Orleans resident and host of the public radio program American Routes. "Continuity is wonderful, but to keep a tradition alive you have to create new songs, sounds, styles.

"I would say Shannon is right there, at the center of the rear guard, kicking the bass, playing the snare and pushing everybody forward," Spitzer adds. "That's a good role for Shannon to play. He's good at it. He does it with a smile on his face."

The Sound Of Humidity

The house is packed at Preservation Hall in the French Quarterhttp://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2012/02/25/147369865/shannon-powell-new-orleans-rhythm-straight-from-the-source, the cathedral of traditional jazz in New Orleans. Tourists have filled every square inch on the creaky old wooden floor.

Powell sits at his drum kit, a great beneficent presence with his black beret and gap-tooth grin. He leads the band here every Tuesday night.

Though Powell plays every style of New Orleans music, this is where he says he feels most at home. He's an old-fashioned showman on the drums, like Louie Bellson or Buddy Rich. Powell calls the tunes, cracks the jokes, picks the soloists and mesmerizes the crowd — especially when he picks up a tambourine and testifies on it the way he learned from the sanctified church ladies.

"Shannon Powell, what can I say, man, he is the embodiment of every great drummer that I love," says Dave Torkanowsky, a renowned local jazz pianist who has played with Powell for 25 years.
"He is the living history. He's the last of his kind. This town is the beachhead of African culture in America, and he is a direct uncut descendant from that. I mean, the humidity is in his playing."

Shannon Powell will be playing at this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in late April, and his band, Powell's Place, has a new album coming out soon. If you listen carefully, you can hear the humidity.

Soul Rebels post-Galactic show @ Lucille's (BB King's)

THE SOUL REBELS BRASS BAND
Late Night After-Party Jam
Following the band's Terminal 5 concert with Galactic!
February 25, 2012

Showtime @ 12:30AM
Doors Open @ 12:00AM 

Imagine blending the sounds of Mardi Gras funk, soul, hard rock, afrobeat, and reggae so seamlessly it defies category. Now shrink that idea into a eight-piece ensemble, add a hip-hop sensibility plus a hundred years of New Orleans jazz tradition, and you get the Louisiana sound of The Soul Rebels. The band first formed when Lumar LeBlanc and Derrick Moss, originally members of New Orleans' iconic Dejean's Young Olympia Brass Band, decided they wanted to play the new, exciting music they were hearing on the radio while respecting the tradition they loved. They found a stylistic middle ground when they spun off and formed a band of young, like-minded local players from all over New Orleans.

Since their early days performing as a local favorite in New Orleans, The Soul Rebels have shared the stage with notable artists from many corners of the pop and jazz worlds, including Arcade Fire, The Roots, Bootsy Collins, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, Counting Crows, Green Day, Drive By Truckers, James Brown, Roy Hargrove, Allen Toussaint, Chuck Brown, Terence Blanchard, The Gap Band, Better than Ezra and many more. Averaging around 250 shows per year, The Soul Rebels have brought the party to stages as far away as South Africa and Europe, playing some of the world's best-known music events, including the Umbria Jazz Fest, the Antibes Jazz Festival, The Montreal Jazz Festival, Bonnaroo, the Wanee Festival and, of course, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

This past January, The Soul Rebels finally released their first international album, Unlock Your Mind, on Rounder Records. This new song-driven studio effort includes guest appearances by Cyril Neville, Trombone Shorty, and Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli. Be sure to check out this band now before they rock Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, and many other festivals and concerts around the world. The band just sold out Brooklyn Bowl, did a week with Metallica, jammed with Green Day, toured with The New Mastersounds, and are currently touring the U.S. with Galactic! Called "the missing link between Public Enemy and Louis Armstrong" by the Village Voice, The Soul Rebels continue to combine top-notch musicianship and songs with grooves that celebrate life in time-honored New Orleans style.

NPR: The Mysterious World Of The Mardi Gras Indians

by Claire O'Neill

After Katrina, photographer Christopher Porche West took pains to recover a suit. A very special suit, as reported by the Times-Picayune. Beaded from head to toe, the now-legendary "Geronimo suit" took 9th Ward resident Carl Merricks four years to create. And it might have languished in a trash bag forever had Porche West not rescued it.

That suit was a key into the mysterious world of the Mardi Gras Indians — a mainstay of New Orleans' Fat Tuesday celebrations going on today. For three decades, Porche West has been documenting New Orleans' Indian culture. And he's had the privilege of access, which is not easy to get.

 

Courtesy of Christopher Porche West A recoved photo from Carl Merricks' residence shows the legendary Geronimo suit.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE.

Happy Mardi Gras

Listen to WWOZ HERE.


Listen to a few classics HERE.

Live Thursday on NPR: Galactic In Concert, With The Soul Rebels

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  Zack Smith
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  Courtesy of the ar

http://www.npr.org/event/music/147154117/live-thursday-galactic-in-concert-with-the-soul-rebels

Thursday, February 23, 2012

8 PM ET / 5 PM PT

• 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C.

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Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club will be home to a night of New Orleans soul and funk on Thursday, Feb. 23, when Galactic and The Soul Rebels take the stage for a performance webcast live on NPR Music. The evening begins with an opening set by The Soul Rebels at 8 p.m. ET, followed by Galactic at 9:30.