Crawfish Fest brings Louisiana music, food, crafts to region
Michael Arnone’s 19th Annual Crawfish Fest will be held Friday, May 30, through Sunday, June 1, at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, N.J. “Fans of The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and those who already know about and love the Crawfish Fest, should mark their calendars now and start making plans to attend this year’s Crawfish Fest,” said Mr. Arnone. This year's music lineup is the strongest list in the festival’s history, covering New Orleans funk, R&B, rock, Cajun, Zydeco, and brass band styles along with great blues and jam band special guests who will perform on four stages.
The "B" Side has an excellent recap of the Ponderosa Stomp HERE, including a download of the song that inspired the event's name.
Also on The "B" Side: "Going Back to New Orleans" - Henry Roland Byrd [a.k.a Professor Longhair]
I figured we'd check in with the man behind the curtain, the progenitor... the guy Allen Toussaint refers to as "The Bach of Rock". Ahmet Ertegun had heard about Longhair and, along with his partner Herb Abramson, made a 1949 journey to New Orleans to find him. After the white taxi driver refused to take them any further, they were let off in an empty field across the river in Algiers. Ertegun: "Far away we could see some lights... as we approached the village, we saw this house, which was bulging in and out... from far away it looked, actually, as if people were falling out the windows. The music was blaring, we thought 'My God, there's a fantastic band in there'... What I thought had been an R&B band turned out to be Professor Longhair by himself. He was sitting there with a microphone between his legs... he had a drum head attached to the piano. He would hit it with his right foot while he was playing... and he was playing the piano and singing full blast, and it really was the most incredible sounding thing I ever heard... and I said 'My God, no white person has ever seen this, man'"
"Professor Longhair was the guardian angel of the roots of New Orleans music. He was a one-of-a-kind musician and man, and he defined a certain style of rhumba-boogie funk that WAS New Orleans R&B from the late 1940s all the way through to his death in 1980. All New Orleans pianists today owe Fess. He was the guru, godfather and spiritual root doctor of all that came under him." - Mac Rebennack
While we're sticking with The "B" Side, please check out the great post: An Instant of [Allen] Toussaint.
As you know, I'm a huge Allen Toussaint fan. Like Professor Longhair before him, his creative genius has taken New Orleans music to the next level again and again over the course of the last fifty years. I've gone so far as to call him the patron saint of the B Side, as I don't believe there's anybody out there who's produced more incredible 'flips' than he has.
What were you feeling during your first public performance in New Orleans since Katrina?
I wasn't even thinking about it being my first public performance. I just thought about me going to sit in with my brother Art, and supporting him. I wanted him to shine on that.
It was a great feeling to be up there with Art. We sang "Tick Tock," a song we used to sing back in the projects. I did "Mardi Gras Mambo" with him and a Fats Domino song. Back in the day, Art used to do the Fats stuff and you couldn't tell them apart.
I'm surprised Art doesn't do more solo shows.
He needs to. Do the Funky Meters, but do his own thing. Art was my first inspiration as far as singers go, when I was a little boy. Art's a bad dude.
Jambase: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival :: 05.01.08 – 05.04.08 :: The Fairgrounds :: New Orleans, LAThe New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has taken place in New Orleans for 39 years now. It's one of the world's leading music festivals. But for many, it's far more than a mere music festival. It's a celebration of a culture that helped form America's musical identity. It's notable that "heritage" is part of the name of the festival, because as the "Cradle of Jazz," New Orleans' importance in the cultural fabric of American music cannot be overstated. Here, where the Mississippi River spills out into the Gulf, is where our collective music fermented and sprung forth, as if all of the detritus of the soul in the soil of our nation deposited here and stewed together in a melting pot reflected in song. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, or simply "Jazz Fest" as it is most often known, is something akin to a pilgrimage for some and the pull is due to the intangible uniqueness of New Orleans culture. It's the place where happening across a half dozen dancers in feathered headdresses is not at all unusual, where you may be pulled into a second line almost against your will, where being dirty, grimy and exhausted can actually be a cleansing experience.
Off the Record [Spotlight on the state of New Orleans Brass Bands]
The lack of new [brass band] material from a city known for its brass bands is a troubling sign that the post-Katrina musical recovery in New Orleans might be built on a fragile foundation that could easily disappear before anyone realizes it. When assessing the damage sustained by the New Orleans music community after Katrina, brass bands appeared to be among the hardest hit institutions. Many of the music’s elders, the keepers and teachers of the tradition, have passed away or been incapacitated. They didn’t have to die in the federal flood to be mortally wounded by the loss of home, relatives and the city’s poor post-Katrina health care.
New Orleans groove suits British-born Cleary well
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band Enters Into Distribution Agreements with Wolfgang's VaultHenry Butler in exile, but still a N.O. musician
Though you can take the musician out of New Orleans, you can’t take New Orleans out of the musician. “That’s what it’s all about,” he said of the CD’s New Orleans flavor. “I wanted to do some classic New Orleans stuff. I’ve played for thousands and thousands of people in my life and everywhere I go people love this stuff, man. New Orleans musicians have so much enthusiasm,” he said. “Not that other musicians don’t, but there’s definitely more life and conscious enthusiasm in New Orleans music.”
A Flood of Emotion in a SongIn the nearly three years since the levees failed during Hurrica Katrina, you haven’t had to wait very long at a Louisiana festival or nightclub before a singer croons, “What has happened down here is the winds have changed.” That’s the opening line of “Louisiana 1927,” which has become the state’s unofficial anthem in the wake of the 2005 tragedy. Written by Randy Newman in the mid-1970s about a flood that covered a good deal of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana half a century earlier, the song climaxes with its plaintive, singalong chorus, “Loo-eez-ee-ann-a, they’re tryin’ to wash us away."
Dr. John’s Tricknology by OsmosisCheck out this Rebennac-ed Q&A with Bob French
No comments:
Post a Comment