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Win Tickets: New Orleans Jazz Festival

New Orleans Jazz Festival

Enter to win a pair of tickets to the 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival!

The 43rd edition of the famed New Orleans Jazz Fest takes place April 27-29 & May 3-6, 2012 and features 12 stages of virtually every style of music, over 75 food booths serving one-of-a-kind delicacies and 3 different crafts areas boasting some of the most talented artists in the world.

This year’s star-studded lineup includes Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eagles, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Foo Fighters,  The Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Reunion, Zac Brown Band, Eddie Vedder, Cee Lo Green, The Neville Brothers, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Al Green, Herbie Hancock, Ne-Yo, My Morning Jacket, Bon Iver, Florence + the Machine and hundreds more!.

Visit www.nojazzfest.com for a complete lineup!


 Please click here to download a PDF of the complete contest rules.

Listen: Dr. John Talks to WNYC's "Soundcheck" About New Album, "Locked Down," and Three-Week BAM Residency

 

Mac Rebennack, a.k.a Dr. John, whose new album, Locked Down, is due out next week, was the guest on today's episode of Soundcheck from New York public radio member station WNYC. Mac treats listeners to a live solo piano version of "Big Shot," a song off the new album that was named NPR Song of the Day last week, and talks with host John Schaefer about working with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, who produced the album. Schaefer also plays a clip from the album track "Revolution," which you can hear in full here. You can listen to Dr. John on Soundcheck below.

Mac also talks with Schaefer about a three-week residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), titled Dr. John: Insides Out, which gets under way this week with a tribute to Louis Armstrong at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Thursday through Saturday nights. The following weekend is the centerpiece of the residency, a three-night run of concerts in which Auerbach will join Dr. John and a handpicked band to premiere new music from Locked Down, April 5–7. Dr. John: Insides Out concludes April 12–15 with Funky But It’s Nu Awlins, a funk-infused night of New Orleans music, featuring key players from the Crescent City. For tickets, head to bam.org now.

Listen to Soundcheck Here

NPR: Dr. John: A 'Big Shot,' Reinvigorated

 

  James Demaria Productions

Friday's Pick

Song: "Big Shot"
Artist: Dr. John
CD: Locked Down
Genre: Blues-Rock

March 23, 2012

Horns run quickly up and down a semi-chromatic scale, sounding faded and ghostly, as if they're blowing in a juke joint back in the 1920s. Then the volume rises, the pace slows a bit — like a not-too-fast, not-too-slow, shoulder-shimmying sashay down a New Orleans street late at night. A familiar voice begins to sing, loud and strong; it's the unmistakable growl of Dr. John. The song is "Big Shot," from the new Locked Down, in which Dan Auerbach, singer and guitarist for the blues-rock band The Black Keys, aims to give the good Doctor a modern spin. Auerbach and Dr. John count among the song's many co-writers.

Dr. John always sounds exactly like Dr. John: a singer with heart and swagger in his gravelly drawl and magic powers in his piano-thumping fingers. In the 1970s, when he burst into national fame, he was totally outrageous — dressing like a befeathered voodoo king and calling himself the "Nite Tripper." Today, he's a bit of an elder statesman, singing old classics and penning mournful paeans to Katrina-battered New Orleans.

Auerbach makes 71-year-old Mac Rebennack sound fresh and intimate by connecting him to his vital musical past. The horns pump up the song, just the way they'd enliven a funeral march in the Big Easy. The backing McCrary Sisters are gospel-flavored and swathed in reverb, while Dr. John himself sounds as if he's having a heap of fun with the self-promoting lyric. He slurs words with New Orleans insouciance, toys with the beat, injects just the right amount of ego and attitude, and proves that now, as always, he's the ruler of American roots music.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band On World Cafe

 

PLAY THE PERFORMANCE

 

World Cafe, with host David Dye, presents a special performance of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, recorded in the birthplace of jazz. It's a special "tuba summit" in two parts, focusing on the tuba players from some New Orleans staples and their connection to the famous Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Ben Jaffe is the current director of the PHJB, and from good New Orleans stock — in fact, his parents founded the Hall. The group itself is world-renowned, playing at Carnegie Hall and for British Royalty in its quest to bring New Orleans jazz to everyone.

Jaffe plays the sousaphone, upright bass and banjo. Phil Frazier, another tuba player, is at the heart of another famous New Orleans jazz group, which he founded while in high school 27 years ago. The Rebirth Brass Band is true to its name, bringing hope to a city that's been through a lot — it played for countless evacuees in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Kirk Joseph is the third skilled tuba player in this group, and he helped found Dirty Dozen Brass Band, which has revived much of the brass-band culture in New Orleans today. Joseph is known for his modern tuba style, which incorporates elements of Dixieland jazz and funk.

In this interview, Dye talks with Jaffe about the fascinating history of PHJB and its decades-long history of high-profile touring. Next up, Joseph and Frazier discuss the tuba's evolution in New Orleans music and compare the instrument to the quarterback of a football team — there's only one, and it's a key position. The session is rounded out by a number of jazz pieces, rec

Dr. John @ BAM: Insides Out: Funky But It’s Nu Awlins

• Overview
• Multimedia

Funky But It’s Nu Awlins

Part of the 2012 Winter/Spring Season and Dr. John: Insides Out

Apr 12*—14 at 8pm

Produced by BAM

“Dr. John is more than just a legendary blues pianist. He’s a genuine New Orleans character.” —NPR

Featured artists:
Irma Thomas
Ivan Neville
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Nicholas Payton
Davell Crawford
Donald Harrison

For over 40 years, Dr. John has taken the exuberant and raucous sound of New Orleans under his wing, preserving its lore and channeling it through his own style of rhythm and blues. This spring, the good doctor comes to BAM with an extraordinary entourage of musical guests for an artistic residency, offering three distinct perspectives on his formidable career.

“Funky But It’s Nu Awlins” is an all-out celebration of music from the Big Easy. All-star luminaries from New Orleans past and present join the good doctor for this funk-filled program of letting loose as only the Mardi Gras faithful know how.

* BAM 150th Anniversary Gala

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Tickets start at $35

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