It’s officially summer in New Orleans. What better way to spend a balmy
Sunday afternoon than cruising in a slow roll carriage ride through the
Crescent City and playing music about our lazy Mississippi River, while
on your way to get some char-broiled oysters? Join pianist, vocalist,
composer and arranger, Davell Crawford in doing just that here…
The Bloody Sunday Sessions music video series releases its latest edition this week featuring Davell Crawford
and his all-star band performing an acoustic version of his song,
“River” live from the back of a horse-drawn carriage ride. If you’ve
noticed a full-fledge film crew rolling around town on Sunday afternoons
with New Orleans musicians doing their thing inside such a carriage,
you’ve likely witnessed the making of a Bloody Sunday Session.
With a dozen music videos in the bag already, and a slew of new ones
up their sleeves set for release well into the fall, you can expect lazy
musical Sundays fueled with a few bloody marys to be a regular part of
NOLA life for weeks to come. Stay tuned to OffBeat.com for advance,
exclusive new releases soon. For now, enjoy “River” above before its
official release later this month and see if you can spot the musical
stars in the wagon!
It’s New Orleans – Who needs gas when you’ve got a horse, a carriage and bloody marys?
CREDITS:
Davell Crawford – Vocals Charmaine Neville – Percussion Bryant Simmons – Guitar Joe Dyson, Jr. – Snare Drum Alexi Marti – Percussion Stephen J. Gladney – Saxophone
Check out a live in-studio video—a TONY exclusive—of R&B song man Davell Crawford, playing NYC this Saturday at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater. On "Creole Man," he flaunts his hometown pride with velvet vocals and bluesy piano lines.
The pianist-singer is celebrating the release of his new album, My Gift to You—his first in 13 years. You can stream the NOLA-indebted record, which came out last week, over at Paste.
Music is in Davell Crawford’s blood. The grandson of the great James
“Sugar Boy” Crawford, Davell has been an active member of the New
Orleans music scene since single digits.
Crawford was raised in Baptist and Catholic churches, playing organ,
piano, and directing and singing in choirs. Since his early years in the
church, gospel has remained the driving force of Crawford’s music, but
he is not one to shy away from detours into R&B, blues, soul, or
funk.
Now Crawford, affectionately known as “The Piano Prince of New Orleans”, is set to release his first album in thirteen years. My Gift to You
is, from start to finish, a tribute to Crawford’s birthplace. The album
features big names such as Dr. John, Big Freedia, Bobbi Humphrey,
Donald Harrison Jr., and Steve Riley & Walter “Wolfman” Washington.
My Gift to You will be released June 11 via Basin Street
Records, but you can stream the album in its entirety below. Also be
sure to check out this exclusive video of Davell Crawford performing
Junco Partner in studio.
Basin Street Records announced today that the Rebirth Brass Band has signed with the label, and will be releasing their first Basin Street album early next year. It won’t be their first recordings with Basin Street—they played with former member and co-founder Kermit Ruffins on 2005’s Throwback. However, the upcoming album will be Rebirth’s first of new material under their own name since 2004’s Rebirth for Life.
Mark Samuels, President of Basin Street Records, states, “There is nothing in the world like going to see Rebirth on a Tuesday night at the Maple Leaf. We are excited to begin what we hope will be a long relationship that is beneficial to both Rebirth and our label.”
If this sounds like the match you’ve been waiting for while patiently waiting on the release of more Rebirth recordings, you’re not alone. As founder and tuba player Phil Frazier says, “This is what New Orleans is all about, the Rebirth Brass Band and Basin Street Records teaming up to release music that’ll make you move and put a smile on your face.
Ruffins' barbecue, so big that it's attached to a hitch hooked onto the back of his pickup truck, is often parked outside of the gigs he plays all over the Crescent City, and is a sight to behold. It is the latest in a string of Ruffin family barbecues, and a brand new replacement for the one set inside the back of his pickup truck. In fact, Ruffins' cooking skills date back farther than his musical career, which began when he picked up a trumpet at the age of 14.
With New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in full swing, Ruffins is showcasing his culinary and musical skills all over this fine city. He's played Jazz Fest for at least the past 25 years, and this year he'll perform sets with both his own Barbecue Swingers band and as a guest with the Rebirth Brass Band, which he founded in 1982 with then high school classmate Philip Frazier. On Jazz Fest's first weekend alone, Ruffins played his longstanding weekly Thursday night gig at Vaughan's Lounge, and then a Friday night record release party for his latest album, Livin' a Treme Life (out April 28 on Basin Street Records), at the House of Blues. He played at halftime of the New Orleans Hornets' NBA playoff game Saturday afternoon before darting to the fairgrounds to join Rebirth as special guest for their set. At any one of those shows, one of the aforementioned barbecues might be parked right outside, serving up sausages, turkey necks, nutria or whatever the flavor of the day might be.
To hear the 44-year-old Ruffins tell it, cookery has been a family ritual since long before he was born. Growing up in the city's Lower Ninth Ward, the Ruffins family would wake up almost every Saturday at 4 a.m., head down to Hopedale, LA, and fish all morning long. They'd return with a heap of crabs and fish and head straight to the backyard to prepare a feast for later in the afternoon.
"I always had a lot of hands-on experience with the outdoor barbecue, and my grandmother would have me chopping up onions and all kinds of stuff after we got back from fishing," Ruffins says.
WWOZ, a nonprofit, listener-supported radio station that specializes in music connected to the cultural heritage of New Orleans and the surrounding area, broadcasts a number of events throughout the year live. The annual Jazz Fest shows are among the events most eagerly awaited by listeners.
"We sacrifice our festival to bring it to the world," said Tom Morgan, a jazz historian and writer who has two shows on the station, "Jazz Roots," and "The New Orleans Music Show."
Like the other on-air people, Morgan is an expert on the music he plays. And like all the others, he is not paid.
"We have 100 volunteers who have shows," general manager David Freedman said. "And each one of them is a member of the New Orleans music community. They live with our music every day, they don't just play it on the air."
WWOZ went on the air in 1980. At the time, the station operated out of the upstairs beer storage room at a nightclub, Tipitina's, where the DJ would drop a microphone through the floor and send the live music below straight to the airwaves.
The station grew quickly, attracting fans around the world when it started streaming on the Internet.
Editor's Note: Last week, as a prelude to the kickoff of the 40th Anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, we looked, retrospectively, at the first 20 years of this New Orleans treasure. This week, we do a recap of the second 20.
The first day of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1990 was deluged with thunderstorms. The rain was coming down in droves during Tribe Nunzio's set. Holden Miller, the group's irrepressible lead singer, was awed by the dedication of the crowd. She yelled in admiration, "Y'all look groovy, all wet and all!
ed. note: I was there. It was awesome. Here's a couple of my amateur Galactic pics:
This party carried way into the wee hours of the morning with New Orleans musicians that were truly fired up and happy to be with each other performing for the people. Check out some of our finest homegrown:
Like a lot of out-of-towners who came to New Orleans in the years after the levees failed, Chris Joseph found that the singers John Boutte and Paul Sanchez spoke to the city's post-Katrina trauma better than almost any other artists.
Like his fellow visitors, Joseph felt frustrated that he couldn't buy a CD of the cathartic songs the duo was singing in the city's nightclubs -- numbers such as the infectious original "Good Neighbor" or the radical rearrangement of Paul Simon's "An American Tune" as part folk confessional and part gospel hymn.
Unlike the others, though, Joseph did something about it.
Joseph, a Santa Monica resident who prepares environmental impact statements for a living, was a member of the Threadheads, a group that already had proved that music fans could be proactive. The Threadheads met in the chat room on www.nojazzfest.com, but they evolved into an organization that put on shows at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
So despite spending all day out at Jazz Fest blogging for them, I still feel the need to do a little something on my own blog? Why would I do this when I could be seeing Budos Band, Sharon Jones, Andre Williams, Brownout, or Grupo Fantasma right now? For one, I'm sick of trying to make the decision about which of those to go to. For two, I've got some really hot stuff burning a hole in this blog's pocket. Or something. And oddly enough, they're all localish.
If you notice the song titles and then the writing credits, these are Fats Domino songs we're talking about, but done up in a much different way. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dave Bartholomew is sung as the unsung hero of New Orleans R&B. The guy produced or played on half of all those big numbers you know, and yet (and I only use this as an example) my college history of rock & roll teacher said he never released his own material. Of course I was a little shit and corrected him, and I've actually linked him to my blog once so Prof. Charry, here's your proof, though "The Monkey" would be better, more popular proof. I think Dave's gotten a little more come-uppance in years past, but his stake in this city's history will likely never be properly recognized.
Mark Samuels is sitting in an armchair in the corner of a coffeeshop in Mid-City New Orleans. He looks mild mannered from afar, but up close there is a subtle firmness that indicates he is not to be taken lightly. And, as a man who went from working in the tough energy business to the equally tough music business, this firmness has helped him well. Then again, he yawns and says that he is just back from his honeymoon, so it could be fatigue showing. In any event, over a cup of joe, Samuels begins telling the tale of how he started one of New Orleans' most successful record companies, Basin Street Records.
The Tin Men are one of New Orleans’ most interesting and exciting bands. Consisting of Alex McMurray on guitar and vocals, Matt Perrine on sousaphone and washboard, and Chaz Leary on washboard and vocals, the band has riveted audiences with its own brand of music. Those who caught their late night performances during the 2002 Jazz Fest season hailed the group as “the best thing seen during Jazz Fest.”
The Valparaiso Men's Chorus Guano and Nitrates is a rare and strange artifact. For reasons no one can clearly remember, it was decided to assemble a large group of men for the purpose of making a recording of sea shanties. The Monday after Thanksgiving was chosen to maximize the size of the group, and the Mermaid Lounge was chosen as the site, due to its proximity to recording equipment and alcohol. We acquired the last two reels of 1/2 inch tape for sale in Orleans Parish and went to work.
What I want to do here is focus on just a few examples of Earl Palmer's playing that demonstrate the more poly-rhythmic aspects of his style and express the uniquely New Orleans side of this incredible groove-maker. A deeply funky feel seems to be an innate characteristic of the city's best drummers, so ingrained in the local culture that to second line is second nature. With antecedents going back several hundred years through the Caribbean (Cuba and Haiti) to Africa via the tragic diaspora of slavery, that rhythmic heritage was perpetuated in the weekly dance and drum circles allowed in Congo Square and the secretive societies of the Mardi Gras Indian gangs in city. They arose in jazz, New Orleans' great improvisatory well-spring, through street parade musicians, moving on to shape the distinct local R&B flavor from the 1950s to the present day, as funk in the city’s music has become increasingly overt. Excuse me for trying to cram several centuries of musical ferment and evolution into a few sentences. Anyway, I don't think it's an overstatement or simplistic to say that Earl Palmer is a vital part of that musical continuum and the first drummer to inject both second line syncopations and the turbo-charged, driving pulse of rock 'n' roll into the mass appeal popular music that quickly overtook much of the world, influencing myriad musicians and forever changing listeners' attitudes and expectations, getting backfields in motion across racial and cultural divides, and uniting us in universal worship of the beat.
It seemed fitting that a man who immortalized second lines in photographs was celebrated with one of his own. And so it was for Michael P. Smith, as hundreds gathered on a warm Saturday afternoon outside of the Sportman’s Corner at Second and Dryades Streets to pay their respects to one of New Orleans finest photographers.
Squeezing the dollar bill until the eagle grins has become more common than ever both here and around the country. Everything seems to go up except incomes. Fortunately, New Orleanians don't have to sacrifice hearing live music just because budgets are tight. That's never truer than during the lovely fall months with festivals, outdoor concerts and second lines in abundance. Daytime and early evening shows also offer the opportunity to share the music with the kids and have them experience New Orleans' many contributions to the world including our greatest gift, jazz.
Gasoline was only 63 cents a gallon when Astral Project, which is now regarded by many as New Orleans premiere modern jazz ensemble, was formed. The world and this city have changed dramatically since that time - Tipitina's and the Neville Brothers were just kicking in and Katrina was simply a girl's name. Yet through the decades Astral Project's music has remained the same in terms of its high level of musicianship and creativity. While folks may claim their favorite album, it is remarkable that the group has never put out a bad CD. The latest effort, "Blue Streak," the release of which will be celebrated -- along with the anniversary -- at Snug Harbor on Saturday, October 11, is no exception to that rule. From the first cut, saxophonist Tony Dagradi's "Cannonball," the music grabs one's attention with its strong melody, freshness and clean sound. It's just plain good.
The group with Dagradi, guitarist Steve Masakowski, bassist James Singleton and drummer Johnny Vidacovich is perhaps most noted for its members' abilities to sense each others musical directions and to utilize this attribute to enhance the overall flow and sound. They are one entity on another Dagradi number, the title cut, "Blue Streak." On this burner, each individual's efforts remain wonderfully distinctive even within the tight ensemble work.
Founded by Mattvaughan Black (aka Mr. The Turk of The New Orleans Bingo! Show) on Lundi Gras of 2005 as an evolving experiment in the random collaboration between people, sound and rhythm, The Noisician Coalition has since blossomed from its original seven member lineup to a rotating cast of up to fifty members at any given march. Armed with an arsenal of modified bullhorns, handmade synthesizers, and found-object percussion assembled by Black himself, this “post-apocalyptic communist clown army marching band,” fiercely bedecked in the red, white and black of a trusty RCA cable, assemble themselves four times a year to engage in some of the most cataclysmic rhythms ever to be witnessed in the streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter.
Apart from being special guests in The New Orleans Bingo! Show's presentation of THE BLACK SHOW on Friday night and marching in the Voodoo Parade on Saturday afternoon, expect to see this renegade marching troupe performing sporadically around the Voodoo Experience grounds for all three days of the festival. Making their base camp / village headquarters backstage at The Bingo! Parlour, they shouldn't be hard to find. Elsewhere on the grounds? Odds are good you'll hear them before you see them.
Is Christmas ever truly out of season? Maybe. But it's hard not to watch this ill-advised 2007 Christmas special starring The Noisician Coalition over and over again. Even in October. Or July. Or... Well, you get it. Please, enjoy responsibly:
Leah Chase has been lauded as a keeper of the flame of Creole cooking, and never more so than after Hurricane Katrina when all of the city’s indigenous food traditions seemed so threatened.
Fortunately, Chase’s living legacy is still in practice at her restaurant, Dooky Chase, and it has also been well documented in a series of books compiling her recipes and stories from the Creole kitchen.
"I'm not sure but I think all music comes from New Orleans." —Lee Dorsey
Jazz trumpeter, vocalist, and New Orleans native Leroy Jones takes after his 'mother' in the best possible ways. He's charming, generous and kind and has the gift to musically move you from tear-in-the-eye emotion to dancing in your seat. Jones also has the optimistic attitude of many New Orleans residents. He seems to look on the bright side of things, even the humid late summer weather. He wouldn't say the weather was bad, just hot. "You all have no idea what summer is," he laughs. And Jones definitely knows how to have fun, Big Easy style. His joy and passion during a performance is contagious even to the stodgiest among them.
Check out this week’s selections from Nolaphile friends, Basin Street Records. This week we get to share work from artists Kermit Ruffins, Henry Butler, and Jon Cleary.
Little is known of the disreputable duo from Baton Rouge who perform under the moniker of "BONES." Here's what some have said...
"The Baton Rouge, Louisiana, duo Bones work a marvelously demented swampcore-blues-torture sound." -LA Weekly
"Bones works a sticky, oozing trash-garage wallop that, despite the spare two-man blitzkrieg attack force and fealty to their home state's swampy blues grinds, arcs almost into shadowy Black Sabbath-esque territory, a region fraught with menace, corruption, and who-gives-a-damn abandon." -Inland Empire Weekly
“The propulsive rock of Bones is covered in Miller's fuzz and the crash of Scott Campbell's cymbals. The duo rolls along on a railroad of blues and stops on a dime. The music is soft while Miller sings his grievances, but then it gets loud and nasty when his steam evaporates…" -LiveNewOrleans.com
"The White Stripes and the Black Keys might be the most visible incarnations of the two-person band, grinding out sinewy, overdriven blues with minimal instrumentation, but Baton Rouge's Bones is by far the dirtiest." -Nashville Scene
"Bones comes off like a sex-crazed pit bull broken free of its leash: focused, furious, and practically unstoppable." -Antigravity Magazine (New Orleans)
It is worth noting that Mike Miller is also a member of Liquidrone, the megaphone-driven art house rock band that, in many ways, spawned the quieter little sister whom we've all come to love and know as The New Orleans Bingo! Show... a group with whom both Miller and Campbell have performed.That being said, please enjoy this classic Liquidrone video for the classy classic, "Harley and a Mail Order Bride." (Keep your eyes peeled for familiar faces and Mike's mighty, mighty air guitar.)
On his 2007 album, “Katrina Was Her Name,” Bryan Lee includes an exuberant version of Robert Parker’s already-infectious “Barefootin’.”
The problem, as Lee sees it, is that not enough people — especially young musicians — would have recognized Parker’s name in that last sentence, and that’s why the guitarist recorded the song. (Born and raised in New Orleans, Parker was a top sideman in the Crescent City from 1949 through the 1958, when he started his solo career, which peaked with 1966’s top 10 hit “Barefootin’.”)
"I'm not sure but I think all music comes from New Orleans."
