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

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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

Download: Nicholas Payton's new "Bitches" Mixtape

Payton’s voice, not his trumpet, dominates Bitches, which also features guest vocalists Esperanza Spalding, N’dambi, Saunders Sermons and Chinah Blac. It’s in the mode of Sonic Trance partially in its borrowings from the fusion musical vocabulary, and in its break from what is expected of Payton.

Payton had Davis’ album in mind while making “Bitches,” he said, “because this is such a departure for me. Like ‘Bitches Brew’ was for Miles. It’s a similar sharp turn in my musical career.” (As for the provocative nature of the title, Payton says, “I figure if Miles can do ‘Bitches Brew,’ then 40 years later I can do just ‘Bitches.’”)

Payton posted a download link to the album this weekend.

Upcoming: New Orleans Nights feat. Allen Toussaint, Nicholas Payton & Joe Krown Trio w/ Walter "Wolfman" Washington & Russell Batiste Jr.

Sunday, November 14, 2010 – 6pm

NEW ORLEANS NIGHTS
Featuring Allen Toussaint, Nicholas Payton, and
The Joe Krown Trio

Brilliance on Every Note

1998 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and recipient of the 2009 prestigious Grammy Trustees Award, ALLEN TOUSSAINT is heralded as a seminal influence on the music of New Orleans. The Rock and Roll Hall of fame describes him as “producer, bandleader, arranger, songwriter, session musician and all-around musical eminence,” and his songs are timeless hits, including “Working in the Coal Mine,” “Mother-in-Law,” “I Like It Like That,” “Right Place Wrong Time” and “Southern Nights.”

Tickets: $35, $30, $25

Called “abundantly gifted” and “a high-wire soloist” by The New York Times, NICHOLAS PAYTON is a composer, a bandleader, and an extraordinarily talented trumpet wizard. His recordings have consistently charted in the Billboard Top 20 Jazz albums, from his first recording, From This Moment (no. 15) to his current release Into the Blue (no. 11).

The combination of the soulful vocals of Walter with the big sound of the Hammond B-3 and the masterful drumming of Russell Batiste Jr. has developed a loyal following of New Orleans Jazz aficionados of The JOE KROWN TRIO. The trio’s 2008 CD, Live at the Maple Leaf, has garnered rave reviews: "A killer collaboration between three of New Orleans greatest players!" Jan Ramsey, offBEAT Magazine

Nicholas Payton on WBGO’s Live at the Village Vanguard

Nicholas Patyon (photo by Michael Wilson)

Tune in, log on or drop by the Village Vanguard on Wednesday, March 10 to hear the Nicholas Payton Quintet on WBGO’s Live at the Village Vanguard.

The band will include Taylor Eigsti on piano, Vicente Archer on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums and Daniel Sadownick on percucssion.

Born into a musical family (he remembers sitting under the piano while his father rehearsed with his band) and mentored by two Crescent City jazz masters (Clyde Kerr Jr. at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and Ellis Marsalis at the University of New Orleans), Payton was well-prepared to leap into the jazz fray when he emerged on the New York in the early 1990s. He impressed fellow New Orleans native and Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director, Wynton Marsalis and was a regular in the early years of programming at the institution.

Payton went on to put his own spin on Louis Armstrong-associated music on his sophomore CD, the appropriately-titled 1995 disc Gumbo Nouveau. While over the next several years, Payton continued to hone his craft working with such jazz legends as Doc Cheatham (on their Grammy Award-winning 1997 eponymous duo), Hank Jones, Elvin Jones, and Ray Brown, in 2003 he boldly moved beyond the straight-ahead. He shocked the jazz world with his adventurous CD Sonic Trance, an exhilarating plugged-in outing infused with elements of hip-hop, electronica, and effects-driven trumpeting.

Don’t miss this exciting edition of Live from the Village Vanguard with the Nicolas Payton Quintet on March 10, 2010 at 9pm.

In Pictures: Nicholas Payton Quintet @ Birdland

By greg aiello

Nicholas Payton Quintet @ Birdland 5/20/09

Nicholas Payton Quintet


Nicholas Payton


Robert Glasper


Nicholas Payton

Nolafunk Lagniappe

James Booker: New Orleans Piano Wizard; 25 Years Gone

The name James Booker means very little in most parts of the world. In New Orleans, and to a great number of musicians, mainly piano players, the name James Booker is holy. Not bad for someone who was once called "the best black, gay, junkie piano player who ever lived."

John Blancher celebrates 20 years of Rock 'n Bowl

Rock 'n Bowl returned from Hurricane Katrina as strong as ever; the past 12 months have been the operation's highest-grossing fiscal year to date, Blancher said, despite a post-Gustav dip in business. Along with the likes of Tipitina's and the Maple Leaf Bar, it is an iconic destination for locals and tourists eager to experience the "real" New Orleans.

New Orleans piano legend Fats Domino materializes at his documentary's premiere party

After accepting the awards, Domino -- clad in a short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt, white slacks, tennis shoes and his omnipresent captain's cap -- reminded the audience that he's "not much of a talker" in his brief thank-you remarks. With that, he disappeared through the club's backstage entrance to relax in an outdoor lounge area with his preferred beverage, cold bottles of Heineken.

see also: Fats Domino documentary to air on PBS



Christian Scott - Live At Newport (2008)

The New Orleans tradition continues.

Over one hundred years after the Crescent City had given the world cornetist and jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden, kicking off an amazing string of brass legends going from Louis Armstrong to Wynton Marsalis to Terence Blanchard, another ground-breaking trumpet player from this storied city has emerged in just the last few years. His name is Christian Scott.

Like Marsalis, Scott was born into New Orleans music---his uncle is Donald Harrison---but unlike Wynton, Scott is not dwelling on tradition at the beginning of his career before putting his own imprint on jazz.

New Orleans swaps guns for music

The New Orleans Horns for Guns project is a variation on gun buy-back programs offering residents musical instruments, cameras and classes in exchange for gun










Download: Page w/ PBS @ Live Downloads

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD BEAUTY OF A BROKEN HEART

Enjoy the Big Easy's musical heart


N'Awlins is callin' you with Tab Benoit

Have the hurricanes weakened the future of the New Orleans music scene, especially if homegrown musicians and future talent have relocated?

I don’t know if it can be anywhere near what it was. The people who really, really love New Orleans and can’t live without it are back, and even if they’re not physically living in the city where they used to live, they’re at least living in surrounding areas.

A lot went to Baton Rouge, somewhere in the vicinity, but they still come back and play New Orleans a lot. Between musicians, the bond is stronger than ever. Everyone went through the same thing together, which got us all on the same page, but it gets harder and harder to live and maintain a life there.

New Orleans jazz leader Adonis Rose spreads talent




Dumpstaphunk: The greasiest, swampiest funk music out there

If you’re from out of town or silly enough to live in New Orleans and have never seen Ivan Neville’s Dumsptaphunk, do yourself a favor: take a break from the screeching melodies, electronic pop and heavy-eye makeup at Voodoo Fest on Saturday afternoon and go see the greasiest, swampiest funk music that has permeated places like Tipitina’s for years.

This is a splendid video dedicated to New Orleans music. Lots of footage showing local musicians playing and the beautiful scenery from the city. Anders Osborne wrote and narrates this clip.

Rebirth Brass Band and the New Orleans scene

New Orleans, being the birth place of Jazz, is widely known for its music. The volume of extraordinary musicians this city produces is staggering. Being a recent transpant from Boston, I’m still in somewhat of a culture shock, but I am getting along just fine. My first time seeing Rebirth Brass Band was at Harpers Ferry in Boston, Massachusetts back in the spring of 2007. All I knew of them then was that they were fun to see and layed down a groove you didn’t have a choice but to dance to. The rumors were right! I couldn’t stop moving my feet! They are a brass band consisting of a tuba, bass drum, snare drum, saxophone, two trombones, and three trumpets. They are each talented, and they are as tight as clockwork. These guys have ben playing together for 25 years and made there start in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. The have a regular gig at the Maple Leaf Bar every Tuesday night and this Tuesday I went.

Michael P. Smith Photography slideshow

Picasso, Basquiat And Jazz: Nicholas Payton Explores The Influence Of Visual Art

On Thursday, trumpeter Nicholas Payton will celebrate the influence of bebop greats Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker on the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Payton, a New Orleans native who still resides there, had just returned from a few shows in Brazil when he learned about the parameters of the gig. He’s not familiar with Basquiat works at the museum, but he has been profoundly influenced by visual art in recent years.
“When you play what you see,” he says, “it comes from a different place than when you play based on what you hear. My last two records have been very visual — I’m dealing with colors rather than notes, treating harmony as a color. My music is more rhythmic, more effervescent. There are lines and circles.”

NolaFunk Lagniappe

Home of the Groove's "No Magic Wand For Earl King"

Here's another New Orleans rarity that, like the previously posted Johnny Moore (Deacon John) 45, came out on the Wand label, based in New York. Wand issued a number of singles by New Orleans artists between 1966 and the mid-1970s, leasing virtually all of those tracks from various production companies in the Deep South - in this case, Sansu Enterprises.



It features the great Earl King, performing artist, producer, and, most significantly, one of the Crescent City's best songwriters for five decades until his passing in 2003. While Earl often favored a funky, soulful blues style when he performed and recorded his own stuff, he wrote many different kinds of pop and R&B for diverse local artists including Professor Longhair ("Big Chief"), Willie Tee ("Teasin' You"), Lee Dorsey, and the Dixie Cups. And, of course, his classics have been covered by Jimi Hendrix, Robert Palmer, Boz Scaggs, and Levon Helm, to name but a few. Until I ran across this DJ copy for sale online last year, I didn't know the record existed, although it is listed in various Wand discographies, as I've since learned.

Nicholas Payton: The Deep Blue

"I've always done all sorts of stuff," says Payton. "I've always considered myself a musician first. Growing up in New Orleans, I played in all sorts of bands - from brass bands to hip-hop bands, I played rock, fusion. I played all sorts of music; I never made the distinction. Jazz itself is a very eclectic music, but what is it? Is it a sound? Is it instrumentation? Is it a certain type of rhythm? It can be very abstract as to what it is or what it isn't. I am of the feeling that the groove or sonic context does not define what the music is, but it is the spirit and the intent of which it is played."

Louisiana musicians stay on the road to promote the cause of coastal restoration



The Heroes Rebuilding New Orleans

The Musician

Jazz clarinetist Michael White, 53, has a long list of works and performances to his name. His latest CD, Blue Crescent, was inspired by the destruction and rebirth of New Orleans. He composed the music at A Studio in the Woods, an artists' retreat at the edge of the city cradled by the Mississippi levee. "The river is a spiritual force," he says. "It got me to face the tremendous losses of Katrina and to realize how thankful I am for all that we still have."

View a preview of the Frency Bio: "King of Oak Street"




Irma Thomas Plus Piano Is 'Simply Grand'

Dotted with faux Corinthian columns and peeling jazz posters, Joe's Pub in the East Village is far from Bourbon Street, but that's where the New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas recently chose to debut the live version of her elegant new album "Simply Grand" (Rounder) in front of two sold-out audiences.

Ms. Thomas, whose alto at age 67 is a steaming gumbo of rhythm and blues, has been a regular for years at Tipitina's in New Orleans' French Quarter -- and she performed at her own Lion's Den nightclub in that city before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Her head-tilting takes on R&B standards since the early 1960s place her in the stylistic neighborhood of Aretha Franklin, with a spark of Southern-fried moxie.

see also: Catching Up With... Irma Thomas (a Q&A)

The Iguanas: Mining tragedy for tracks

In many ways, the Iguanas are still regaining their balance after being forced out of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. The band ended up in Austin, Texas, for a year, where it participated in Robert Mugge's "New Orleans Music in Exile," a documentary that captured the far-flung diaspora of Crescent City icons such as Dr. John and Irma Thomas. The Iguanas have trickled back into town since then, regrouping from the loss of houses, instruments and band archives. While only a couple of the new songs make direct reference to Katrina (notably the Spanish-language lament "Hurricane"), the album is marked by an unmistakably storm-tossed mood of anger, defiance and nostalgia.

The Meters - Doodle Up




Afropop Worldwide's Shout Out to New Orleans

Longtime Afropop Worldwide correspondent Ned Sublette joins host Georges Collinet, as we talk to guest New Orleans DJ T.R. Johnson on the ground in the Crescent City, where the music goes on every night. We'll get an check at how this great American music city is doing in the summer of 2008. We'll hear music by Dr. John, Dr. Michael White, Terence Blanchard, Brother Tyrone, Big Sam's Funky Nation, Dumpstaphunk, and more.