Win a Trip to New Orleans for the 2010 Voodoo Experience

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NolaFunk Lagniappe

Blind Blues Daddy's terrific new release

Whether you call Bryan Lee The Blind Giant of the Blues or Braille Blues Daddy, it does not matter. Lee, a New Orleans institution since 1982 had a long-time residency at the Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street with his Jump Street Five. This writer saw Lee there in the eighties and was impressed by his Albert King influenced style and husky straight-forward singing to get the vinyl album they had for sale. When the Old Absinthe House stopped being a bar with entertainment, he moved on to other Crescent City venues as well as toured throughout the US and Europe. Since 1991 he has recorded for the Canadian Justin Time label which previously issued 11 albums (one being a compilation) by Lee has just issued “My Lady Don’t Love My Lady,” the third Lee recording that Duke Robillard has produced and it is a typically strong recording. Robillard put together the studio band of some of his long-time associates including bassist Marty Ballou, pianist Dave Maxwell, and saxophonists Gordon Beadle and Doug James with guest appearances by Buddy Guy and Kenny Wayne Sheppard.

2009 VOODOO Experience: REDUX!






In Pursuit of Bo-Consciousness - Part 7

Although the two would never exactly bond professionally, Joe Banashak hired Eddie Bo not only as a producer, arranger, and writer, but also as a recording artist. Starting in 1966, Bo worked primarily on projects for the Seven B label, including his own releases, and also did writing and production duties for Instant, Alon, Tune-Kel and Busy-B (busy he was). His impressive catalog for Seven B has been discussed and featured by Larry Grogan at hisFunky 16 Cornersweb-zine and blog, and, of course, by Martin Lawrie'sEddie Bo Discography; and I encourage you to look into those sources, if you haven't already. There was so much good Seven B material of Bo's to get into that I will have to come back to it at a (much) later date. I'll be focusing here on just a few of the other interesting records Eddie oversaw for Banashak at the time.

Dee-1 ft Shamarr Allen: Bring 'Em to the Dome






HBO's 'Treme' starts production on regular-season episodes

The first scenes captured for HBO’s “Treme” were sanctified by the smoke of Kermit Ruffins’ mobile barbecue rig, so no wonder it got a green light.

Ruffins plays himself in the pilot episode of the series, which was shot in March and April in New Orleans.

Set immediately post-Katrina, the drama intends to tell the city’s recovery story through fictional characters drawn from some of the real characters who were here then -- men and women who live and work in and around the peculiar vernacular culture known mostly to locals: second-line musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, cooks and chefs, music fiends, Kermit Ruffins.

The trumpeter showed up for his first day of work on “Treme” with his grill in tow – a gig is a gig, after all – and by mid-afternoon on the first day of shooting, the barbecue smoke drifting into the streets around the location set could’ve been the work of special-effects artists. In a way, it was.

Dr. John's weird New Orleans psych music

Years ago, I got turned on to the psychedelic New Orleans "voodoo" vibe of Dr. John (aka Mac Rebennack, Jr.). His 1968 debut Gris-Gris is a fantastically weird amalgam of R&B, dark psych rock, and NOLA culture. I'd never seen footage of the Night Tripper, as Dr. John is also known, until today. Quite a spectacle.

The Maple Leaf Bar: Dive In

They’re up there in ‘shrine’ status, places to be venerated, get plastered in, danced to within inches of your life in, become besotted with great music in, rub elbows with as wide a mix of America as you’ll find at a really good dive in. Which is what Zagat, for god’s sake, lists the Maple Leaf Bar as in its section about New Orleans - not the other stuff, but the ‘top dive’ part.

ChazFest 2009: Jeremy Lyons & Deltabilly Boys

NolaFunk Lagniappe

In Pursuit of Bo-Consciousness - Part 6

BACK TO BEING A HIRED HAND - A Quick Stop At Nola

While his brief first fling running his own labels wound down without financial rewards, Eddie Bo continued working on projects for other labels, as the opportunities arose. In 1964, as discussed in Part 4, he had been involved with a Johnny Adams single for Gone and wrote the A-side of Tommy Ridgley's great Johen 45. Also that year, he connected with a new label in town, Nola Records, started by Ulis Gaines, Clinton Scott, Beryl 'Whurley Burley' Eugene, as well as producer/arrangerWardell Quezergue, who had worked on the Johen record. Just getting the operation off the ground and looking for good material to release, they enlisted Bo, who quickly cut two of his own tunes for them.

In Jazz, as in Life, Choices

The animated Disney film "The Princess and the Frog," which is set in New Orleans and opens later this month, will introduce theatergoers to a trumpet-playing alligator named Louis. The namesake should be clear: Louis Armstrong. But the horn's sound? Terence Blanchard, another Crescent City native son, playing music composed by Randy Newman.

Terry Shoffner

It will be just the latest translation of Mr. Blanchard's identity to the big screen. His was the trumpet behind Denzel Washington's character in Spike Lee's "Mo' Better Blues." And he was the tuxedoed bandleader at a re-created Onyx Club in Mr. Lee's "Malcolm X." Mr. Blanchard, the musical voice of Mr. Lee's films for nearly two decades, has scored more than 50 films overall, including Darnell Martin's recent "Cadillac Records" and George Lucas's forthcoming production "Red Tails."

Meanwhile, Mr. Blanchard's work on bandstands and recordings has distinguished him, at 47, as among the boldest and most successful inheritors of Armstrong's trumpet tradition. When his quintet kicked off Carnegie Hall's "Shape of Jazz" series last week, the placement seemed apt; his music, which has earned three Grammy Awards in the past five years, is elemental to the contours of modern jazz.

Offbeat Magazine relaunches offbeat.com

OffBeat Magazine, the Louisiana and New Orleans online music resource, unveils a redesigned Web site at OffBeat.com. A fresh new look, more content on the front page, and better navigation. They also add video and podcasts to the arsenal.

OffBeat is a monthly print magazine focusing on the music, cuisine and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana. Its first issue was printed in 1988.

The new site is located at offbeat.com

Derrick Tabb: The Drummer’s Roots

Ever since the levees broke, people have been stepping up all over the Gulf Coast region to help rebuild and renew. Derrick Tabb, snare drummer for Rebirth Brass Band, is the latest local hero to be recognized on the national level for his commitment to our community. As the founder of the Roots of Music program, Tabb has been named by CNN’s panel of humanitarians as a top-10 candidate for the 3rd annual CNN Hero award. Roots of Music is a 3-hour, after-school program that provides more than 100 local students free music classes, in addition to academic tutoring before and dinner after. During Voodoo, the Roots of Music Marching Band will perform daily.

Rock City Morgue, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (Castle Gray Skull)

Rock City Morgue has generally traded on a version of New York-based, B-movie-oriented punk rock for much of its career, and done so well. Building songs around ghosts, ghouls and creepy things seems a little quaint in the age of Hostel and after a generation of darker gothic bands, but post-New York Dolls rock ’n’ roll is durable stuff.

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is an across-the-board step forward. Punk and ’70s hard rock and current metal all show up in the sound, and guitarist Johnny Brashear makes it all seem obvious. Bassist Sean Yseult plays more piano than ever before, but instead of signaling a change to a more Nick Cave-ish mode, her piano’s better integrated into the songs, often pounding out high notes in the rockers. In “Creepin’ in the Dark,” un-punk-like bongos add a percolating chug.

Plunge: Dancing on Thin Ice

For the first time in 13 years, trombonist Marc McGrain has convened a group of musicians to record an album under the moniker Plunge. In the mid-‘90s, McGrain, then a Boston resident, helmed Plunge’s 1996 release Falling with Grace, a heady, groove-heavy expedition that garnered significant acclaim in the jazz world. This time around, McGrain, now a New Orleans denizen, recruited saxophonist Tim Green and bassist James Singleton to participate in a unique session, one rooted in improvisation and recorded live at McGrain’s home studio with little to no prior rehearsal. Titled Dancing on Thin Ice, the album is exhilarating,post-bop fare suffused with tight, interlocking melodies and cool, nimble grooves.

Leading Musicians Donate Talents to ‘Forgotten but Not Gone,’ New CD Benefiting Gulf Coast Residents Still Displaced by Hurricane Katrina




Luther Kent - The Bobby Bland Songbook

Luther Kent has been around a long time. The last time he made a major impact coast to coast was the mid-70s fronting Blood, Sweat, and Tears. In the 80s, Kent formed Trick Bag, which was a famed house band in the Crescent City that's played with a who's who of big name musicians. Needless to say, not many folks know of Luther Kent outside of New Orleans. . Together with Wardell Quezergue arranging a crack band of New Orleans musicians, Kent puts his spin on several well-known R&B and blues warhorses.

What you get here is a veteran vocalist having fun belting his favorite tunes like you would hear him do on a band stand any given night or probably singing around his house. The album has a unique laid back quality to it that only "the Big Easy" could bring. This album also, with its many New Orleans musicians partaking (including Dr. John on keys for a few tunes), shows a great linear quality of early R&B and urban electric blues leanings towards jazz (example "St. James Infirmary").

Composer Randy Newman and the Classic Sounds of New Orleans Celebrated on New Walt Disney Records Soundtrack The Princess and the Frog


Lillian Boutte: New Orleans Musical Ambassador

In 1986 LILLIAN was honoured by her city with the official title of 'Musical Ambassador' which had not been bestowed on a New Orleans musician since the world famous Louis Armstrong. LILLIAN has been compared with the legendary female voices of Jazz music as Bessie Smith, Dinah Washington, Aretha Franklin and Mahalia Jackson and she has had the unique distinction of being one of the only performers to wear two different 'hats' at the Jazz & Heritage Festival by performing in the Jazz- and the Gospel categories in the same year. She has performed and can be heard on recordings with legendary music greats as Jay Mc Shane, Harry 'Sweets' Edison, Milt Hinton, Gus Johnson, Sammy Price, Doc Cheatham, Arnett Cobb, Al Casey, Dr. John, Benny Waters, Danny Barker, Professor Longhair , Clark Terry and with England's trumpet great Humphrey Lyttelton.

Sudan and Versatile Ladies of Style SA&PC Second Line






Photos :: A Look Around New Orleans | Travel - WSJ.com

November in the Crescent City brings pleasantly cool temperatures and the heart of oyster season. The city's classic restaurants are doing brisk business and eclectic shopping abounds, especially along the Magazine Street corridor.

Commander's Palace

Though many new and notable restaurants have opened around town, the Commander's Palace remains in a category of its own. Its luminous Garden Room is one of the prettiest dining venues in the country, and the service is always clockwork efficient and friendly.

A week's worth of reflection over a weekend of Voodoo

I needed some good ole New Orleans music and headed over to the Preservation Jazz Hall tent and caught the end of Leroy Jones five piece band doing “Big Fat Woman.” One of Louisiana’s best drummers, Doug Belote, was on drums with a female trombone player. The audience in that tent was alive, all on their feet dancing to the sweet jazzy sounds. Sadly I only managed to catch that last song so after leaving the Gogol Bordello set I made my way back to the next act at that tent for Walter Wolfman and the Dirty Dozen Horn section. This was an impressive line up made up of New Orleans all stars including Walter Wolfman himself, Jack Cruz on bass, Jimmy Carpenter on sax, Christian Duque on guitar and the Dirty Dozen Horn section. There really isn’t much to say about this line up other than WOW. Although the ground in the tent was really muddy, this didn’t hinder one bit the spirits of the packed house in the Pres Tent. Walter looked very dapper in his Blue Attire (which matched his electric blue guitar) and Jack Cruz was dressed in sync with him also as he wore blue as well. The band had a total of five horns which made it a huge powerhouse.

Routes Music rewind, New Orleans: Living Room Studio, Lovie Dovies, the Blackbelt Band

Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

NolaFunk Lagniappe

Funky 16 Corners:James Booker's Gonzo

Revered during his day as a keyboard master (on piano and organ both) and a dude with a talent for living on the edge (over which he eventually plummeted), James Booker wove his way in and out of the fabric of New Orleans music from his early days in the 1950s through his untimely death in 1983 (he was only 44).
Booker was not only gay at a time when that would have made his life difficult on a number of levels, but was also – sadly - an alcoholic and a junkie.

Anders Osborne spikes his new songs with his latest struggles

On a hot September afternoon, Anders Osborne faced a microphone -- and his transgressions -- in the piney woods of Bogalusa.

He had retreated to Studio in the Country to record a new batch of roots rock, blues and ballads, much of it autobiographical. The midtempo "Echoes of My Sins," spiked with swooping slide guitar, was especially telling.

Sonny Landreth: From the Reach

Sonny Landreth’s From the Reach initially might seem as if it has joined the protest party rather late. Landreth has slowed down the pace of his recording projects over the past 15 years, and as a result, the endeavor is his first solo set since the disaster occurred. Fittingly, he wastes no time in addressing the concerns that have been weighing upon his mind. Blue Tarp Blues, the album’s opening track, is a biting indictment of a cultural climate that allowed Third-World conditions to invade American shores.

Mostly, however, Landreth uses From the Reach to delve into the fertile ground of relationships. He pours over the slow decay outlined in Storm of Worry. He burrows into the wistful reminiscence of When I Still Had You and revels in the lusty intoxication of Howling Moon. Although Katrina’s blowing winds, driving rain, and rampant devastation continually hover over the proceedings, the outing is doused in optimism as Landreth holds out hope that the future will be better than the present.

Read more: http://www.musicbox-online.com/review/10222009/landreth-reach.html#ixzz0Vq6uhWcU

Jazz Funeral Photo Essay- Harold Dudley R.I.P.

photo credit- James Dylan Stansbury

Harold Dudley was the Grand Marshal for the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club from 1974 until his retirement 30 years later. His role, like that of all grand marshals in the city’s jazz funeral tradition, was to convey the emotions of the moment to the onlookers at the beginning and the end of the funeral procession. Dudley is in the pantheon of grand marshals because he was a master at representing the solemnity of the occasion. In his obituary he was called, the grand marshal of them all.”

Voodoo Redux

The Preservation Hall band is now an intergenerational unit with young musicians such as Ben Jaffe on tuba, William Smith on trumpet and the Bingo! Show’s impresario Clint Maedgen on saxophone, joining traditional jazz icons like Maynard Chatters on trombone and Joe Lastie on drums. The lack of similar lifetimes didn’t matter one bit. They sounded great. Smith and Maedgen took vocal turns, as did Chatters. They brought out the powerhouse vocalist Thais Clark for a number and she brought down the house. Curiously, they ended their set with “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Perhaps the tourists, most of whom were unprepared for the drastic change in weather that greeted them when they exited the tent, were also unaware that a request for “The Saints” at the band’s headquarters on St. Peter Street in the French Quarter requires a significantly larger donation than any other song in the band’s vast repertoire.

New Orleans Voices Podcast: Billy Iuso Interview

Billy Iuso is a singer/songwriter-guitarist. He performs with his band, Billy Iuso and the Restless Natives, the 101 Runners, and as a solo artist.

NY Times Review: Wynton Marsalis -His Bands, His Music, His Way

His music — as heard on Thursday in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, the first night of a three-night stand dedicated to his own work — makes life studies of people coexisting through history, in music, love, migration, families, church, slavery. Nearly every piece came with some kind of lesson, implicit or spoken, about judicious plurality. Mr. Marsalis locates lines and looks across them — lines of generation, culture, race and creed — then celebrates whatever he finds worth passing on to the next generation. His music, and his thinking, carry a blues optimism that things will work out by themselves. But he also wants to use his position to shape history, and his ambition to do so is out there on a stalk.

Young Men Olympian 2009 Parade Pics.

By John Doheny

ClydeKerr Jr. – This is now!

For the first time in his over 40-year musical career, Clyde Kerr Jr. steps up to release his debut album as leader. The renowned New Orleans trumpeter/flugel­horn player and educator immediately displays his great presence on the powerful opening, title cut, This Is Now! The tune bursts into the air artfully balancing jazz’s embrace of freedom with a sense of unity and structure.

“I wanted it to set the tone of the CD,” Kerr explains and adds that unlike most of his original pieces on the disc, this composition was newly penned. “I also wanted something for Kidd to stretch out on,” says Kerr referring to his longtime partner, saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan. The trumpeter has worked with Jordan since the 1960s when they would play at house parties. The duo has also shared the front line of Jordan’s and drummer Alvin Fielder’s progressive Impro­visational Arts Quintet since 1975.

Quickies: Four fresh CD's by fresh faced guitarists from LateSet Records


Davy Mooney Astoriano

Davy Mooney hails from the Crescent City, our kind of town, and attended the well-regarded music program over at the University of North Texas. Now he's up in NYC and like the other three plectrists in this piece, and is looking to stand out there. What stands out right away about Mooney is that he's not a six-string specialist...he plays a seven-string guitar instead. It gives him a little fuller and richer sound. But fear not, Mooney doesn't believe that more strings means cramming in more notes, he's too tasteful to fall into that trap. Mooney quickly follows up his guitar duo album with John Pizzarelli (Last Train Home (2009)) with Astoriano, a collection of nine originals and two covers. Mooney leads a cohesive base trio of himself, bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Simon Lott, and adds in sax player John Ellis and organist Brian Coogan on select tracks. The songs all fall within the realm of post-bop with some light Brazilian touches here and there, but with interesting chord progressions and guys are given ample room to stretch. The arrangements are pretty good, too: John Coltrane's "Countdown" (evidently a popular cover amongst the LateSet crowd) is revitalized by a samba beat and some fantastic groovin' between Mooney and Clohesy. While the mood varies from song to song, Mooney and his crew maintains a strong sense of swing. With the fundamentals as a performer, composer and bandleader already down pat on Astoriano, the sky's the limit for Davy Mooney.

Relighting the Saenger

Earlier in the week, the Times-Picayune announced that the marquee lights of the Saenger would be relit for the first time since Katrina. Although for years now I had been been mourning the Saenger every time I went by it, thinking that nothing had been done since the Storm, it turns out, according to the article, that a consortium of developers (with experience restoring historic old theaters) have been toiling behind the scenes. The T-P reported that on Thursday, the public would be invited to see the long hallway into the theater, with displays of photos of the Saenger in the past and plans for its glorious future. I was SO excited!