New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

i heard a bootleg of an old brass band battle show where he was the only trumpet player for New Birth, he would have been 13 then.

Not exactly brass band, But Louisiana raised multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jon Batiste and his now NY based band Stay Human will be Stephen Colbert's band in the fall when Colbert takes over for Letterman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Batiste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwg8jwST1go

Satchmo SummerFest 2015 will celebrate 15 years of highlighting Louis Armstrong's contributions to American music from July 30 through August 2, 2015. But if you want to enjoy the music, you will have to pay $5 for admission this year-a first in the history of the formerly free festival.

From Offbeat mag email

“It’s frustrating,” he confirmed during an August phone call from Manhattan, “because you always have to sit down when you play the piano. I want to interact with the audience more, and that’s difficult due to the nature of the instrument. As much as New Orleans is a piano town, it’s also a trumpet town, and one thing the trumpeters can do is interact with people directly and get that energy back to them. I want to do that too.”

sorry dude, the melodica is not a great solution here. it's just not.

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2015/06/harold_battiste_dies.html

Harold Battiste, New Orleans saxophonist, composer and educator, dies at 83

Keith Spera, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Keith Spera, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on June 19, 2015 at 12:01 PM, updated June 19, 2015 at 10:42 PM

Harold Battiste Jr., the prolific saxophonist, pianist, producer, arranger and educator who helped shape music in New Orleans and beyond for more than six decades, died early Friday (June 19) after a lengthy illness. He was 83.

Mr. Battiste founded A.F.O. Records, the first New Orleans label owned by musicians, which released Barbara George's 1961 hit "I Know (You Don't Love Me No More)." He collaborated with Sam Cooke on two of the soul star's landmark singles. After moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s, he served as Sonny and Cher's musical director, and helped launch Dr. John's career.

In 1989, he returned to New Orleans and joined the jazz studies faculty at the University of New Orleans, mentoring and inspiring countless students.

"He has a glass-half-full approach to life," Ed Anderson, a former student who went on to become an assistant professor of music and director of Dillard University's Institute of Jazz Culture, said in 2009. "He was always encouraging. He motivated us to keep pushing forward, trying to get better. We all saw this old, wise man sitting there quietly. People love to be around Harold."

Mr. Battiste was born Oct. 28, 1931, in Uptown New Orleans. In the early 1940s, as he recalled in his 2010 memoir "Unfinished Blues," the family moved to the then brand-new Magnolia Housing Development. Their new apartment was close to the Dew Drop Inn on LaSalle Street, the famed nightclub and hotel. Already he sang in a junior choir at church, and had recently acquired his first clarinet.

"I could hear the music coming from there on my front porch and in my living room," he wrote in "Unfinished Blues." "It was the music of the Black stars of the day: lots of R&B, a little swing, a little jazz, a bit of jump. It was all about the rhythm, and I couldn't help but be drawn to that music because it spoke directly to my spirit."

Mr. Battiste graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and went on to earn a degree in music education from Dillard University in 1952.

In the 1950s, he performed in bands at the Dew Drop Inn and on Bourbon Street, sometimes alongside his friend Ellis Marsalis. He worked as a public school music teacher, as a New Orleans-based talent scout for Specialty Records -- he auditioned a very young Irma Thomas -- and as an arranger for recording sessions. He helped shape Sam Cooke's 1957 smash "You Send Me" and, years later, played piano on Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," which was recorded at RCA Studios in Los Angeles in early 1964. He also contributed to Joe Jones' hit "You Talk Too Much" and Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya."

In 1961, he launched A.F.O. ("All For One") Records out of a desire to give musicians, especially studio musicians who received only flat fees for playing on hit records, a bigger piece of the pie. He recruited five fellow African-American musicians for the A.F.O. board.: Saxophonist Alvin "Red" Tyler, bassist Peter "Chuck" Badie, drummer John Boudreaux, cornet player Melvin Lastie and guitarist Roy Montrell.

They played in the label's house band and produced records. They released an album called "Compendium" with vocalist Tami Lynn that was half jazz, half R&B, with the company's philosophy spelled out in the liner notes. In addition to Barbara George's million-seller, which hit No. 1 on the R&B charts, the label's releases included "Monkey Puzzle," the first album by Ellis Marsalis.

"If Louis Armstrong and his generation were to be compared to Adam, I would consider Mr. Battiste and his generation to be Moses," Anderson said in 2009. "They were the second wave. They changed the direction of jazz. They started the modern jazz movement in New Orleans.

"They took it from the traditional style that you'd hear at Preservation Hall and brought it into the modern vein by being influenced by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Fusing with that New Orleans, down-home sensibility, they created their own strain of jazz."

But A.F.O. could not replicate the early commercial success of "I Know." In a 1993 interview with The Times-Picayune, Mr. Battiste said an unscrupulous record distributor from New York lured away Barbara George, A.F.O.'s biggest star. In need of additional investors, income and opportunity, the label's principals moved to Los Angeles. But A.F.O. ran out of cash and dissolved.

"None of us, including myself, really understand the inner workings of American capitalism and the business," Mr. Battiste said in 1993, shortly after relaunching A.F.O. The music business "is just like any other business. And we're coming from a place of emotion and love, and that's not necessarily compatible with business and economics."

However, in Los Angeles, Mr. Battiste's versatile skill set -- he could write and arrange, as well as play multiple instruments -- led to eclectic collaborations. He worked with Sonny Bono and Cher for 15 years. He arranged, and contributed the distinctive soprano sax melody, to their 1965 hit "I Got You Babe." He served as the musical director for the duo's TV show, "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," which launched in 1971. He later became musical director for Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis.

In the late 1960s, fellow New Orleans expatriate Mac Rebennack looked up Mr. Battiste in Los Angeles. Mr. Battiste got Rebennack work at recording sessions with producer Phil Spector and Sonny and Cher, among others. He helped Rebennack conceive of the Dr. John persona, and produced the first Dr. John album, "Gris-Gris," in 1968. The collection of hoodoo funk, featuring "I Walk on Gilded Splinters," found an audience among psychedelic rock fans. Mr. Battiste also produced and arranged the second Dr. John album, 1969's "Babylon."

He eventually took a job as director of jazz studies for the Coburn School of Music of the University of California at Los Angeles. When Ellis Marsalis became head of jazz studies at the University of New Orleans in 1989, Mr. Battiste returned to his hometown to help mold the next generation of the city's musicians.

In his later years, Mr. Battiste revived A.F.O. and sought to introduce and mentor young musicians in a project dubbed Harold Battiste Presents the Next Generation. He also dedicated himself to preserving and promoting the music of New Orleans' early modern jazz masters via "The Silverbook," a collection of compositions by the likes of James Black, Ed Blackwell, Ellis Marsalis, Nat Perrilliat, Red Tyler and others. His own compositions included the swinging, Count Basie-like "Alvietta Is Her Name" and the percussive "Marzique Dancing," both named for his daughters.

In 2009, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra performed a tribute concert of Mr. Battiste's works, orchestrated by Anderson. "Bravo Mr. Batt!" also featured the Dillard University Choir, pianist Henry Butler, percussionist Bill Summers and vocalists John Boutte and Wanda Rouzan, an indication of breadth of his catalog.

Among other honors, he received OffBeat Magazine's Best of the Beat Lifetime Achievement in Music Award in 2009.

Mr. Battiste suffered a stroke in 1993 that limited his ability to play saxophone. In recent years, his health declined steadily.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

Music writer Alison Fensterstock contributed to this story.

http://www.offbeat.com/news/big-chief-bo-dollis-memorial-fund-supports-mardi-gras-indians/?utm_source=WB+06+25+15&utm_campaign=WB+06+25+15&utm_medium=email

So much sad tragedy in New Orleans...

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/07/milan_arriola_murder.html

http://www.offbeat.com/news/fund-set-kermit-ruffins-niece-milan-arriola/?utm_source=WB+07+09+15&utm_campaign=WB+07+09+15&utm_medium=email

An online fundraising effort has been set up for Milan Arriola, the 20-year-old niece of trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, who was shot and killed on Friday, July 3.

Ruffins shared the link to the YouCaring.com fundraiser on his Facebook page with the simple note: “Thank you.”

The effort was organized by Imani Ruffins, Arriola’s mother and Ruffins’ sister. Imani Ruffins is also a veteran of the New Orleans Police Department.

http://www.offbeat.com/news/club-desire-downtown-club-uptown-ideas-slated-demolition/?utm_source=WB+07+23+15&utm_campaign=WB+07+23+15&utm_medium=email

slated for destruction

excerpt:

The defunct club, located at 2604 Desire Street, figured hugely into the city’s jazz history and rich African American heritage.

It hasn’t been in operation since the 1970s. Three quarters of a century back, however, Club Desire was buzzing to the tunes jazz and R&B greats. Billie Holiday, Fats Domino, and Dave Bartholomew were just the tip of the iceberg.

Marguerite Doyle Johnston—a longtime neighborhood resident close since childhood with the club’s former owner, Augusta James (Johnston’s late “Ti Gusta” was a niece of club founder Charles Armstead)—spearheaded efforts back in 2008 to try and save the building. The city was ultimately unable to provide funding for the project.

“I’ve tried for years to save the building,” said Johnston. “I wanted to preserve it as a community center, or a museum. Because this is your jazz giants. Where they got their start.”

According to Johnston, the club was originally a cafe. She recounted that African American men working on the tracks of the fabled “Streetcar Named Desire” would go in for breakfast or lunch during the work day, lamenting the fact that there was nowhere downtown where black people could go to hear live music at affordable prices.

“So, what [cafe owner] Armstead did,” Johnston explained, “was he bought some land that was right next door to the coffeeshop and expanded it into the club.”

She fondly remembers Club Desire’s beautiful interior, the tables and chairs in front of a raised stage, and the lofty second-tier balcony.

so much lip service paid to historic and cultural preservation but when it comes time to spend some money in an as-yet ungentrified neighborhood the city punks out. (but you can buy artisanal cocktails and heirloom escarole or whatever in the st roch market now, which also lay abandoned and crumbling for decades, until yuppies took over the hood.) (the city's bizarro appeasement strategy w/r/t the neverending brooklyn carpetbagger influx while ignoring real new orleanians and schools and infrastructure and every other fucking thing is demonstrably not working at all yet it shows no signs of change)

too much depressing shit in this thread man we need jordan to swoop in with some brass band youtubes pls

ha. don't know if this will work because it's from facebook, but click here for bad sound but great dancing.

https://youtu.be/2tQ5LTEpr-c?t=284

thank you. TBC on top of the game still

Turner Classic Movies cable channel(TCM) is showing a bunch of Les Blank movie docs tonight Tuesday the 28th through the wee hours of Wednesday morning. They are starting at 8 EST with

8 pm Les Blank 1 hour doc Always for Pleasure from 1978 New Orleans that includes Professor Longhair, Irma Thomas , the Wild Tchoupitoulas and more

http://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/movies/

The Les Blank movies are available on TCM on Demand until August 5th

You have to have a cable tv provider for that to work (and in US)

if you have hulu plus they're on there too: http://www.hulu.com/search?q=les+blank

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/magazine/why-new-orleans-black-residents-are-still-under-water-after-katrina.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=Magazine®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

A mostly downer article, although African-American New Orleans banker Alden McDonald is inspiring

http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2015/08/bussing_in_the_band_will_new_o.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202#incart_m-rpt-2

Another mostly downer article

I saw this excerpt in the Washington Post. I think you need to register or something to read the WSJ article

Wall Street Journal: Katrina evacuees have made their mark on Houston. They include barbers, brass-band players and bankers. They have opened eateries with names like Big Easy Express and established congregations including the local branch of New Orleans’s Franklin Avenue Baptist Church.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/members-of-hurricane-katrina-diaspora-in-houston-look-back-at-the-past-10-years-1440696835?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202

Obama mentioned Rebirth Brass Band in New Orleans

The president then headed for lunch at Willie Mae’s Scotch House with Landrieu and other officials before continuing on to the Sanchez Center.

His speech was full of New Orleans references and, in many cases, clichés. He suggested still-displaced residents “live the words sung by Louis Armstrong: ‘Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?’ ”

He referred to the city as a gumbo and a place where “the jazz makes you cry and the funerals make you dance.”

He gave shout-outs to restaurateur Leah Chase, whom he spoke with earlier in Treme, and a member of the Marsalis family.

And he promised that, after he leaves office, he’ll come down to hear the Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf and, paraphrasing Dr. John, “see the Mardi Gras and somebody will tell me what’s Carnival for.”

“But for right now, I just go to meetings,” Obama said.

http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/13292001-148/you-inspired-all-of-america

god i hope obama has to take a piss in the bathroom at the maple leaf, that shit is gnarly

Ha. Meanwhile

Shamarr Allen teaches kids how to play music for free at his parents house in the 9th Ward

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/national/where-the-levee-broke-in-new-orleans-now-the-sound-of-music/2015/08/27/738f2daa-4aad-11e5-9f53-d1e3ddfd0cda_video.html

http://www.khou.com/story/news/features/2015/08/21/hurricane-katrina-evacuee-shows-new-orleans-pride-in-houston/32147889/

The Hustlers Brass Band in Houston includes 7 folks who left New Orleans when Katrina hit

on their album, it's all members of the Soul Rebels with Dwayne from the Stooges BB/Trombone Shorty on bass drum. i think they started it after Katrina, must have transitioned the band off to dudes who stayed in Houston.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qHM2rbRmRw

May be a mixture of Soul Rebels and folks who are staying in Houston

Wisconsin second line, it's not the same but we get it where & when we can:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U1FrDDCLJw

trombone goes in at the end, love it

thanks man.

so this is one of the weirder Mardi Gras Records comps i've come across, all kinds of Indian jams here that are more interesting and raw than the usual funk band stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J6xx-yeYuE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqSkzJpJ-1c

101 Runners are awesome. Their bass drummer, Lionel Batiste, Jr., is the son of the legendary Uncle Lionel Batiste, and is himself a former member of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. I interviewed him a couple weeks ago for a research project I'm doing on New Orleans drummers. The instrumental stuff that 101 plays before the Mardi Gras Indian singers come onstage kinda reminds me of good 70s Miles Davis. And when Big Chief Juan Pardo shows up, their sound is closer to an actual Mardi Gras Indian rehearsal than anything I've seen the Wild Magnolias or Wild Tchoupitoulas do.

If you ever publish your research work, let us know...

A couple of things from two years ago, when I was just starting this work, are online already:

http://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/content/second-lining-new-orleans-floor-and-streets

http://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/18/piece/699

And thanks for your interest.

Thanks, will check those out

Good stuff man. A couple thoughts:

-It's funny, but all the brass band drummers I know count & think of the rhythms you're talking about as half as fast. Meaning that the 'big 4' is actually the '& of 4'. But many of the horn players think in cut time, i.e. how you're notating the music. It makes it hard to even talk about music within the band using regular old Western terminology (but it also doesn't matter, because it's not meant to be written down).

One example to prove my point of view is to imagine the drummer putting a backbeat on 'Hey Pocky Way'. That would turn it into a normal funk beat with the snare on 2 & 4 (quarter notes). I guess you could argue that the snare is on 3 in that case, but I just find that everything grooves harder to think of the quarter note like this.

-Also I've never seen anyone write about the 'other' New Orleans clave, which if you think of quarter notes like I'm talking about, is five dotted 8th notes starting on the & of 1 (and ending on the & of 4). To me, that interlocks with all the bass drum patterns/claves, and it's really what all the snare patterns & fills are based on, as well as most of the horn lines. If you're not playing it, you're playing off of it or implying it.

Thanks for the pointers, Jordan. I should mention, somewhat abashedly, that I'm coming at this not as a drummer or even as a horn player - I'm a singer and guitarist studying drummers in New Orleans because, in New Orleans funk and brass band music, the beats are what make my ears perk up. That's probably why I transcribed the drums the way I did, but I'll definitely keep your suggestion in mind in the way I think about and transcribe these beats in the future. Ditto the "other" clave - that's a great way of conceptualizing the underlying feel.

By the way, Sean King of the Hot 8 name-checked Mama Digdown in an interview I did with him last week. Just thought I'd mention.

i have nothing to add but i find this sort of talk extremely interesting, thanks guys

Ha, nice. I don't know Sean, is he newer?

Speaking of which, Hot 8 links to this documentary from their site and I hadn't seen it: https://vimeo.com/94576449

Must have been shot in the late '90s, it's the original lineup and they're all so young (including little Travis Hill), lots of footage from Donna's. They were so killing back then.

Sean joined on snare drum about two years back after their previous snare drummer, Sammy Cyrus, went to jail. Thanks for the doc link.

Just previewed a bit of that documentary, it looks wonderful. Thanks for linking. Yeah, old school Donna's before they built the stage, Fred Kemp's, Cafe Brasil...

Ah ok, then I heard him at Howlin' Wolf a few months ago, sounded great.

So uh, would it be hard to get a cab back from seeing TBC Wednesday night at Celebration Hall, 1701 st. Bernard . I'm finally going to Ponderosa Stomp for the first time; and am arriving Wednesday night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYconhC57Ts

I would do Uber instead. Cabs from Celebration Hall are a dicey proposition. See you there!

I'd offer you a ride, but I don't have a car :(

Second-lines on Saturday and Sunday

please don't use uber in new orleans, call united cab at 504 522 9771, fuck uber forever

Will TBC start before 11?

TBC usually goes on sometime between 11:15 and 11:30. 11:10 at the absolute earliest.

Alas people I was meeting wanted to see Wolfman Washington @ DBA so I just did that. I kinda wish I had seen Janet Jackson who was here last night. Might have been pricey to score a ticket