New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

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

Haha, you know what's crazy though? Win and Regine from Arcade Fire showed up at the TBC show. I shit you not. Maybe they're gonna appropriate second line rhythms on their next album?

I also thought about the Janet Jackson show for a minute, but I am really low on funds at the moment.

The Original Pinettes are playing at a free show in Armstrong Park around 5 this afternoon, by the way.

heh, i'd like to see them try.

oh look, that old n'dea davenport track where she's just messing around on top of a full Rebirth song is on youtube now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG0f3EnNOL8

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

― adam, Tuesday, September 29, 2015 10:01 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah you right

Just read in Offbeat that Win & Regine from Arcade Fire own a home in New Orleans now. Also saw in Offbeat that filmmaker Lily Keber whose debut film was her James Booker documentary "Bayou Maharajah" (that I would like to see), is now working on a 2nd doc about second line culture.

Speaking of which, my wife and I made it to part of the Saturday Young Men Olympian Junior Benevolent Association, Inc.second line. We saw Da Truth Brass Band and the New Breed Brass Band.

Earlier that day at the Treme Festival, we saw singer John Boutte, and also the Treme Brass band. The latter has changed members again since I last saw them. Because we went to join the second line, we missed Shannon Powell, Kermit Ruffins and others at the Treme Fest. Saturday night as we were at the second night of the Ponderosa Stomp, I think we missed Hot 8 Band's anniversary gig at Howlin Wolf

How is Bennie Pete's health? Will he be touring the UK with Hot 8 near the end of October and into November?

Haven't heard that Hot8 20th anniversary album yet

At the second lines I've seen in the past several months where Hot 8 has played, Bennie has been there, and he's lost a substantial amount of weight. Haven't talked to him or the band about his overall health, but he certainly looked well enough to tour.

That's good news

i used to work with lily keber at vaughan's, i've only seen rough early stuff from the booker doc but it's great.

i think everyone who was around new orleans during the booker era has amazing stories about the dude

http://www.offbeat.com/news/photographer-syndey-byrd-passes/?utm_source=WB+10+08+2015+&utm_campaign=WB+10+08+15&utm_medium=email

New Orleans photographer Syndey Byrd, who had suffered for several years from Altzheimer’s disease, passed away October 2, 2015 at the age of 71. Byrd was a regular photographer at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, at second line parades, and at celebrations throughout the city. She leaves a long legacy of beautiful photography that chronicled New Orleans and Louisiana’s music and culture.

Syndey moved to New Orleans in the 1970s and spent the next 40 years chronicling the music and lifestyle of her adopted city, producing thousands of vivid color slides of the musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, parades, funerals, voodoo rituals, and the culture of New Orleans.

She was born July 3, 1944 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and earned a degree in art from the University of Mississippi, and later studied under renowned Austrian photographer Ernest Haas. Her photos were used on album covers, in books and calendars, on magazine covers (including OffBeat) and were featured in a special tribute to Syndey at the 2015 Jazz and Heritage Festival in the Grandstand.

A gregarious, generous woman with a big heart, Syndey lived a life as colorful and alive, and often as broke, as many of the legendary local characters she loved to hang out with and photograph. In an interview published in the Mardi Gras Guide, Syndey said, “I try to make people who think they are or­dinary feel as if they are truly extraordinary. Everyone has a little bit of magic in them. My job is to bring it out.” –Bear Kamaroff

http://www.neworleansmusiciansclinic.org/support-us/nomaf-syndey-byrd-photo-collection/

Some of her photos here

http://i0.wp.com/www.neworleansmusiciansclinic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/©SyndeyByrd_PhotoLab8_1-copy1.jpg

Photo 3: The Funeral of Louis Nelson with Richard “King” Matthews & Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews New Orleans, 1990

http://i0.wp.com/www.neworleansmusiciansclinic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/©SyndeyByrd_PhotoLab8_1-copy1.jpg

http://www.offbeat.com/news/joe-torregano-clarinetist-music-teacher-dies/

More passings.

Clarinetist Joe Torregano, who played in a variety of traditional brass bands, passed away yesterday, October 6. NOLA.com reports that Terregano died of cancer at his home in La Place. He was 63.

Torregano performed with the Young Tuxedo, Exclesior, Olympia and Original Royal Players brass bands at different points throughout his life. He also taught a number of musicians, including Christian Scott and Victor Goines, during his 30 year career as a band instructor at local schools like Gregory Junior High, John McDonough High School and East St. John High School. His most recent job was as a teacher at New Orleans’ Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

liking this particular Hot 8 lineup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O837Md5Ocpo

this is like brass band adjacent at best but shit goes so hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nNCHMWtogU

http://nypost.com/2015/11/22/at-least-10-people-shot-at-new-orleans-park/

NEW ORLEANS – Hundreds of people were gathered at a New Orleans playground for a block party and music video shoot when two groups in the crowd opened fire on each other, wounding 16 people in the shocking Sunday evening violence, police said.

Police were on their way to break up a big crowd at Bunny Friend Playground when gunfire erupted at the park in the city’s 9th Ward, the police said in a statement Sunday.

Blaming second line for this-

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/11/new_orleans_playground_shootin_1.html#incart_2box

Members of the Nine Times Social Aid & Pleasure Club stressed Monday (Nov. 23) that the mass shooting at Bunny Friend Park in New Orleans was not associated with their club, which had paraded past the park about three hours earlier. Seventeen people were injured, three critically, when two groups began firing guns into the crowd of 300 at the park on Sunday at 6:15 p.m., police said.

The park sits between Desire Street and Gallier Street in the Upper Ninth Ward. The club's second-line parade passed at around 3 p.m., members said. At the time, dozens of people were in the park for what club members said they thought was recording of a music video.