New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

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.

I was at the second line but left before anything went down, thank god. The parade itself ran further past the scheduled end time than any other I've been to, and it kinda fell apart at the end - two of the three bands, some of the parading club members, a few of the floats and many of the spectators who'd been walking with it simply peeled off in the last half hour. A friend I was with today - a lifetime Treme resident and Yellow Pocahontas Indian - told me most of the police escort left at 4, too, and suggested both the SA&PC and the police deserved some of the blame. Another friend who's a photographer and was also at the parade told me the events were in no way connected, and that a lot of people are angry the event and the social club are getting blamed for a totally unrelated crime. But I think he left at the same time I did, so I don't know.

Everyone on Facebook saying that it's totally unrelated, happened three or four hours after the second line passed through.

Right, and from all reports, the shooting would have happened whether or not the second line had taken place.

Or ran overtime, etc.

It's certainly possible that more people were in the park at that time than would have normally been the case. But I just looked at google maps, and Bunny Friend Park is over a mile from where the second line dispersed.

I don't think they were blaming second line participants for the shooting, I think they were blaming the second line, rightly or wrongly, for soaking up police attention in the 9th.

Yeah, the police escort was pretty much gone by the time the parade ended, and that was an hour before the shooting, so that doesn't wash either.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/black-marching-bands-jules-allen-lens/?action=click&contentCollection=Blogs&pgtype=imageslideshow&module=RelatedArticleList®ion=CaptionArea&version=SlideCard-1&_r=0

NYC photographer Jules Allen has been taking pics of black marching bands for 30 years

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2015/12/29/blogs/for-black-marching-bands-its-about-rhythm-precision-and-flair/s/20151229-lens-jules-slide-5PWW.html

I should see that Morgan State band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2RJoRKYWdc

That's excellent! Love this pic from their website (tho may be hueg)

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bc6d82_765cc195a7624f03a0e24ab6f8ace82e.jpg/v1/fill/w_948,h_524,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/bc6d82_765cc195a7624f03a0e24ab6f8ace82e.jpg

happy mardi gras yall. wanted to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to jordan and everyone else who makes this thread awesome and periodically alleviates my homesickness. a visiting friend brought me a king cake from hi-do's bakery in gretna which also helps.

and here's some new birth

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

happy mardi gras man.

Glenn David released a little Mardi Gras single backed by TBC: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tobecontinuedbrassbandfe

i kinda love that even in 2016 it's still relatively difficult to get new brass band recordings, like you still have to get cds (or cd-rs) at shows for some bands, or go through Louisiana Music Factory. it's not like everyone just set up Bandcamp sites (because that's just not how music is passed around the local scene, i assume).

btw, i should share the bootleg i have of the greatest brass band set ever played, Soul Rebels at the Club Onyx brass band battle in 2000 (as an exhibition set). i wasn't there, it was a few years before my time, but it was recorded by someone in our crew, and has been passed around and listened to constantly ever since. email or PM me for the link.

the amount of cell phone video second line footage is pretty impressive tho (even if the audio is often not great). the advent of youtube was a big deal for brass bands, i used to work with a dude who spent tons of time sifting through brass band and marching band videos. the marching bands are a whole other genre that we've never really gotten into but they definitely play a huge role in brass band players' development.

totally, totally. for awhile Deb Cotton was responsible for that almost single-handedly, at least in terms of consistent and high-quality footage imo. i know that personally it was the biggest factor in being able to play this music confidently, because i could (and did) immerse myself in second line footage every day. before that i'd have to come to New Orleans and absorb as much as i could in a few days, then go back and try to hold onto that.

just got around to putting up a free live EP my band recorded last year, i like this one: https://digdown.bandcamp.com/album/vol-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e36gSnf8mgE

Everything about that video is so New Orleans awesome-- the brass, the dancing,

not sure if this will work, but i'm watching this long live video from the Stooges, who have recently sorta reunited as a brass band.

just ordered their new cd from Louisiana Music Factory because it gives me a warm sense of nostalgia to pay $20 for a brass band disc that's not available digitally.

Ha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRdiHQ1f7Ag

It's been a year since Trumpet Black has been gone.

nice to see Leroy Jones getting some love here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0Mt-jro18

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/protests-erupt-baton-rouge-police-fatally-shoot-alton-sterling-gallery-1.2700968?pmSlide=1.2702887

A brass band in a Baton Rouge vigil march

http://www.offbeat.com/articles/last-sixth-ward-treme-brass-bands-benny-jones-sr-new-orleans/

Nice profile of this 70 something percussionist who's still at it

Just saw a video clip DJ Soul Sister posted on Instagram of a recent second line parade. New Orleans brass bands remain awesome

Hot 8 Brass Band - Can’t Nobody Get Down

Saw someone put this 2016 ep on a best-of list for the year.

2017 Jazzfest scheDule is out. MegHan Trainor!!!

http://lineup.nojazzfest.com/

Awesome. Fest has no interest it seems in adding Ponderosa Stomp type acts to smaller stages. Haven't perused it closely to see if all brass bands are playing. Old-timer big name New Orleans r'n'b acts are still there at least.

TBC and the Stooges are not listed, just Rebirth, Hot 8, and Pinettes (and Soul Rebels backing Nas).

http://www.npr.org/event/music/513038608/hard-living-in-the-big-easy-housing-costs-push-musicians-out-of-new-orleans

Rising housing costs are pushing many musicians and service workers — the backbone of New Orleans' tourism economy — further and further outside the city limits. This suburbanization of the working class poses more than an inconvenience: It's fraying the culture of New Orleans and splintering the very neighborhoods that have nurtured the city's music for decades.

That's interesting, thanks for sharing. Gentrification is always a double edged sword. Much of Treme, Central City etc. needed repairing, though. I'd rather see St. Roch Market open than boarded up.

wrong

st roch market is one of the most despicable culprits in the ruin of new orleans. millions of dollars in grant and city money went into opening a food hall for yuppies. the promised produce stand in the vast food desert that is downtown new orleans was just fuckin heirloom parsnips and shit

Singer John Boutte, who grew up in Treme, couldn't afford to buy there after gentrification

and that neighborhood has some of the strongest and most vocal community organizers in the city--even then, hard to keep out carpetbaggers and airbnb speculators and other disaster capitalists.

airbnb has really done a number on the city, especially in historic neighborhoods. for the last 7 years of my time there i lived in bywater. if i go on airbnb now there are literally a dozen listings in a one block radius of my old address. each one of those is a working family pushed into the east or marrero or jeff parish.

Adam, are you no longer in NO? Sorry, I didn't mean to seem dismissive of people being priced out of their neighborhoods, and I make no claims to being an urban planning expert. I don't know how you best handle something like the market, which is historic and was already in rough shape before Katrina closed it entirely.

I was just looking on Google Earth and it showed renovations in progress on the Dew Drop Inn.

The Dew Drop Inn owner is looking for donations

http://dewdropnola.squarespace.com/revitalization/

http://www.nola.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/02/dew_drop_inn_owner_envisions_1.html

The legendary Dew Drop Inn where such greats as Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Deacon John Moore, and B.B. King performed, has been closed for more than four decades. But owner Kenneth Jackson, who inherited the historic club from his grandfather, has grand plans to make the joint swing once again, Vice reports.

"Jackson's working with Harmony Neighborhood Development, Tulane City Center, and the Milne Inspiration Center to raise $1.5 million for the repairs," according to the story. "Last month they secured a modest $6,000 grant from the city of New Orleans, which they aim to use to host a fundraiser in March. They're largely depending upon donations made through their website to get the Dew Drop up and swinging again. If all goes as planned, it will reopen in April 2018."

http://www.npr.org/2015/08/24/434209433/will-the-dew-drop-inn-swing-again-attempts-to-revive-new-orleans-hot-spot

sorry didn't mean to be so snippy dan. i lived a couple blocks from the st roch market and seeing its potential totally wasted like that was infuriating.

(we moved to nyc, where my wife's family is, about two years ago. miss new orleans terribly.)

RIP Charlie Simms, of Donna's Bar & Grill. Memorial & second line on 3/3 I believe.

Spent some of the best times in my life in that bar. RIP Charlie.

Just posting this pic here because it makes me happy.

http://donnaandcharliesbarandgrillnola.com/images/Charlie_Donna.jpg

It being Mardi Gras, someone tweeted this long 2015 article about a Mardi Gras Indian cultural center being planned for Lasalle Street. I wonder if they've made progress?

http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/08/new-orleans-secures-a-place-for-the-mardi-gras-indians-katrina/402208/

My band is driving down this weekend to play Charlie's memorial service/second line.