New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

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Though they don't have to be from New Orleans. Does anyone listen to this music much? Who are your favorites?

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 01:51 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

I know very little about the subject, but I wanna see some answers!

― charlie va, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 02:10 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

Rebirth Brass Band is definitely classic, they were probably the first brass band music I heard (initially on Maceo Parker's record I believe). Lately some friends have hipped me to Soul Rebels (there is no such thing as too many hip-hop brass bands) and New Birth, and I just heard some Treme Brass Band that's are on the more traditional tip.

I can't go without mentioned the (however unlikely) on the level Wisconsin brass band scene, Mama Digdown's and Youngblood. I'm sure I've hyped up Youngblood on other threads, but they really are something these days, the new Def Jux album will be tight. It wasn't until after I started listening to a lot of other brass band music that I realized how unique their sound is, clean and precise instead of greasy and raucous (both are great in their way of course).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 02:39 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

Jordan, you're not supposed to answer your own question! But thanks for the primer. I did hear the last Rebirth Brass Band album, and it was really great. I think our station's copy came with a parental advisory sticker, which was sorta weird, 'cause I can't imagine too many minors buying that album.

― charlie va, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 02:52 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

I just wanted to get things rolling. :> I think my main intent was to see if anyone else was into this music and hopefully get some recommendations for bands I haven't heard.

Speaking of which, what about brass bands from neither New Orleans nor Wisconsin?

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 03:17 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band blows the roof off just about every joint they play -- i've only heard a couple of their recordings, but they translate well, too. ¥

― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 11:44 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

Hey, Jordan, cool thread. I know nothing about this stuff, but I'm curious as hell now. why are there all these bands from wisconsin? know of any good websites where I can get an overview of brass band stuff? any compilations you'd recommend?

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 4 September 2002 22:29 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

I'm from Madison, Wisconsin, and I know those bands. You can't find a Southern accent in Madison, but you got all these brass bands and New Orleans restaurants popping up. Youngblood and Mama Digdown's even go down to Mardi Gras and perform, though I don't know how seriously they're taken.

The parallel in Minneapolis (where I live) is the Jack Brass Band. I'm all for this kind of thing, but these groups are to Rebirth what Antibalas is to Fela.

I lived in New Orleans for a year and my favorite Rebirth album is still Take It To the Street. Ex-Rebirth member Kermit Ruffins has his own band which is pretty great, too. I find Dirty Dozen boring on CD and in concert, sorry.

My favorite Rebirth story was seeing the guys perform in the bywater one night when members of the Afghan Whigs were in the audience, then seeing the band again in the Zulu parade the next morning. Turns out Rebirth had literally performed all night and went straight to the parade without rest. A float got stuck on a tree, and Rebirth were still energetic enough to challenge a high school band to a battle while the parade stood still. Guess who won.

― Pete Scholtes, Wednesday, 4 September 2002 23:50 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

The Rebirth Brass Band are indeed genuinely great. The Nutley Brass, probably from somewhere like Yorkshire, did at least one punk cover - Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment - that was fun.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 5 September 2002 17:55 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

two months pass...

Saw the Dirty Dozen Brass Band a few years ago and they were superb.

I still listen to 'New Orleans Album' quite regularly, but it's the only one I've got.

I don't suppose anyone's heard the new one (Medicated Magic)?

― James Ball (James Ball), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 17:18 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

I haven't heard Medicated Magic, but some of the brass band guys I play with weren't too up on it (they would have admittedly picky tastes about this sort of thing). I do wish they would still use a bass drummer and a snare drummer, even though their drummer is great. I'm going to see them here soon, with Youngblood Brass Band is opening up which is cool.

I've been listening non-stop to the New Birth Brass Band record, it is HOT SHIT. Totally on Rebirth's level or more so, and it's probably the most spontaneous, live sounding studio album I've ever heard.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 22:21 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

i'm gonna start talking out of my ass because i've never listened to new orleans brass bands nor have i listened to Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy, but wasn't he doing this sortsa stuff. brass interpretations of popular songs like madona and marilyn manson.

or was it not so brass band-y?

― JasonD (JasonD), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 00:48 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

I've only heard one track by Brass Fantasy (on a brass band comp, heh), but it was very brass band-y and very fantastic.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 04:42 (fifteen years ago) Permalink

two years pass...

REVIVE!!!

Recommend me some New Orleans funeral jazz, please!

And I know this is rockist of me, but the older and more authentic, the better..

thanx

― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 11:05 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Um, I don't really listen to much of the old stuff, but I've heard it. Get the Eureka Brass Band, the "This is the first authentic recording of a New Orleans Black brass band that was active at the time of recording. Recorded in New Orleans on August 25, 1951 by Alden Ashforth and David Wyckoff. This compact disc is the best example of the music at a jazz funeral and it defines tradtional brass band music." There are older recordings, like the country brass band from the turn of the century that fills out the Baby Dodd's "Talking and Drum Solos" disc, but really, it's shit.

Other than that, just go to Louisiana Music Factory and check out anything by Treme Brass Band (the most well-known band playing in a really trad style that's still around) or Dejan's Olympia Brass Band.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 15:12 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

I really liked the song that Jess put on his blog, from your Rough Guide, Jordan.

― Sanjay McDougal (jaymc), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 15:31 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Thanks, Jay. I put another song from that Rebirth album up here along with a couple of other things for some friends.

I'll send you a mix if you want to e-mail me, I'm always happy to spread the gospel. Also my brass band should be playing at the Green Mill again in the next couple months.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:50 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

i just wanna say that the mix that Jordan sent me is probably one of the most listened cds i've gotten this year

― JaXoN (JasonD), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 17:57 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

That's great to hear, Jason. I just listened to the Liquid Liquid disc before work today, btw.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 18:07 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Just sticking in another vote here for the ReBirth Brass Band album that has the song on Jordan's comp -- it's called Hot Venom, and it's fantastic. It definitely deserves the parental warning sticker, though (many f-bombs; "Pop That Pussy"). Live, at least here in the North, they are much less hip-hoppy, more of an old-school soul party vibe ("Let's Do It Again / One Love" on the album is representative of that).

― Vornado (Vornado), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:18 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

True, they stuck all the street-est stuff on that one album. It also has my favorite production job of any brass band album, not to mention the four 'bone lineup.

I really hope their 20th anniversary show dvd comes out, the show was sort of a mess but Cheeky Blakk came out and did Pop That Pussy for 15 minutes, humping trombone cases, Kabuki riding on her back, etc. :>

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 19:26 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

I played some trumpet in school but disdained the marching band (late summer, they're getting ready for football season, marching around in the mud in red wool uniforms, ughh). Have long regretted that, but garage soul/preppy-frat rock was good."Soulfinger" and "Grazin' In The Grass" my faves. Buckinghams' "Mercy Mercy" led me back to Adderley & Zawinul's original, yclept "Mercy Mercy Mercy", and from there to other Blue Note (the cliche of jazz and pop parting ways WWII never otm). Much liked (first albums of) Electric Flag, Blood Sweat & Tears (pre Clayton Thomas), and Chicago. Now collect high school marching band records, which is among what ("lab bands, stage bands" also) gets LANGLEY SCHOOLS equiv, except for the acclaim, on SCHOOLHOUSE FUNK, compiled by Motorcycle John (AKA DJ SHADOW). From the 70s. Uneven, but amazing. Something I'd heard and thought it was the Dirty Dozen 'til I got it: David Byrne's MUSIC FOR THE KNEE PLAYS. TKP being a segment of Robert Wilson's intercontinental stage/satellite TV cycle, "the CIVIL warS" (broadcast live in sequence, but the Reagan Admin pulled plug on our part). Turns out this music was "inspired by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band." Involving old pros like Chuck Findley, Ernie Watts, Pete Christlieb, and Fred Wesley, and, even though it's got some of that one-size-fits-all ECM train station echo, here it does fit (boomin' in the gloom, and after all it's about life going on during wartime). Also Lester Bowie Brass Fantasy's AVANT POP and others; even getting to recastings of hiphop and that big parade drum for "Beautiful People, Beau'ful PeePUL" on ODYSSEY OF FUNK AND POPULAR MUSIC, his last album (which I reviewed for villagevoice.com; put your Search subject in quotes if you go there)I've always wondered about Mike Westbrook's settings of Blake, and his Drinking Gasoline review, with singer Kate Westbrook. Were those good? (Regis Brass Band is one from New Orleans I've heard live, but never knew of any records. They were really young and firey when I saw 'em.)

― don, Wednesday, 24 November 2004 07:22 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Also my brass band should be playing at the Green Mill again in the next couple months.

Yeah, remind me! I've missed you guys a few times now!

― Sanjay McDougal (jaymc), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 07:36 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Wow Don, it sounds like you've heard a lot of stuff on the periphery of/influenced by N.O. brass band. You should jump into the real shit, I bet you'd be into it (NB: I don't really like the Dirty Dozen for the most part, and I haven't heard of Regis) --

New Birth Brass Band, D-Boy
Rebirth Brass Band, Hot Venom
Stooges Brass Band, It's About Time
Soul Rebels Brass Band, No More Parades
Lil' Rascals Brass Band, Buck It Like a Horse

Also a word about Derrick 'Kabuki' Shezbie - he's the main trumpet player for Rebirth, and he was in New Birth as a teenager (he's all over D-Boy). He's SO MUCH LOUDER than any trumpet player I've ever heard, not to mention the fire. His sound is completely wide-open and really sums up the brass band sound for me (he takes the solo on the Rebirth tune I posted above).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 16:45 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

What I mean to say is, he can blow eight notes on one note and suddenly every other trumpet player and every tricky run becomes irrelevant.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 16:46 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

oh yeah, that David Byrne "Music for the Knee Plays" is great

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 17:48 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

and how great is The Ying Yang Twins new song "Halftime". are brass bands and marching bands at all related?

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 17:49 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

I shy away from the comparison just because it makes people think of their bad Midwest high school pep band and assume that they know what it's about. I'm also sick to death of people saying "oh, you guys must have been in the UW band" or "what drum corps did you march in?" when no one in the band comes from that background at all.

HOWEVER, yeah, they take marching band pretty seriously down south and a lot of those kids have incredible chops. We were standing outside of Tipatina's during a parade last Mardi Gras and this high school trumpet line came by blowing high F's and we were like WHAT?! I think that a huge majority of New Orleans brass band musicians came up in those bands and always check them out during parade season, etc.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 18:05 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

jordan -- is that yr actual email addy? (I'll do a trade for a copy of that mix).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 21:01 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Yep (change gmale to gmail obv.). That sounds good Julio, I'm sure you have some stuff I'd love to hear.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 21:05 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Jordan is 100% otm re: high school bands. New Orleans has like the Delta Force marching bands--all the best music during Mardi Gras can be heard by avoiding the clubs (most of which are hosting jam bands anyway) and hitting the parades further Uptown (before the kids playing are all worn out).

I am also interested in Jordan's mix.

― adam (adam), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 22:21 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

by avoiding the clubs

But still go to Donna's and the Maple Leaf and Le Bon Temps and Cafe Brasil!

most of which are hosting jam bands anyway)

Oh god this is so horribly OTM.

I am also interested in Jordan's mix.

Send me your address.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 22:37 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Dude, Le Bon Temps has the crunkest quesadillas in the city.

― adam (adam), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 23:32 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Yas yas, that's what I like about the South. Alabama's Public TV used to broadcast an annual marching band contest, live from Bessemer High School's football field. That sound, across the stadium (and airwaves), not just horns but the drums, it moves me man. Reminds me that Bessemer is the disembarkation point of Sun Ra (and my father). As far as non-high school, don't forget Mississippi's late (and maybe last of a kind) Othar Turner. And I always suspected that those early N.O. parade bands, "soloing" in different keys simulanteously for *one* thing, were an influence on free jazz (Ornette Coleman had played in proto-R&B bands in his native Texas, and toured in a medicine show band, according to A.B. Spellman, and also lived in New Orleans in 1950 or so, when he could have heard some of those guys live, although there was no revival then, was there? And old guys don't usually have the wind to flip out, I know from my own brass, but his wife Jayne Crotez was known to have a killer collection of 78s.Think also of ASCENSION, esp. the better version, eventually relaesed with the *relatively* tamer, more familiar take. And Gary Giddins said that his Jazz History students hit a wall when they got to Air, etc. but loved Henry Threadgill's JELLY ROLLS, which I think was one of the earliest Free-to-Ur foldovers. And some of them got intoFree per se, with JR as their gateway. I was always fascinated by Archie Shepp & Horace Parlan's albums of spiritual and gospel, and notice elements of these primogen. influences in Ayler (listening to the boxset single-disc promo, for inst). Reminds me: don't know how widespread this trend is, but in the CD store where I was working last year, noticed a jazz X gospel trendette, coming from "Jazz" section *and* from gospel (and of course the latter's had crossover from Blind Boys of Alabama and Robert Randolph and the Family Band, but that's getting away from horns altogether)

― don, Thursday, 25 November 2004 01:06 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Erm, that would be Jayne Cortez, not "Crotez." Charlie Haden said that before anybody could borrow one of her records, they had to promise to learn to play the songs on it. (She eventually put out her own albums, like the killer early jazz-rap MAINTAIN CONTROL, with mebers of Prime Time, and Ornette as special guest on "There Are No Simple Answers." Again, off-topic, but great[and o course he does play a horn])

― don, Thursday, 25 November 2004 06:25 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Fixed the link above for that Rebirth & Slim tune.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 26 November 2004 13:56 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

We have People TV in Atlanta, and last year I spent a lot of time taing random things off it, marshing band videos being one of them. The beats truly were crunk, and the dancing that accompanied them was straight out of the club.

― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Friday, 26 November 2004 17:47 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Marching band videos? You mean like single songs, like pop videos? Whole concerts? Never heard of People TV, is that local to Atlanta?

― don, Friday, 26 November 2004 21:34 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Thanks for the links, Jordan. Also, on Public Radio's "Beale Street caravan," I just heard NRBQ with horns, live from Coney Island (the one in Cincinnati, not NY). They kept adding extra beats to "swing"; pretty funny. I'd forgotten, they used to have the Whole Wheat Horns, or maybe they're playing horns themselves, like Z Z Top. Reminds me of HIP-BOP-SKA, by the Skatalites, with guests like Lester Bowie and David Murray. Lester does some of this approach on James Carter's COVERSIN' WITH THE ELDERS, which also has Harry Sweets Edison on trumpet, Buddy Tate on clarinet, Hamiett Bluiett on baritone, and JC plays various reed instruments from his storied collection. It ain't Storyville but it ain't bad. Chicka-boom!

― don, Saturday, 27 November 2004 06:43 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

three months pass...

Revive.

In Tower Records I noticed in the new Downbeat magazine a nice article on New Orleans brass bands and more. The Stooges Brass band, Hot 8, and Soul Rebels are all here. I haven't checked to see if the article is online.

As a contributing supporter of afropop.org I get a weekly e-mail thing from them. This week they have a nice photo-essay by Ned Sublette(musician, musicologist and author of that immense book on Cuban music) on New Orleans. Sublette is living there for awhile and studying the Caribbean roots of New Orleans. He's got an interview with Donald Harrison and some others. I think you can check it all out at afropop.org

― steve-k, Saturday, 26 March 2005 17:48 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Brass Bands - C/D

― steve-k, Saturday, 26 March 2005 17:53 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

I wish I had time to go down to Jazzfest at the end of April and into early May and check everybody out. Plus that other fest with swamp pop and Blood Ulmer and more is going on at the rock n bowl.

― steve-k, Saturday, 26 March 2005 20:34 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Kermit Ruffins is now on tour...
http://www.basinstreetrecords.com/
http://www.satchmo.com/nolavl/kermit.html

― Pete Scholtes, Sunday, 27 March 2005 02:00 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

He's got a new cd with Rebirth I believe. I doubt they're together on tour though

― Steve-k (Steve K), Sunday, 27 March 2005 02:34 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

I downloaded a ton of stuff for free online a while ago. It is great stuff. Can't remember any names, though. I just filled two cds and labelled them New Orleans Jazz 1 and 2. It sounds drunk and it sounds happy and sometimes it stumbles along like a sad drunk but still manages to sound fun. Right after I saw "Wild Man Blues" I decided I should have some of that.

I think one was called Yarl River Blues Band.

― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Sunday, 27 March 2005 04:08 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

http://www.yarl.org/mp3s.htm

― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Sunday, 27 March 2005 04:10 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Thanks for the heads up Steve! Hot 8 in Downbeat, who knew.

I'll be going down to Jazzfest the first weekend to play with Mama Digdown's and see brass bands, can't wait.

― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 27 March 2005 13:07 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

It should be great.

From the April issue excerpt on Downbeat's website:

Next Generation New Orleans Brass Bands
Brass Beyond The Streets

By Jennifer Odell

Philip Frazier honks his sousaphone on a chilly January Sunday on the corner of Daneel and 3rd streets. Musicians start to shuffle away from the crowd milling outside the Bean Brothers Bar and strap on horns and snare drums, ready to get their roll on. Dancers for the Undefeated Dicas Social Aid and Pleasure Club come around the corner and tubas, sousaphones, saxophones and bass drums fall in line as the Divas belt out The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There.”

Winding past Mary’s Nightowl Bar, Candlelight Bar, Sandpiper and The New Look, the parading community group hits all of the Uptown neighborhood’s brass band stops. Ostrich plumes fan the air above the Divas in time with Frazier’s non-stop vamps. When the dancers slow down and form a circle, trading moves with kids, the band plays even harder, echoing braay swueals off the projects across the street. This is how brass band music was born.

But it’s growing up. And while playing the second lines and funerals remains important, many of today’s hottest brass players are concentrating more on polishing their CDs and getting national recognition than on stealing the show on Sunday afternoons. The current generation is following the successful business model created by the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth brass bands; updating a traditional sound to make the music relevant to a larger audience. And with each step forward, another cross-breed of the brass band sound is born. Mardi Gras Indian bands like Big Sam’s Funky Nation are based in funk, the Soul Rebels are purveyors of hip-hop and the Hot 8, New Birth and the Stooges hold down the street scene with their bebop-heavy takes on the traditional style.

― Steve-k (Steve K), Sunday, 27 March 2005 16:07 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

From afropop.org

MARDI GRAS 2005: a photo essay by Ned Sublette
Also Check out Interviews with Joseph Roach, Donald Harrison, and Vicki Mayer by Ned Sublette

― Steve-k (Steve K), Sunday, 27 March 2005 16:14 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

there was some sorta Folkways record i checked out in Fredericksburg, Texas, and it dirged and dirtied heaving heavier than a mule cry, as syrupy and sun-stroked than just about anything i could think of (though that recent Sub Rosa Tibetan ceremony thing is sorta close). one of those New Orleans series ones. don't know if a single tortoise tune clocked in under eight minutes...

― imbidimts, Sunday, 27 March 2005 16:30 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

Skipping 1563 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

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.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 2 February 2017 18:00 (one year ago) Permalink

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.

― Fake posts from a failing poster (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 2 February 2017 18:25 (one year ago) Permalink

wrong

― adam, Thursday, 2 February 2017 18:34 (one year ago) Permalink

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

― adam, Thursday, 2 February 2017 18:35 (one year ago) Permalink

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

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 2 February 2017 19:44 (one year ago) Permalink

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, Thursday, 2 February 2017 19:48 (one year ago) Permalink

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.

― Fake posts from a failing poster (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 2 February 2017 20:22 (one year ago) Permalink

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

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 2 February 2017 21:13 (one year ago) Permalink

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.)

― adam, Thursday, 2 February 2017 22:26 (one year ago) Permalink

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

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 8 February 2017 16:45 (one year ago) Permalink

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

― Fake posts from a failing poster (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 8 February 2017 16:59 (one year ago) Permalink

Just posting this pic here because it makes me happy.

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

― Fake posts from a failing poster (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 8 February 2017 17:04 (one year ago) Permalink

two weeks pass...

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/

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 17:07 (one year ago) Permalink

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

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 28 February 2017 17:18 (one year ago) Permalink

two months pass...

We released a bootleg of a show I was really happy with: https://digdown.bandcamp.com/album/bootleg-series-vol-1

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 19:08 (one year ago) Permalink

Will check that out.

I somehow had conflicts for both Hot 8's and Stooges Brass recent gigs in W. DC area. Stooges one was at Kennedy Center Millennium Stage so I can look for that on their video archive at least. Hot 8 was the one I wanted to see more. I just saw 2014 movie "Chef" that has the characters in it bopping around to Hot 8's take on Marvin Gaye. Have seen them before, just not in awhile.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 2 May 2017 20:25 (one year ago) Permalink

The first episode of the new season of Fargo had a super random Rebirth BB placement.

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 20:33 (one year ago) Permalink

two weeks pass...

http://www.villagevoice.com/2017/04/12/the-hot-8-brass-band-and-trombone-shorty-fight-for-the-heritage-and-future-of-new-orleans/

Right now, one cause for concern is the city’s recently proposed $40 million security plan. A statement from the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans, a nonprofit advocacy group, noted that “many locations studied to create the plan, including Times Square, Beale Street [in Memphis] and London’s Soho, are widely seen as culturally ‘sanitized’ and ‘homogenized,’ packaged for easy and unchallenging consumption by visitors.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-orleans-security-plan-bar-curfew-3-am-concerns-business-owners/

One that is still being decided is whether bars should be forced to close their doors at 3 a.m. and make everybody come inside.

The proposal includes adding 200 high-definition cameras in 20 hot spots around the city and big signs that make it clear you’re being filmed. There are barriers, which are meant to stop a maniac with a vehicle from driving onto Bourbon Street

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 May 2017 18:33 (one year ago) Permalink

two months pass...

Jason Berry article on Deb Cotton, the blogger/ writer and more who was wounded at a 2013 second line and recently passed away http://www.myneworleans.com/New-Orleans-Magazine/August-2017/Deb-Cotton-Now-and-Forever/

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 2 August 2017 05:20 (one year ago) Permalink

Another piece on the late Big Red Deb Cotton
Maybe she was mentioned in obits back in May

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_cea430ba-2f4d-11e7-b7bd-ab6733e78453.html

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 2 August 2017 05:26 (one year ago) Permalink

So sad. No one's really stepped into that role of documenting the second lines and I miss it.

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 August 2017 22:16 (one year ago) Permalink

I do see clips on Facebook live but that's so transitory.

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 August 2017 22:16 (one year ago) Permalink

Maybe she was mentioned in obits back in May

Don't know, but this is the first I'm hearing of it. Really sad.

― smug dinner-jazz atrocity (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 3 August 2017 14:56 (one year ago) Permalink

On twitter @mattHintonPhoto (Matthew Hinton) has some pics up of the second line for Dolores Marsalis that was on the 1st I think

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 3 August 2017 17:43 (one year ago) Permalink

video clip too

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 3 August 2017 17:44 (one year ago) Permalink

http://www.houstonpress.com/event/houston-international-jazz-festival-showdown-throwdown-texas-vs-louisiana-9617807

Saturday the 5th in Houston: with Hot 8 Brass Band, Bayou City Brass Band, To Be Continued Brass Band.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 3 August 2017 17:54 (one year ago) Permalink

Read that DJ Brice Nice lost his huge vinyl collection in the flooding that just hit New Orleans. Also, the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club has suffered damage too. For others its been even worse

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/it-wasnt-even-a-hurricane-but-heavy-rains-flooded-new-orleans-as-pumps-faltered/2017/08/09/b3b7506a-7d37-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_neworleans-745pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.14743ab4c43e

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 10 August 2017 17:24 (one year ago) Permalink

one month passes...

RIP Arian Macklin, sousaphone player for the Stooges, Free Agents, and Youngblood Brass Band over the years. Also Herlin Riley's nephew.

YBB put up some live tracks, proceeds go to the family: https://youngbloodbrassbandofficial.bandcamp.com/album/rip-arian-macklin

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 14 September 2017 17:03 (eleven months ago) Permalink

Hot 8 video for St James Infirmary. Good stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=273&v=wg43MWpLP7g

― "Celebration" encourages the listener to celebrate good times. (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 21 September 2017 18:43 (ten months ago) Permalink

two months pass...

Not exactly brass band related, but well...

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2017/12/irvin_mayfield_indicted_by_fed.html

WWL first reported in 2015 that federal authorities were looking into Mayfield. He's said to have steered more than $1.1 million from the New Orleans Public Library Foundation's Board to the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra over two years, while serving in leadership roles on both organization's boards and taking home a six-figure paycheck from the jazz orchestra.

He's also reported to have spent thousands in donations on travel expenses the library foundation says were not connected with library business, including $18,000 in hotel expenses in New York.

According to the station, the indictment against Mayfield and his longtime artistic partner Ronald Markham included four counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering and one count of obstruction of justice, among other charges.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 14 December 2017 20:30 (eight months ago) Permalink

two weeks pass...

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/01/12/jermaine-bossier-79rs-gang-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/

I've been snoozing on this Mardi Gras group the 79rs Gang

An album from 2015 and a 2017 single . On Bandcamp

https://79rsgang.bandcamp.com/track/dead-and-gone

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 04:56 (seven months ago) Permalink

four weeks pass...

Some friends are heading to New Orleans this coming weekend. Any second lines or great gigs on the 3rd and 4th? Not seeing any second lines listed yet on that WWOZ Taking it to the Streets calendar.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 31 January 2018 06:10 (six months ago) Permalink

three weeks pass...

I'm selecting some favorite brass band recordings for a little piece, and uploading a few that aren't on Youtube. Here's a cut from what is imo the best TBC record, which is not available online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO8whcNlPII

― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 26 February 2018 18:04 (five months ago) Permalink

good choice

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 27 February 2018 03:06 (five months ago) Permalink

http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2018/03/edna_karr_marching_band_oscars_t-mobile.html

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/entertainment_life/movies_tv/article_13caeb3e-202a-11e8-8fb8-93aadbf824ff.html

The Edna Karr High School Marching band from Algiers was featured in a new T-mobile commercial during the Oscars

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 6 March 2018 03:33 (five months ago) Permalink

Here's that piece w/some of my brass band picks & blurbs: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/8-tracks/8-tracks-of-new-orleans-brass-bands-with-chants/

― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 12 March 2018 15:37 (five months ago) Permalink

Great!

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 03:51 (five months ago) Permalink

four weeks pass...

Will be in New Orleans this weekend -- Charlie Sims memorial, French Quarter Fest, playing at the Blue Nile on Saturday, second line on Sunday.

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:54 (four months ago) Permalink

Jealous. Where is Donna these days, didn't she relocate to FL?

― No energy, only great chaos (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:57 (four months ago) Permalink

She's been back in New Orleans

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:57 (four months ago) Permalink

one month passes...

Oh no, a Mother's Day incident

The Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club's annual Mother's Day second-line had recently passed through the area, and one of the club's members, who declined to give his name, said the parade was ending when he heard gunshots.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2018/05/mothers_day_shooting_new_orlea.html

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 17:54 (three months ago) Permalink

A man died and a 15-year-old girl was injured in a shooting on Mother's Day (May 13) in New Orleans, according to a news alert from the New Orleans Police Department. The shooting took place near the corner of Duplessis and Lafreniere streets, which is in the Gentilly neighborhood near Interstate 610, between Dillard University and City Park.

Police said the man, 35, died at the scene, and the girl, who suffered a graze wound to the leg, was taken to Children's Hospital where she was in good condition Sunday evening.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 17:56 (three months ago) Permalink

again?! :(

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 15 May 2018 17:58 (three months ago) Permalink

So sad . Brings back memories of that other one

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 23:45 (three months ago) Permalink

I saw New Orleans writer/professor/director Jason Berry speak some years back when the EMP Pop Conference had a New Orleans session. Dude was impressive. He's now raising funds for a movie he's making

Why do we dance for the dead? This documentary explores the complex roots of the New Orleans jazz funeral, using burial traditions as a viewfinder on the evolution of the city. Writer-director Jason Berry, a distinguished cultural historian and director of an award-winning film on the Vatican, Vows of Silence, has been researching and filming brass band funerals and musicians’ interviews, since the 1990s....Our protagonist is Original Liberty Jazz Band leader Michael White, ...As the film unfolds, we meet an array of cultural torch-bearers, like Fred Johnson of Black Men of Labor. The galvanizing Deb “Big Red“ Cotton, a Gambit Weekly blogger chronicling the second line, emerges as a powerful voice the people. Cotton throws a focus on gun violence that has beleaguered some of the parades for Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, spawned by the old benevolent society funerals. When Deb is one of the people wounded in a gang crossfire at a 2013 Mother’s Day parade, her public forgiveness of the assailants -- visiting her shooter in prison – takes the story in a powerful meditation on mercy and redemption....

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/363373377/city-of-a-million-dreams

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 16 May 2018 15:01 (three months ago) Permalink

three weeks pass...

Was in Houston where I saw a brass band playing on the corner outside the Houston Astros stadium. I immediately thought they might be all refugees from New Orleans. I was wrong. The Pink Sand Brass Band is predominantly made up of music majors from the Bahamas that attend Prairie View A & M, a historically Black university in Prairie View , Texas

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 7 June 2018 13:23 (two months ago) Permalink

four weeks pass...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/obituaries/henry-butler-dead.html

New Orleans pianist who died from cancer. He also photographed Mardi Gras celebrants, street scenes and the wreckage of his Mason & Hamlin piano after Katrina; his photographs were in the traveling exhibition “Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists.”

― curmudgeon, Friday, 6 July 2018 04:00 (one month ago) Permalink

one month passes...

I like this video of the Big 6 Brass Band at a Popeyes in New Orleans. They get the employees to dance. Am following the band now on twitter, where they have tweeted and retweeted some good New Orleans stuff

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Miu90sh_9yM

― curmudgeon, Monday, 13 August 2018 17:34 (four days ago) Permalink

They're the second line band to beat rn, the two sousaphone players in particular just rip.

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 14 August 2018 15:12 (three days ago) Permalink

love it

― adam, Tuesday, 14 August 2018 16:27 (three days ago) Permalink

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