New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

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.

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

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.

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

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

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/

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

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

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

Maybe she was mentioned in obits back in May

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

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

video clip too

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.

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

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

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

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.