New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

http://www.michaelpsmithphotography.com/jazzfest/pages/jazz1.htm

Dude really deserves his own thread.

Just read that great "A Joyful Noise" book is out of print. But I think one he did, that I don't have, of Jazzfest photos from the 1st jazzfest onward, may still be in print. I haven't looked it up yet.

RIP Cookie Gabriel (courtesy of the Offbeat weekly e-mail). Not that I think I know her music, or anything about her, but if she performed regularly at the old Dew Drop Inn I bet she deserves attention.

COOKIE GABRIEL

We were sad to learn of the passing of female vocalist
Evelyn "Cookie" Gabriel, who died of cancer
Sunday at age 73. Her biggest songs were "I Just
Can't Take it No More" and "No Sweeter Love Than
Mine," and she appeared regularly at the Dew Drop
Inn. Our thoughts are with her loved ones.

By Jeff Hannusch

Renowned New Orleans session musician, composer, and label owner George Davis died September 10, 2008, from heart failure at Lilburn, Georgia. He was 70.

“He was my mentor and the greatest talent I ever knew in my life,” says Deacon John Moore. “I feel like I lost the best friend I ever had. He could play guitar, bass, saxophone, oboe—he was gifted. For several years, he was the number one session guy in the city. Allen Toussaint and Wardell Quezergue used him all the time. George played on so many hit records. ‘Mardi Gras Mambo,’ ‘Workin’ in a Coal Mine,’ ‘Barefootin’,’ ‘Teasin’ You.’ He co-wrote and played on Aaron Neville’s ‘Tell it Like it Is.’ He wasn’t just talented; George knew the music business backwards and forwards. He was really a sharp guy. He was one of the only musicians I knew that retired from the business.”

Davis first played alto saxophone before switching to guitar. As a student at Booker T. Washington High School, he joined the Hawkettes that were led by Art Neville. He attended Southern University but dropped out in 1957 to go on the road with Larry Williams. By the early 1960s, he was playing with the likes of Earl King and Ernie K-Doe and picking up a lot of session work at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studio. Somewhat frustrated by the lack of financial security afforded local musicians, in 1966 Davis formed a label, Parlo, along with school teacher Warren Parker and fellow musician Alvin “Red” Tyler. Parlo’s first release was “Tell it Like it Is.”

By 1970, Davis had relocated to New York City where he stayed busy playing sessions with Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington and Buddy Rich among others. He also appeared in A Chorus Line and worked on soundtracks. After living in Florida for several years, Davis moved to the Atlanta area about five year ago. For more details on George Davis’s career, check out grdmusic.com.

Published October 2008, OffBeat Louisiana Music & Culture Magazine, Volume 21, No. 10.

The first post-election second line in New Orleans

Can we fly everyone up to take part in the inaugural parade in DC in January?

Back when Clinton was elected I recall seeing people's inaugural events (not just the expensive night time events for those who contributed big bucks) on the mall--Aretha Franklin, Al Green and others performed.

Got a promotional e-mail for a NYC showcase of "whirled" and jazz bands that will include Hot 8. Lots of promoters and folks from Universities with any money apparently go to this event, so it should get them some bookings all over the U S of A.

Ned Sublette comments on an article that discusses New Orleans's dwindling population but expresses a bit of hope because the city's not in the rust belt.

Ned Sublette on the article:

new orleans is at 72% of its former population, 63% of its former african american population. so there's a weird disconnect between a pull-quote like, "Many cities don't have a cultural heritage like New Orleans does," and the unequal population shrinkage that has direct implications for that culture. that demographic shift also has huge political implications within the state of louisiana (which voted 59% for mccain, 40% for obama, whereas orleans parish voted 81% for obama.)

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/its_time_for_new_orleans_to_ad.html

It's time for New Orleans to admit it's a shrinking city, some say
by Gordon Russell, The Times-Picayune

Saturday November 22, 2008, 9:27 PM

From Offbeat magazine's e-mail:

Last year, the French Market honored the late
Tuba Fats (pictured) with "Tuba Tuba
Tuba," a day of tuba-centric music culminating
with a sousaphone orchestra organized by Kirk
Joseph. Friday, the French Market presents
"Tuba Tuba Tuba 2" from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
starting with two sousaphone-led processions at
11:10, one leaving from Conti and Decatur and one
from Dumaine and Decatur. They'll merge at Jackson
Square and St. Ann and continue to Battery Park
across the street from Jackson Square for a
sousaphone ceremony and performance. Afterwards,
the Kirk Joseph-led ensemble will second line
to the Barracks Street Stage, where music will
continue all afternoon with the New Wave Brass
Band (12:30 p.m.), Loose Marbles (1
p.m.), Tin Men (2 p.m.), Kirk Joseph's
Backyard Groove (3:15 p.m.) and Kirk Joseph,
Anders Osborne, John "Papa" Gros and
Jeffery "Jellybean" Alexander (4:30 p.m.).
Sousaphone-oriented ensembles will be also
perform throughout the French Market.

Tuba Fats on Tuba Fats. - http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001L7sen1JEYmKiHAWWfOnb_jtY7oA7OQ8JKOmMNY3CuN48_pc0tY6vKc1pIW4io17avlB7n7hqJC4m2bz_W867vh4SVXKC2Jzm3u4Yengr3A2OQNthZomQtrVbzRBBvxLpRTikLh9U8hJBVvSeltQOD8mAPgYKnyaw18JwAs77sxcnlLXqYvQGxA==

Got a promotional e-mail for a NYC showcase of "whirled" and jazz bands that will include Hot 8. Lots of promoters and folks from Universities with any money apparently go to this event, so it should get them some bookings all over the U S of A.

Does the e-mail describe the other acts on the bill, and if so can you share?

(i'm assuming this is the globalfest thing with femi kuti)

Yep. globalFEST 2009 at NYC’s Webster Hall, January 11, 2009

Line-up to feature Calypso Rose, Chicha Libre, Femi Kuti & the Positive Force, Hot 8 Brass Band, Kailash Kher’s Kailasa, L&O, La Troba Kung-fú, Marcio Local, Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, Shanbehzadeh Ensemble, Tanya Tagaq, and Watcha Clan.

anything else?

not enough music for you?

no, i mean any more content from the email. i know what the lineup is, i want to know more about it.

ayo Jordan have you ever heard these guys: Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship?

not really a New Orleans brass band, but an indie band from NO w/ a brass section, played Baltimore last night and put on a great show.

don't want to be a hater but:

i checked out that why are we building such a big ship band on myspace and they are lame

― some know what you dude last summer (Jordan), Thursday, November 20, 2008 11:24 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm sure they're fine for that indie old-timey thing, but if i think of them in relation to NO and second line bands then they look super corny.

lol, no i feel you, i can see how they'd be totally lame compared to the kinds of bands this thread is really about, but i liked their tom waits-y schtick and the soprano sax player was pretty sick.

My wife just got back from a business trip to New Orleans and saw the Treme Brass Band at Preservation Hall. She was raving about it. And I guess that place is about as funky as a music hall gets.

no, i mean any more content from the email. i know what the lineup is, i want to know more about it.

― gabbneb, Wednesday, November 26, 2008 5:05 PM (2 hours ago)

Gabbneb, here's the press release from the rockpaperscissors publicists. I like Hot 8, Chicha Libre and the Occidental Brothers. Must admit i really don't know the others and have not yet youtubed and googled them.

http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.press_release/project_id/397.cfm

From the release:

The Occidental Brothers Dance Band International reflect the Windy City’s musical past and cosmopolitan present in their NYC debut, bringing a blend of Ghanaian highlife and Congolese rumba with the avant-garde jazz, house, and indie rock vibes that have put Chicago on the musical map.

Rio’s Marcio Local extends the legacies of influences like Jorge Ben and Banda Black Rio, standing at the crossroads of two great traditions in modern Brazilian music, Afro-Brazilian samba and’70’s soul, to create an undeniably cool and funky ode to political change and carioca life

thanx much

The new Offbeat magazine has some top 10s. I'll post some later (I don't think they're online). A fair amount of votes for Dr. Michael White and for pianist Henry Butler.

Soon come. So Rebirth is playing a Baltimore New Year's Eve/into New year's day show at the 8 by 10 at 3 a.m. I guess they have a jam band following.

hippies love brass bands. we're playing a NYE show with a bunch of jam bands. :/

Actually I think I may have mentioned it upthread or chatted about it with someone that I just have to accept the fact that hippies/jamband types are more into brass bands and lots of old-school African-American music than indie types. Oh well (cuz my rock and rap listening seems more in line with indie types). Record collecting indie types will buy reissued Irma Thomas vinyl (and proabably brass band vinyl if there was such a thing) that's produced in a limited quantity but they don't wanna go see Irma or whomever in '08. Then there are the folks who will go see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings (soul with horns)(who happen to play at punk n indie clubs and get reviewed by Pitchfork and such) but won't go to see similar such artists elsewhere. Eh whatever, that's their loss I guess. I need to stop whining about others before someone throws a rock at my glass house (and yes the Glass House was a legendary New Orleans spot where the Dirty Dozen played in the '70s and maybe '80s, but I never went there alas).

Rebirth bandleader Phil Frazier has been hospitalized for high blood pressure and a possible stroke. I'll try to find out how he's doing today, but this Times-Picayune article mentions that he's taking a break from playing for the near future.

http://blog.nola.com/keithspera/2008/12/rebirth_brass_bands_phil_frazi.html

Also, though the article never mentions him by name, Phil & Rebirth are featured in this story about New Orleans rapper Soulja Slim, who was murdered five years ago. Slim's mom Linda Porter is Phil's wife and also president of the Lady Buckjumpers Social Aid & Pleasure Club.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1229149436125180.xml&coll=1

Update on Phil: He is recovering in the hospital after a minor stroke. The band is wanting him to take at least 3 months break. Much love to Phil!

Jeffrey Hills - of Lil Rascals, Preservation Hall, and many more - will be subbing for Phil in the meantime. (That means Rebirth will have about half the Lil Rascals band: Jeffrey, Corey on tb, Vincent on sax, and occasional Rascal Derrick Tabb on sn).

So I guess they'll keep their tour dates including Baltimore on New Years. Hope Phil feels better soon

aw man, phil seems like such a machine too, hope he gets better soon.

i think it's been awhile since any band has played under the rascals name? i've seen a corey henry-led brass band a couple times w/damien on sousaphone, ajay mallery, kabuki, wolf on tb, and terrence andrews but it was under the 6th ward all-stars or something.

Yeah - the Rascals took a hit when Eldo Andrews died and eventually split 4 or 5 years ago. They're are all spread out now in different bands. The one record they made is a monster. I've been coming back to that one lately, and New Birth's "Family," which I never spent enough time listening to, so its kinda new-to-me. (Great vocals from Glen David Andrews on both those CDs - his new live gospel album seems pretty good from the samples here: www.glendavidandrewsband.com/gate.htm )

I saw Rebirth at the Maple Leaf last night. I thought Jeffrey sounded really good, though Phil was definitely missed. Mostly it seemed like everyone else in the band had upper their game - the horns were tight.

Phil's sister said he his recovering but still needs to be in the hospital.

Ned Sublette book reccommendations

Thomas Brothers’s Louis Armstrong's New Orleans (from 2006) might be the best music book I read this year. It contains as good an attempt as I’ve seen to reconstruct – albeit with a certain amount of necessary speculation – the social milieu and the process by which jazz emerged, with a coherent account of the uptown-vs.-downtown interplay. It’s a richly detailed portrait: “New Orleans during Armstrong’s childhood was overflowing with African-American venues for music. By one count there were ten to fifteen dance halls uptown alone; between them they produced a function every night. A step or two below the dance halls were the ubiquitous honky tonks. Then there were the outdoor venues of lawn parties in the city and dancing pavilions at Lake Pontchartrain, where, on Sundays, up to twenty bands took position for daylong performances.”

I also got around to Rick Coleman’s Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n' Roll (from 2007), an essential work of rock and roll history that fills in some necessary gaps in reconstructing the emergence of that other great music that came out of New Orleans.

Trombone Shorty and his band are playing some jamband place in NYC for New Years

Offbeat interview with Shorty also---all about what's learned from touring with Lenny Kravitz!

Is there gonna be a special second line parade today/tonight? Not that I'm there...

in DC or NO? i haven't heard about one either way.

i'm driving down to NO in a few weeks though, for krewe du vieux.

Either.

Glenn Andrews did a special show at Tips on MLK Day it seems. Larry Blumenfeld did an article on Glenn's ups and downs in life--
http://blog.nola.com/notesonneworleans/2009/01/an_mlk_evening_celebration.html
"I'll Fly Away" is among the ten stirring tracks on Andrews's new CD, "Walking Through Heaven's Gate," recorded in concert at Zion Hill Baptist Church--where Andrews was baptized, just down the street from the scene of that 2007 arrest. It's a powerful gospel album filled with the repertoire Andrews "learned while sitting in the third pew back," he says, and it testifies that much of what we celebrate as jazz culture grew out of black churches, in places like Treme.

many such contexts, the remarkable singing voice and commanding trombone sound (both powerful, direct, resonant, and with just enough rasp) as well as the disarmingly honest talk of Glen David Andrews have been consistent presences, sending out whatever the situation calls for--beauty, truth, compassion, anger, joy, or all of the above. In that, Andrews is both special and just one of a long line of blood relatives, neighbors and musical ancestors.

Andrews has made no secret of his struggles, whether thrust upon him or created by his own poor judgment. Yet through his talent and swagger, his passion and pride, and even his missteps, Andrews mirrors the city at large. "I'm trying to change how people look at me," he said recently, and I know in that sentiment he is not alone in New Orleans.

One recent sunny Monday, the morning after his live recording and the day before he headed off to a California-based rehab center, Andrews sat on a picnic table, his long legs dangling. It was the very spot of his funeral-procession arrest, now a grassy lot dotted with tables and benches. A freshly painted sign read, "Tuba Fats Square," in honor of a musician Andrews considers at the top of his long list of mentors: This was his community's response to that October evening--when 20 police cruisers flooded an intersection in order to bust up a procession and made the corner look more like a murder scene than that of a communal ritual.

"We were singing, lifting our voices to God," Andrews said. "You gonna tell me that's wrong?" He wondered about the future of the well his music draws from--the same one Marsalis and O'Connor will tap at the Kennedy Center tonight. "From St. Bernard all the way to the bayou, there was a bar on every corner with live music and a great juke box. That's just about disappeared," he said. "Still, to wake up or just sit here in the Sixth Ward in New Orleans is still to be blessed."

That was last night and tonight-- Inauguration Party at Tipitina's, 501 Napoleon Ave., with Shamarr Allen and the Underdawgs, Hot 8 Brass Band, and Soul Rebels. 10 p.m.

I hope Glenn Andrews gets himself straightened out at the Rehab center. Dude is talented (even if he's a bit opinionated in an ocassionally annoying way when he's dissing younger horn players)

Wall Street Journal article by Larry Blumenfeld

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310346709122221.html
excerpt-

In November, the nonprofit Sweet Home New Orleans issued a "State of New Orleans Culture" report estimating that three-quarters of the city's 4,500 culture-bearers have returned since Katrina. But as Musicians Union President "Deacon" John Moore said, "It ain't easy in the Big Easy." Since Katrina, music bookings are down by nearly half (45%), average wages by nearly one-fifth (18%). Meanwhile, costs of living have risen 11%. "The scarcity of audiences and the continuing challenges of resettling have limited musicians' opportunities to make a living," explained Sweet Home Director Jordan Hirsch. As pianist Davis Rogan put it: "The music is back 110%. But the audience is only 50% back."

"Historically, musicians have been taken for granted here because it's so common and pervasive," said Scott Aiges, a director at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. "When we hear a brass band it's just another day. But these musicians are the working poor, making an average of $21,000 a year."

driving down on wednesday, seeing soul rebels on thursday, playing at donna's on friday, rolling with the stooges on saturday.

Cool. Do you know anything about or have you heard Shamarr Allen's new brass/rock/funk/hiphop band and cd? It has me wondering if he and Trombone Shorty have both decided that they can better make a living doing a hybrid sound and traveling and playing before jamband audiences than they can with a straight-ahead brass band sound? Or maybe that's just what they want to do artistically and I am wrongly reading too much into it.

Shamarr and the Underdawgs have been playing around town I think since Katrina. It does seem a lot like TB Shorty & Orleans Avenue - more geared towards the jam band crowd. Shamarr's even been playing guitar with them lately. It's not my thing but they seem to like that sound. Shorty draws much bigger audiences here in town, though maybe that will change after Shamarr goes on tour with Willie Nelson!

Yea, I heard about that. Interesting

Saw Jordan cowbelling his heart out last night, twice. Getting psyched for the high school bands rolling with the bigger parades--O. Perry Walker in particular. They've been killing it since the storm.

Lil' Wayne did his recent New Orleans song on the Grammys with Robin Thicke and then they brought on Alan Toussaint, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Terence Blanchard. Lil' Wayne was chanting "Feet Don't Fail me Now". It was just the brass folks from Dirty Dozen not the expanded version w/ non-brass players they sometimes tour with

Unrelated to that, while walking to the DC Convention Center earlier to take my kid to the Auto Show, we walked past a United House of Prayer Church and you could hear the gospel 'shout' brass band from the sidewalk. Awesome.