New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

Thanks for that. I didn't know Jeffrey Hills was out with Treme, I know he's trying to round up the Lil' Rascals for a tour.

I'm not surprised that Uncle Lionel didn't go with them, I honestly can't picture him outside of New Orleans. He IS New Orleans.

Not brass band related, but close enough...More sad news from the Looka blog:

http://www.gumbopages.com/looka/
"Bad news. I got an email from Mary Katherine yesterday ... Stevenson Palfi, the New Orleans-based documentary filmmaker best known for his amazing film "Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together" (featuring performances from Tuts Washington, Allen Toussaint, and Professor Longhair two days before his death), took his own life a few days ago. He had lost his home, his office and almost all of his possessions, presumably including several years worth of work he had done on an unfinished in-depth biography of Allen Toussaint."

Thanks for keeping this thread going. It's a subject that's at once almost unbearable to think about, and can't be let to slip away.

:(

I'm finally leaving for New Orleans tomorrow. I'm starting to freak out a little bit about what it's going to be like. Stupid hurricane.

Financially at least, the New Birth are absolutely thriving here -- in addition to the weekly gigs I mentioned in the story above, they are very active on Houston's Plutocrat Party / Organ Ball circuit, and they are starting to perform at schools during the day.

Also this week, Keith "Wolf" Anderson rejoined the band here. He had been in Detroit and I think I heard he got busted up there for public urination of all things.

Tuba Phil and some other guys from the Rebirth were at this week's Volcano show, and the whole joint went crazy when they tore into "Hush Your Mouth." Glen David's rewrite of Levert's "Casanova" was also damn cool, and having Wolf in the band has led to some serious 'bone battles. (Incidentally, I think Glen David's as much a potential breakout star as Kermit is... the guy is an incredible showman.)

I don't know what this has to do with anything, but it's pretty funny. Kenny Terry was walking around after the show sporting a Rand McNally map of NO -- he is the guy on the cover in the red jacket and white marching band cap blowing his horn in the Quarter.

Ha, I played a Mardi Gras gig with Glen David once. I think he has the loudest singing voice I've ever heard. The last time I saw him, he was flying (and crashing) a kite in a crowd at the Jazzfest grounds last year. (I think that Casanova arrangement comes from when Tyrus Chapman was in Rebirth, btw.)

I'm glad New Birth is doing good.

Adam, are you moving back? Good luck, dude.

Yeah, GD's really got that Monk Boudreaux / Bo Dollis holler workin' for him

Jordan, I fully expect to see you (and everyone else in this thread, dammit) in NO for Mardi Gras and Jazzfest this year.

I absolutely will be there, seriously. We'll be at Donna's.

I'm also getting married in N.O. sometime within the next year!

!!! Awesome.

Yea, maybe at Jazzfest. I wonder if local DC promoters are suffering from Katrina fatigue. None of the folks I had Hot 8 e-mail re playing around here, have contacted them back. I'm trying another promoter.

The Nation magazine has several articles on serious New Orleans stuff:

Here's an excerpt from Ari Kelman's "In the Shadow of Disaster":

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060102/kelman
"Craig Colten, a Louisiana State University geographer, agrees. He insists low-lying parts of the city shouldn't be rebuilt. His proposal is extremely controversial, with displaced residents understandably invoking their "right of return" and with most members of the reconstruction committees reluctant to reintegrate wetlands into the city after Mayor Nagin got burned for suggesting that the Ninth Ward might not be rebuilt. But Colten still believes that part of the backswamp should ooze into selected low-lying areas. An equitable method, he believes, would be to "take land from many neighborhoods--Lakefront, Ninth Ward, Gentilly--and relocate rich, poor, middle class to denser settlement on higher ground." Colten's "new New Orleans," then, would resemble the old New Orleans--from an era before wetlands vanished. It would also touch off battles over whose neighborhoods should be abandoned."

From the offbeat weekly e-mail:

OffBeat Magazine [offbeat@offbeat.com]

"L. J. Goldstein, New Orleans attorney, photographer and founder of the infamous Krewe de Jieux, has organized a Honakkah Second Line on Thursday December 22 beginning at 6 p.m. at Spanish Plaza (Riverwalk) proceeding to Jackson Square. The Reunion Klezmer Band will perform, the first time the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars and former clarinetist Ben Schenk have played together since Schenk left the band."

Haha.

Btw, I don't know if the YSI is still working, but here is a WWOZ show from a year or two ago. They play a bunch of brass band shit, but the highlight is a live set by the Real Untouchables Brass Band. They're complete unknowns as far as the scene goes, but it's fucking hot.

http://s38.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2WX72H6TOE43V34S22C0V2F6NC

I'll have to give it a shot. Here's more of the usual depressing news from Offbeat:

GONE...BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Hurricane Katrina has taken more from us than our homes, neighborhoods and businesses. We’re profoundly sorry to report that these wonderful members of our music community have passed on within the last week.

Brian O’Neill
1955-2005
Composer, arranger, vocalist, pianist and Bonerama trombonist, Brian O’Neill passed away suddenly after suffering an apparent heart attack while on a solo gig in New Orleans O’Neill was noted for his work with Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders in the ’70s as well as being a mainstay of the popular New Orleans R&B vocalist Luther Kent’s band “Trick Bag” for the past 25 years. As a freelance trombonist O’Neill was one of the most frequently-called trombonists in New Orleans. O’Neill penned the most recent “Bone Up” from the Bonerama’s Live From New York. O’Neill appeared in countless sit-ins with the Bonerama horns including appearances with Gov’t Mule and the Radiators. Fellow Bonerama trombonist Mark Mullins recalls, “I met Brian on a gig at a Mardi Gras parade 21 years ago and after the first song I realized that is what I wanted to sound like. To have him in the Bonerama band was just a constant inspiration on both a personal and musical level. There was so much he had not had a chance to say yet.”

Stevenson Palfi
1952-2005
The director of Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together, a documentary that presented New Orleans legends Allen Toussaint, Tuts Washington and Professor Longhair playing together in the studio, was found dead of a gunshot wound in in New Orleans. Palfi had lost much in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; his Mid-City home was severely flooded, and reportedly was very depressed over the loss of his home and life's work. Palfi was staying with his ex- wife at the time. Reportedly he left a suicide note. Palfi is survived by his daughter, Nell.
“His seminal work was non-pareil as a rare, timely and brilliant piece of documentary film-making. Henry Roeland Byrd, a.k.a. Professor Longhair, died during the filming of this work. Stevenson had the foresight to capture the entire second line celebration of Fess’ life and death.” said Justin Zitler, attorney for SongByrd Inc., the Professor Longhair estate. Informed of Palfi’s death, Allen Toussaint said, “My friend Stevenson Palfi’s life’s work was immortalizing others and in so doing, he has immortalized himself. His work will outlast all of us.”

Stevenson Palfi will be honored with a tribute this year at OffBeat's Best of The Beat Awards on January 21 at the House of Blues.

More from Offbeat's weekly e-mail thing:

The New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund is
proud to sponsor the Social Aid & Pleasure Club All-
Star Second Line on Sunday January 15, 2006. For
the first time ever, a coalition of 27 Social Aid &
Pleasure Clubs will march together through the
streets of New Orleans to call attention to their
needs and role in renewing the city. The Second Line
begins at the Backstreet Cultural Museum at 1116 St.
Claude Avenue in Treme at 11:30 a.m. and ends
uptown at Washington Avenue and South Saratoga
at about 4 p.m.

Oh wow. I wish I could go down for that.

My band will be going down around Mardi Gras, and just before that playing a concert for NOLA relocatees in Chicago.

From the NY Times:

By GARY RIVLIN
Published: January 11, 2006
NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 10 - The commission devising a blueprint to reconstruct the city will propose on Wednesday . . . the creation of a new jazz district downtown. . . . The jazz district would be in the old Storyville section, north of the French Quarter, an idea championed by the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, a member of the commission and the co-chairman of its culture committee."

"The old Storyville section" really doesn't exist anymore. Virtually all of those buildings were torn down years ago to make way for the Iberville housing project. I have no idea what condition those projects are in post-flood, but if they are to be torn down to make way for some sort of glitzy new jazz theme park, I'm more than a little dubious.

Me too.

I am not clear what the NY Times was referring to and I have not seen more details elsewhere. I'd be dubious of the theme park also, but maybe they are referring to something else. Upthread on December 9th I pasted something that included this excerpt about a project Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick were pushing: " A village for musicians would be the finest thing. But build it where?"

The New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity covers Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, and is in the "embryonic" stages of adding Plaquemines Parish. Pate said it hopes to build 250 to 500 houses in the four parishes, and possibly as many as 200 in the musicians' village."

Is this the "musician's village"?

I think Branford Marsalis and Wynton Marsalis are working on 2 different things.

Here's an excerpt from the L.A. Times re Wynton's project:

"To accelerate the process, Nagin's commission is asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to release updated floodplain maps which effectively could make the decision for many homeowners by raising home insurance rates and setting other new financial barriers to redevelopment.

A subcommittee is proposing a new jazz district near the French Quarter at the former location of Storyville, a fabled district of musicians and houses of ill-repute at the turn of the last century.

It later fell into disrepair and was demolished. The idea to re-create a cleaned-up version of Storyville, which gave rise to musical legends including Jelly Roll Morton, is being championed by the Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz virtuoso Wynton Marsalis."

Cleaned up and recreated early 20th century bordellos in WyntonMarsalis-land! Ugh. Putting Wynton on the committee may help kill New Orleans music rather then help it.

I wonder when Wynton was even in New Orleans last. Branford was hanging out at Donna's last Jazzfest, though.

Btw, I'm going to be down for four days during the last weekend of Mardi Gras, for a gig at Donna's and just to check things out.

Where's the hiphop n bounce and more brass? Well some of the below looks good:

"On Saturday, January 21, 2006, OffBeat
presents “The Best of the Beat Awards,”
its annual celebration of the best of New
Orleans’ music at the House of Blues, 225 Decatur
Street. The Best of
The Beat starts at 6 p.m. and ends at 2 a.m.

This year, OffBeat recognizes R&B legends
Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas
with Lifetime Achievement in Music awards.
Toussaint is the influential songwriter and producer of
some of the city’s signature records, as well as a
performer in his own right. Thomas is the voice of
such classics as “Wish Someone Would Care,” “It’s
Raining” and “Breakaway.” Also honored are
Wanda Rouzan for Lifetime Achievement in
Music Education, “Uncle” Lionel Battiste of
the Treme Brass Band, who receives this year’s
Heartbeat Award, and George and Nina Buck
(GHB Records and the Palm Court Jazz Café), for the
Lifetime Achievement Award in Business.

The Best of The Beat will also include a tribute to the
late music documentarian, Stevenson Palfi.

HOB STAGE

7:00: John Autin

7:45: Morning 40 Federation

8:30: Awards with Stevenson Palfi Tribute

9:15: Papa Grows Funk with Anders Osborne and Tim
Green

10:00: Davis Rogan

10:30: Fred LeBlanc and Paul Sanchez of Cowboy
Mouth

11:15: Theresa Andersson with members of World
Leader Pretend

12:00: James Andrews with Shannon Powell

12:45: Walter “Wolfman” Washington

1:30: New Orleans Live Animals

PARISH STAGE

7:15: Coco Robicheaux

8:00: New Orleans Jazz Vipers

9:30: Quintron with C.C. Adcock

10:15: Ingrid Lucia

11:00: Michael Hurtt & His Haunted Hearts

11:45: White Bitch

12:30: Shannon McNally

1:15: Ghost"

My article on the Jack Brass Band in Minneapolis (a lot of whom are playing in the Krewe du Vieux February 11):

http://citypages.com/databank/27/1313/article14090.asp

I'm heading down too, in time for the night of Feb. 23.

Everyone who's in town should come to the Thoth parade, which runs down Magazine St, ie right in front of my house. My building, as well as everyone all up and down the street, has a massive party. We have t-shirts made and everything. Sunday b4 Fat Tuesday, be there!

I will be there! And you guys have got to come to Donna's on the Friday before Fat Tuesday. Mama Digdown's, but the band will probably be half New Orleans dudes.

I'm there, for real this year. PS I finally bought the Hot 8 album due to your constant pimping--it's fucking great.

Interesting and a bit sad piece on an 80 year-old bassist, son of a brass band player...

After Katrina, the Jazzman Plays On

By Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 30, 2006; A02

NEW ORLEANS -- Peter Badie is in the kitchen, rummaging around in a drawer for a spoon. This isn't his kitchen. His kitchen was filled with 10 feet of water during Hurricane Katrina and likely awaits the wrecking ball. The 80-year-old jazz musician is homeless and temporarily living in a spare bedroom of a Creole cottage here in the Faubourg Marigny section of town. This is Sue Hall's kitchen.

"Sue Hall, where is that big pan?" Badie calls out.

"Peter, it's where you left it," says the voice from the other room.

Horns and clarinets drift from speakers above. Badie catches sight of his black sunglasses on the counter. He snatches them up and slips them into his shirt pocket, mindful of being a neat houseguest. "Sue Hall, I've got some fish cakes out here."

The hurricane has forced all sorts of unexpected arrangements, and Badie and Hall are just one unlikely Odd Couple living in the aftermath. Badie is an accomplished acoustic bass player who has toured with Lionel Hampton. Hall booked bands at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe. When she heard that Badie lost his home in the Lower Ninth Ward, she offered him a place to stay.

Hall has red hair and pearly skin. She was born in Kankakee, Ill. Chili pepper lights hang in her kitchen; Southern folk art and pink flamingos abound. In the middle of this bright whimsy is Badie, an austere modern jazzman, as cool as midnight itself, dealing with his homelessness, anger and unsure future.

This is life in New Orleans now: tenuous, with strange forgings and new beginnings. No one is saying how long the arrangement will last.

Badie -- known as "Chuck" -- has a salt-and-pepper soul patch. He is a widower and devout Catholic. His routine is simple. He rises mid-morning, says his prayers and then emerges from his borrowed room and makes a pot of grits. He is immensely proud, almost to the point of defiance. He recently returned a $4,000 check that the musicians union sent him by mistake.

At Hall's kitchen table, he reads the New Orleans Times-Picayune from cover to cover. "They say New Orleans will be back," Badie says. "Not for me it won't. I'm 80 years old."

Badie was born in 1925 in the Black Pearl section of Uptown in New Orleans. His father was a jazz saxophonist with the Eureka and Olympia brass bands. Badie didn't pick up music until he got out of the Navy in 1945 and used the GI Bill to enroll at the Grunewald School of Music in New Orleans, a beacon of progressivism in a city cleaved by race. "Whites were on the first floor and blacks were on the second floor; to me, that's integrated," Badie says.

Zoot Sims, Dizzy Gillespie -- Badie played with the best of them. Along with other black musicians, he helped found the A.F.O. (All For One) record label in 1961. But musicians were paid so little that Badie worked as a lunch waiter at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter for 15 years, making $500 a week, five times what he earned playing music.

Before the hurricane, he had a standing gig at the Palm Court, and he rolled up in style: punctual, a pressed shirt and a 1979 black Cadillac roomy enough to carry his bass in the back seat. He lived alone at his house on North Johnson Street. Other musicians die in rental apartments, but Badie had his house.

Now he sits in Hall's kitchen, holding a letter from his homeowner's insurance company, typed with the words "No Compensation."

"Not one quarter," he says, smoldering.

Five months after the storm, Badie still drives to his house every day and stares at it. The mysteries of his losses plague him. "I had six suits," he says. "I'm talking about suits. Not that mix-'n'-match jive. Six suits. Now, where did they go?"

He was wise enough to store his two basses on the second floor of the Palm Court before the storm, saving them from ruin. He momentarily forgets his troubles when describing his 1946 Epiphone. "It's got a sound, baby, you can hear around the corner," he says. "People said, 'Chuck, don't ever sell it.' Cats would snap it up in a second. I did a lot of records with that." "The Man I Love," "A Change Is Gonna Come." One of the basses is stretched out across Hall's living room. Who knows where it will finally rest. Badie has been looking into the Habitat for Humanity "musicians' village" that singer Harry Connick Jr. and saxophone player Branford Marsalis are trying to create for Louisiana musicians left homeless by the storm.

For now, this pink cottage is home. Badie shows his appreciation by cooking: breaded pork chops, cabbage, neck bones, turnips and carrots, and oyster dressing. "Oyster dressing?" Badie says. "Oh, that will kick you. See, I re-boil them crawfish heads and get that stock ."

The phone rings again, and Hall comes into the kitchen. She's been trying to find a trombonist for a gig. The hurricane scattered New Orleans jazz musicians across the country; two-thirds have still not returned. "I must have called 10 trombone players," Hall says.

Badie frets over what to wear to the gig. His suits are gone. He goes into his bedroom to make a call about finding a new white shirt.

Hall drops her voice and whispers, "He's old school, the last of a generation. A man of integrity."

When Badie takes his place on stage at the Palm Court the next night, he reveals nothing of his troubles. The club owner introduces the musicians. "Mr. Chuck Badie has lost his home," she tells the crowd. Badie's eyes are hidden behind his dark shades. Someone counts off a beat, and the band sets off, with Badie plucking fiercely to the end.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Big Chief Smiley Ricks is now in Columbia, Tennessee

http://www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060129/ENTERTAINMENT05/601290321/1005/MTCN0303

Oh, Dan Phillips, a current Lafayette, Louisiana resident linked to the above article on his always excellent digging in the record crates of New Orleans r'n'b blog Home of the Groove.

http://homeofthegroove.blogspot.com/

Pete, nice article on Jack Brass. Adam, Jordan, I am always so busy with my boy I'm not sure when I can make it down there. Maybe I just need to bring him(He's 11 now).

Oh, here's an article from Billboard--

Sad reality sinks in for New Orleans music scene

By Todd Martens Sun Feb 5, 5:44 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Like nearly every house in New Orleans, Bethany
Bultman's home has holes in its roof. Buckets to catch rainwater surround
her desk, and she is hesitant to go out at night. Much of her neighborhood
is still completely without power.

She is one of the lucky ones. Leaky roof aside, her house suffered little
damage, and she has a second one in Massachusetts, a world away from the
devastation Hurricane Katrina inflicted last August. Bultman admits to
missing her Cape Cod getaway, but she cannot bring herself to abandon New
Orleans. There would be the guilt of leaving behind the city and those who
are suffering, but more important, there are checks to write.

Bultman inscribes upwards of 70 per week, each for $100, each given to a New
Orleans musician. To date, her efforts have been funded largely by donations
from Pearl Jam and nonprofit organization Jazz Aspen Snowmass; she recently
was promised $250,000 from MusiCares, the Recording Academy's charitable
arm.

The checks Bultman writes are allocated only to those who work, which these
days in New Orleans can mean performing at a club in front of a handful of
FEMA workers.

On many nights, money from the door is minimal or nonexistent. Bultman hopes
her $100 subsidy is enough to dissuade someone from taking a gig in another
city. If instruments and artifacts from the city's musical heritage were
washed away, then New Orleans' soul -- the musicians who define it -- must
stay.

"As the time wore on," Bultman says, "more and more musicians who were
dumped all over the country wanted to come back. We soon realized that this
is really about giving people instruments and giving people hope, and that's
when we started paying the gig fees."

Two months ago, Bultman, a writer/historian and the co-founder of the New
Orleans Musicians' Clinic, was urging displaced musicians to return to the
city. She started the clinic with her husband in 1998 with the assistance of
Dr. Jack B. McConnell, the developer of Tylenol tablets whose son, Page,
played keyboards for the band Phish. With a mix of pride and a dedication to
preserving a music culture that she says "percolates out of the ground,"
Bultman hoped all New Orleans' evacuees would soon be returning.

'NEW ORLEANS IS NOT A HEALTHY PLACE'

Reality, however, soon sunk in, and now she is not so sure. "The goal was to
get everyone we could get back to New Orleans," she says. "Now that we're
back, we've moved away from that. We've moved away from the fantasy that
everything would go back to the way it was. New Orleans is just not a
healthy place for everyone to come to."

Eight of the city's ZIP codes are still without full power, according to the
January 24 status report from the mayor's office. The area affected most by
Katrina -- the Ninth Ward -- remains under curfew, and 911 emergency
availability is scattered. Few hospitals are open, and the New Orleans
Musicians' Clinic, which had free use of the Louisiana State University
School of Medicine in New Orleans, has lost such privileges, as much of the
facility needs extensive repairs.

And for many, life was not all that great before Katrina. One in four of the
city's residents lived below the poverty line, and a great number of its
working musicians relied on a steady influx of tourists.

Bultman stays in touch with the national organizations providing relief to
New Orleans musicians, including MusiCares, which announced its pledge in
support of her efforts January 25.

She is heartened by the outpouring of generosity of her top donors and has
nothing but praise for MusiCares. But five months after Katrina, Bultman
feels that little has been accomplished. Nearly all of the 200 musicians she
helps lack a place to live. She worries the situation will only get worse
with a dearth of health care and tries to communicate to the national
associations that the effort to restore the music community in New Orleans
is one that will take years -- and one that will happen one saxophone at a
time.

RETURN TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Pianist Joe Krown was playing 12 gigs per week prior to Katrina. His wife,
who worked at Tulane University Hospital, was laid off after the hurricane.
He filled out the paperwork for nearly every charity dedicated to helping
musicians.

"I have a mortgage and a rent and no income, and before I said anything more
to a couple of them, there was a check in the mail," Krown says. "That
happened with MusiCares and the Musicians' Clinic and the Jazz Foundation."

He also benefited from the New Orleans Musicians' Relief Fund, which was
started by one-time dB's member Jeff Beninato and his wife, Karen. Along
with Chicago rock group Wilco, the couple brought Krown and such musicians
as Leroy Jones, George French, Craig Klein and Cranston Clements to Chicago
for a benefit show that raised more than $100,000.

Beninato says he started the charity two days after Katrina hit New Orleans,
and a few days after that he heard from MusiCares. He began working with the
national organization, providing names of musicians he knew were still in
New Orleans.

Beninato is re-outfitting the New Wave Brass Band, hoping to get the big
band in marching form for Mardi Gras. Providing instruments for working New
Orleans musicians has become a group effort, and MusiCares is at the
forefront. Wick says the charity has helped more than 600 musicians get new
instruments, and he says MusiCares receives between 30 and 80 applications
per day.

MusiCares has partnered with Gibson and the Guitar Center chain and launched
its Music Rising replacement initiative in New Orleans with U2's the Edge.
While an unknown number of musicians still need a place to live, they need
the instruments to make a living.

Krown, for one, says he was able to replace some equipment thanks to
MusiCares, and the program has made it easier for him to be self-sufficient.
"It was starting to feel like I was begging, and I have too much pride for
that," Krown says.

Reuters/Billboard

Jazzfest schedule is now available by weekend only(not by individual day yet). A quick look has me wondering why no To Be Continued Brass Band. I also had naive dreams that they would have New Orleans hiphop & bounce, and add more jazz, but they're sticking with their formula that works--brass bands, gospel, cajun, zydeco, old-school N'awlins r'n'b, jambands, plus big name rockers that jambanders and NPR types like. Lots of good stuff but just not quite as good as it could be says this nitpicker.

http://www.nojazzfest.com/schedule/index04.html

If they were gonna put on a decent Jazzfest this year shoulda been the year. YOU BLEW IT AGAIN QUINT.

Maybe the TBC kids will be playing outside the grounds like last year. Probably make more $$$ that way, they were cleaning up on tips from people waiting for buses/shuttles.

Btw, next weekend - Mama Digdown's Brass Band @ Donna's on Friday, Hot 8 @ Tip's and Rebirth @ Howlin' Wolf on Saturday.

>>YOU BLEW IT AGAIN QUINT.

Actually, I'm happy just to see the names of all those locals returning to the Fest, but yeah, the headliners: could Quint be any more lame than re-booking Dave Matthews and Jimmy Buffett?

And Mama Digdown's at Donna's warms my heart. God, I love that place.

Quint does not seem to care about any criticism he gets. Every year in Offbeat and elsewhere folks offer constructive criticism and he ignores it. The Pinewood Stomp folks get obscure performers Quint has overlooked, and he doesn't offer them a bigger gig. He's got a formula and this year he has Shell sponsoring the whole thing, so he's just gonna stick with what financially works.

otm...these are the safe names that will draw a yuppie/fratboy money-spending crowd. (I mean the headliners). Who can blame the dude?

But at least the crowds won't be so overwhelming this year.

I'm glad that the brass bands are getting stage shows now instead of just mini-second lines through the grounds, that wasn't the case a few years ago.

Oh, I didn't realize that Jordan. The 3 times I was there way back when they used to only get mini-second lines.

Way back when they also used to bring in some out-of-town jazz, and have more local jazz. I wonder if the Essence Fest is going to come back to New Orleans? It was never that imaginatively booked--smooth jazz, big name old-school funk, soul and rap for buppies; but I always thought that Quint should at least try to reach a little of that audience as well (but with cleverly chosen acts that would appeal to that demographic).

Although I primarily go to dig the locals, over the years I have seen some amazing headliners in both jazz and old school funk genres: Sonny Rollins, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Hermeto Pascoal, Bobby Womack, Bobby Bland (way past his prime, but my only time seeing him.) Hell, Teena Marie was STELLAR at Jazzfest.

Quint doesn't care about the obscurities who play Ponderosa Stomp; Guitar Gable on the roster isn't gonna bring in very many additional people, while Buffett still attracts HORDES of Parrotheads. Phil Phillips singing "Sea of Love" last year brought tears to my eyes, partly because I couldn't believe it was the first time he's been asked to perform there. Authentic stuff like that is a blip on the JF schedule, and I feel like every time a soul legend like Johnnie Taylor passes away without playing Jazzfest, while Little Feat does AGAIN, it's just another thing Quint's gonna have to answer for at the pearly gates.

As the only real music industry sleazeball in NO (unless like Daniel Lanois counts, which he might, though I don't think he really lives here) Quint is immune to criticism and common sense. You know, the kind of common sense telling a reasonable person that, say, Widespread Panic have nothing to do with jazz or heritage (anyone's).

OTM. Replace "Little Feat" (a band who have at least SOME merit) in my rant above with "Widespread Panic." They suck worse than almost any band I can think of, and Quint gives them a DOUBLE timeslot on the main stage.

This article details Quint's thought-process--if he knows the artist or has booked them before they're in, otherwise sorry--

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/1140077747113660.xml

The local musicians who are involved are stuck with playing up to Quint--since he's the only game in town. It's frightening that until a corporate sponsor stepped in, there was nearly gonna be no brass bands --check out this quote from Keith Spera'a article:

"Jazzfest also announced a partnership with American Express. The company will promote various local acts and sponsor the Jazz & Heritage Stage, which debuted at the 2005 festival with a lineup of brass bands and Mardi Gras Indians. Budget constraints would have forced the festival to drop the stage had AmEx not stepped in, Davis said."

That is fucking crazy.

Ha ha no Jazz & Heritage stage at the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Anyone who's down the week before should check out the French Quarter Festival which is in many ways what JF should be. Free, all-local on a couple stages spread throughout the French Quarter. The food from the many stands (run by local restaurants etc) maxes out at $4. When I worked at the Aquarium lunch was the greatest thing in the world during the FQF: walk outside, get some food and a beer and watch the Nightcrawlers or Rebirth for an hour.

"Matthews, an avowed fan of New Orleans music, drew a record-breaking crowd to the festival in 2001, then played to another large crowd in 2005. "These are family members," Davis said. "Jazzfest's greatest hits."

Ha ha. Funny how "shit" transposed to "hits."

New Birth/Exiles in Houston Bulletin:

Tanio and Fat Man have been in Germany for the past few weeks. Glen David got in some mess here and had to leave town -- something about a woman, I was told.

Last night's line-up was a kit drummer (who did a pretty good job by the way), Kenny Terry, Corey Henry, Kerwin and a trombonist I didn't recognize. And the McNeil NewsHour had a crew there -- they shot footage all night long. The reporter told me he was working on a documentary about Reggie Houston, who was living in Portland pre-Katrina and will be returning to NOLA for the first time during JazzFest.

Also, there are strong, believable rumors that a New Orleans bar/social club will be opening near downtown here. A famous NOLA musician is involved, but I can't say who right now. I should be going public with it in a week or two.

Meanwhile, the tension between the exiles and the locals is growing. New Orleanians are now the boogie man here -- they're getting blamed for everything scary about Houston. It would be funny if it weren't so sad -- after all, we've been Murder Capital USA for several years running in the not too distant past, but people here are acting like "those people" have come in here and despoiled Eden.

Things reached fever pitch a couple of weeks ago when a teenaged girl claimed she was snatched off the street in broad daylight and gangraped for 12 hours by three guys who she said had New Orleans accents. Houston's Third Ward was aboil for about 72 hours, until the girl finally confessed she made the whole thing up. In fact, she had run off and had consensual sex with a guy she met on myspace.

Some dude in Baton Rouge last weekend was bitching at me about all the New Orleans people there. Like, fuck you man, your city needs some excitement. I wish people would come home, though, before BR becomes the LA cultural center.