New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

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.

oh dude, i didn't know you were still in town, i would've given you a call.

it was a good weekend, i spent my birthday with the stooges @ rock bottom, played at donna's on friday, and rolled with the free agents for krewe du vieux. we had to start driving back before the rebirth second line on sunday, which hurt me deep in my soul.

Sounds like a great birthday. How long does it take to drive from New Orleans to Wisconsin? Just curious. DC is too far to drive from to Louisiana if you ask me (though some people do it).

it was about 14 - 15 hours from new orleans to cedar rapids, iowa (where the crews from minneapolis, madison, and chicago met up) and then another few hours home. a long-ass drive, but we had enough drivers to get a good rotation going.

phil f. played the second line on sunday btw

He's on the mend. That's great.

From Offbeat e-mail thing:

The Soul Rebels will record their show Friday night at the Blue Nile for an upcoming live CD. That likely means the show will be a) hot, and b) long. Funk band Dr. Gonzeaux will open. The Soul Rebels will spend Saturday night with Sparta, rolling in the parade on float 12: "Uranus." I assume that means the parade's theme has to do with astronomy and not words that make 14-year-old boys chuckle covertly to each other.

i saw soul rebels at rock n' bowl on saturday and there was like no one there. they sounded great though.

might go see rebirth in chicago tomorrow...

jordan let me know if u go, i might be checking it out too

what time does it start, do u know?

website says 10:00 but there's an opening band i don't really want to see. i'll text you when/if i go down.

History of the Zulus on their 100th anniversary and a preview of the Mardi Gras parade 2-24-09

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/travel/escapes/13Zulu.html?pagewanted=1&em

Louis Armstrong was a member

At 8 a.m. on Feb. 24, give or take an hour or so, the raucous Zulu parade will roll down Jackson Avenue from Claiborne Avenue, then make a left on St. Charles Avenue and head toward Canal Street. The parade consists of about two dozen colorful floats, each with up to 50 riders. But the raucousness isn’t what alarms visitors — this is, after all, New Orleans, and this is, after all, Mardi Gras.

Rather, it’s this: Many of those on the floats and marching with them are in blackface. What’s more, many also wear fright wigs and grass skirts and are handing coconuts to clamoring parade watchers.

The scene looks like something from an old social studies filmstrip about stereotypes and how to avoid them, the kind of thing that crops up today mostly in news accounts involving students being expelled from school.

Complicating matters, most of those in the parade are black.

Jordan or others, any of you ever see Snooks Eglin? He just passed away.

from the Snooks thread:
R.I.P. He was great and unique and the manner of his death as described below is very sad.

http://blog.nola.com/keithspera/2009/02/snooks_eaglin_19372009.html

New Orleans guitarist Snooks Eaglin dies at 72.Posted by Keith Spera, Music writer, The Times-Picayune February 18, 20092:30PM

Snooks Eaglin, the New Orleans rhythm & blues guitarist known for his dexterous finger-picking and boundless repertoire, died Wednesday afternoon.He was 72."He was the most New Orleans of all the New Orleans acts that are still living," said Mid-City Lanes owner John Blancher.Mr. Eaglin apparently checked into a hospital last week with high blood-pressure, then was released. He returned to Ochsner Medical Center on Tuesday, and went into cardiac arrest, Blancher said.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, February 19, 2009 3:38 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Mardi Gras coming soon

free hot 8 download at tru thoughts: www.tru-thoughts.co.uk/

i'm just glad they've definitively hit the studio again!

Mardi Gras is today/Tuesday but there's some sad news with it.

Keith Spera article http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/antoinette_kdoe_dies_on_mardi.html
Antoinette K-Doe, the irrepressible widow of rhythm & blues singer Ernie K-Doe who transformed the Mother-in-Law Lounge into a living shrine and community center, died early Tuesday after suffering a massive heart attack. She was 66.

"It was her personal mission to keep his memory alive," said Ben Sandmel, who is writing a biography of Ernie K-Doe. "But she also did so much for the community. It's a huge loss for the whole musicians' community of New Orleans."

Born Antoinette Dorsey, Mrs. K-Doe was a cousin of rhythm & blues singer Lee Dorsey. She had known Ernie K-Doe for many years before they became a couple around 1990.

At the time, the singer's best days were far behind him. After a string of hits in the early 1960s, most notably "Mother-in-Law," his career, and life bottomed out. By sheer force of will, she helped him return to the stage and transform himself into an icon of eclectic New Orleans. The couple married in 1994.

"She had him on a short leash," Sandmel said. "She cleaned him up and opened the lounge to give him a place to play."

Ernie K-Doe died in 2001. But thanks to his wife, he maintained a schedule of public appearances via a life-size, fully costumed, look-alike mannequin. Mrs. K-Doe referred to the mannequin as "Ernie."

As the mother hen of the Mother-in-Law Lounge, she presided over one of the city's most diverse, funky-but-chic watering holes. With its vibrant, larger-than-life exterior murals and adjoining gardens, the Lounge stood out on an otherwise rough stretch of North Claiborne Avenue.

As the Ernie mannequin looked on from its corner throne, Mrs. K-Doe served a mix of neighborhood regulars and hipsters from across the city. The Lounge was a favorite haunt of such non-traditional musicians as Mr. Quintron, the Bywater avant-garde keyboardist, inventor and marching band impresario.

The Lounge badly flooded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's levee breaches. In advance of the floodwaters, Mrs. K-Doe dismantled the mannequin, stored the pieces in plastic bags, and stowed them in an upstairs closet. In the months after the storm, she revived the Lounge with the aid of an army of volunteers and financial support from contemporary R&B star Usher.

Mrs. K-Doe suffered a minor heart attack during Mardi Gras 2008, but recovered. On Thursday, she rode in the Muses parade with the Ernie mannequin. She served as the honorary queen of the Cameltoe Ladysteppers marching organization.

Today she had planned to don the traditional Baby Doll costume and parade through the streets of Treme before returning to the lounge for what is always a busy day. She helped revive the tradition of the Baby Dolls marching organization, and was happy to see others take up the mantle.

Michelle Longino, a founder of the Bayou Steppers Social Aid and Pleasure Club, received Mrs. K-Doe's blessing to costume as a Baby Doll and come out with Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Monk Boudreaux on Mardi Gras morning.

"She told us that we needed to be proper Baby Dolls, not nasty Baby Dolls," Longino said. "Today we're going to call ourselves the Antoinette K-Doe Baby Dolls in her honor."

Around 3 a.m. Mardi Gras morning, Mrs. K-Doe awoke in her apartment above the Mother-in-Law Lounge and complained of feeling hot, said Gary Hughes, the husband of her adopted daughter, Jackie Coleman. She went downstairs and apparently suffered a heart attack on a sofa in the lounge.

Hughes, who was staying in the apartment at the time, said paramedics arrived quickly but could not revive Mrs. K-Doe.

Today's festivities at the Mother-in-Law Lounge will be in her honor.

"Mardi Gras was her holiday," Hughes said. "She loved Mardi Gras. We're going to run the lounge as if she was here and do it up this one last time for her."

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

Writer Ned Sublette will be speaking at Hunter college in NY on march 25 -- Maybe about New Orleans (or Cuba or Afro-Latin-Caribbean influences).

in other news, my new book, the year before the flood, is set to come out at the end of august, from lawrence hill books, the same company that published my two previous books. i just finished uploading the pictures. we're going to have a full-color (!) glossy 16-page insert of pictures this time. i hope to be doing some traveling to support the book in the fall. -from Ned's e-mail list

Damn, another death-R.I.P. pianist/singer Eddie Bo.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jr0mEPawrhstiFM70aCUkgTkIA-gD9722CP00

so apparently john scofield just put out a new orleans gospel record with george porter, jon cleary, john boutte, and shannon powell.

They're busy touring for this--but no John Boutte on tour. Nice review in the NY Times.

Trombone Shorty's doing the jam band circuit now with his band Orleans Avenue. That means a Baltimore gig but not DC.