New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

THE 22nd ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER OPEN HOUSE ARTS FESTIVAL:
Featuring Sounds Along the Gulf Coast Highway

Sat., Sept. 16
12 p.m.-7 p.m.
Throughout the building
FREE (some events may
require free tickets)

The 22nd annual Kennedy Center Open House Arts Festival celebrates the Center’s 35th birthday with more than 30 performances, activities and events for the whole family presented throughout the building. A parade featuring a marching band, The Wild Magnolias, Tremè Brass Band, ArcheDream, and DC dance company Step Afrika, kicks off at noon near the Hall of Nations entrance and progresses along the Center’s main plaza. This year’s festival highlights the arts of the Gulf Coast region—following fabled U.S. Route 90 from San Antonio Texas, through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Jacksonville, Florida. The festival also presents programming selections from the 2006-2007 Season at the Kennedy Center and Washington, D.C. area artists.

NOTE: Complete Open House Schedule to be issued later.

From the Los Angeles Times

New Orleans Endures the `New Normal'
Sure, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest came back. But everyday life in the city remains shattered.
By Ann M. Simmons, Times Staff Writer
July 15, 2006

excerpts:
"At the end of the school year, 25 of 128 New Orleans public schools had reopened; and just 12,000 of the city's 60,000 students had returned. By September, 57 schools with space for up to 34,000 students are expected to be open, although according to school officials, there only will be staff to handle 22,000."

"The low-income workers lived in public housing units, most of which are still closed. Meanwhile, house prices and rents have skyrocketed.
Public housing residents have been clamoring to return, and over the last few weeks, hundreds have been coming home for the first time since the storm. Residents of St. Bernard Housing Development in the 7th Ward, who had erected a "Survivors Village" outside the city's largest public housing complex, recently learned the units are among hundreds slated for demolition under a federal plan to rid New Orleans of obsolete public housing in favor of modern developments.

The tenants said they planned to fight the decision, but housing officials, citing safety concerns such as collapsing lumber and mold, said the demolition would move ahead."

As the world starts documenting the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, WDSU gets in the game locally this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. with "A Song for New Orleans."

The film focuses on the Rebirth Brass Band,
their experiences and losses due to Katrina, and the
return of the band and their music to New Orleans.
The feature will be aired this evening in New Orleans,
and will be repeated twice during the week of the
Katrina Anniversary. The Executive Producer,
Emerson Coleman, VP of Programming for Hearst-
Argyle Television in New York, had seen Rebirth and
was interested in using the story of the band as a
hopeful symbol for the rebirth of New Orleans’ music
and culture. The film includes interviews with
OffBeat publisher Jan Ramsey, Tipitina’s
manager Adam Shipley, and interviews and
performances with Charmaine Neville, Kermit
Ruffins, Donald Harrison, Jr. and, of course, the
members of Rebirth Brass Band. "A Song For New
Orleans" will also be broadcast on Hearst-Argyle
stations throughout the US in the coming weeks.
Check your local listings for air times.Check out the links here for information on "A Song"... - http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=kka5txbab.0.kg6vuxbab.ks58lun6.3064&ts=S0198&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wdsu.com

www.katrinadinner2006.com

Oh! HBO is showing Spike Lee's New Orleans/second-line documentary on Monday and Tuesday night. Some dudes from my band might be in it. I need to get friends with cable stat.

New Orleans bands that rarely traveled before Katrina, continue to hit the road. The Treme Brass band are coming to DC in September to get a National Heritage Award, and will be playing at the award ceremony out in the Maryland burbs (Strathmore) and 2 shows at the Kennedy Center.

Not sure about other New Orleans brass bands--Stooges, Hot 8, Treme, etc. They all have been playing some gigs around the US over the summer it seems, but nothing too regular back home...

One New Orleans Procession
Free
One New Orleans Procession in the tradition of a Jazz Funeral from the Convention Center to the Superdome. Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré will be the Grand Marshall of the One New Orleans Procession. Also Honoring 1st Responders, the lives lost in Katrina, and the rebirth of New Orleans. Everyone is invited to participate.

And for those with money to spare:

Wynton Marsalis : Rebuilding the Soul of America Katrina Anniversary Events
August 27, 2006 : August 30, 2006
Visit website for more info
http://www.celebratejazz.org
Various Locations
More details to follow...
Admission: $50.00 : $2500.00
Wynton Marsalis will return to New Orleans to produce a television special marking the hurricane’s anniversary. Wynton and his production partner Lisa Marie Hoggs will team with producers John Cossette and Don Mischer to helm “New Orleans: Rebuilding the Soul of America One Year Later,” a live television special taking place at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center. He is also planning a three:day tribute to New Orleans, from August 27 through the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, to include in the television special. The event will feature the Ambassador of Swing Talent Search at Harrah’s New Orleans Theater, including performances by Wynton Marsalis, jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson and some of the hottest local talent in Louisiana and Mississippi; and Cooking with Music, an event featuring Lagasse and Marsalis to welcome back New Orleans school children.

Branford Marsalis is the guest editor, so I guess it was up to him, although it is interesting that he (rightfully so, I think) downplays the Marsalis reputation as the "first family of New Orleans jazz".

Part of a Reuters syndicated Billboard article

By Chris Walsh

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Before Hurricane Katrina hit, Tanio Hingle lived in a house in the Treme section of New Orleans with his wife and three kids, gigging around town with the New Birth Brass Band. The eight-piece played four or five times a week in places like Joe's Cozy Corner, Donna's Bar & Grill, Tipitina's and House of Blues.

Since Katrina, Hingle and his family have been living in an apartment in Houston; he drives back to New Orleans to repair the house when he's not playing shows. "We're still not back to normal. We're trying to get there," he says. "The insurance money wasn't enough to cover house repairs."

Today the band mostly plays shelters, schools and churches -- sometimes the airport. Hingle's been able to get one or two gigs a week, which come mostly as referrals from Bethany Bultman, co-founder and executive director of the New Orleans Musicians Clinic. Bultman set up the NOMC Emergency Fund last year, after Katrina.

"We're hoping to create opportunities for the musicians to play in shelters and schools," she says. "We want to keep the culture alive."

Support directly to NOMC includes approximately $80,000 from Bruce Springsteen, about $25,000-$30,000 from Bonnie Raitt, plus contributions from Huey Lewis, Pearl Jam and others. "Gig fees" from donors go directly to musicians. One goal: to save the traditional music of New Orleans.

NEW INSTRUMENTS

And NOMC's not alone in that mission. On Tuesday (August 29), the one-year anniversary of Katrina, the Tipitina's Foundation will host a ceremony at the legendary Tipitina's Uptown venue to hand over $500,000 in new instruments to 11 New Orleans school music programs. The ceremony will feature performances by Ivan Neville and the Original Uptown Allstars with the Dirty Dozen Horns, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, the Rebirth Brass Band and other locals [Soul Rebels]
Terence Blanchard is a Blue Note recording artist who wrote the soundtrack music to Spike Lee's four-hour documentary, "When the Levees Broke," which premiered in two parts on HBO August 21-22. A New Orleans native, Blanchard moved back to the city in March.

"It's not alive and well -- it's alive," he says of the state of music in his hometown. "Many of the musicians are still not home. Many are in Dallas and Houston. They actually travel from Dallas and Houston to New Orleans to play.

"When Spike (Lee) came to my old neighborhood, I wanted to show it off. But there was nothing alive there. No insects, rodents, birds, nothing. It was all dead. There's my house and the street where I used to play football with my friends and the picture window that I used to look out from while practicing my piano lessons."

Reuters/Billboard

http://www.neworleansnetwork.org/anniversary

In repeated nods to the city's extraordinary cultural past, Mr. Bush visited the home of the music legend Fats Domino in the Lower Ninth Ward and listened to a brass band. He talked about restoring the "soul" of New Orleans, even as he was forced to acknowledge that much of the damage had not yet been repaired. The city, he said, was calling its children home.

"I know you love New Orleans, and New Orleans needs you," Mr. Bush said. "She needs people coming home. She needs people -- she needs those saints to come marching back, is what she needs."

I saw some of Rebirth Brass on tv last night as the TV One network showed that SOng for New Orleans documentary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901315.html

The Singles File
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; Page C05

-- Chris Richards

DJ BC: "Dirty Brass"

A wedding DJ from Boston strikes mash-up gold, coupling a vintage ODB verse with the hustling horns of New Orleans's Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Download it at http://djbc.net/mashes/wu .

The Singles File
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; Page C05

-- Chris Richards

DJ BC: "Dirty Brass"

A wedding DJ from Boston strikes mash-up gold, coupling a vintage ODB verse with the hustling horns of New Orleans's Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Download it at http://djbc.net/mashes/wu .

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/us/081201presidentbush/im:/060829/480/e7de6f11593e40c381a68613b689ee9b?sp=-1&lsp=3000

from the gumbopages Looka blog:
The Arabi Wrecking Krewe, a group of amazing volunteers who've been helping to bring musicians back to New Orleans and gutting their flooded homes for them, most recently took on the wrecked New Orleans East home of legendary saxophone player Kidd Jordan

The Rebirth Brass Band and some school bands at a Tipitina's Foundation event

(and probably a khaki work shirt, but we'll all be wearing the same thing...I'm one of the shorter guys with black hair, but not one of the two shorter guys with black hair who play the trumpet)

Treme needs someone to update their website (and the Stooges Brass Band apparently never decided to learn tech stuff from you Jordan, and keep that site updated). Treme want to release a new cd but don't have a label.

I can't get to the Louisiana Music Factory website right now, but it looks like the Original Pinstripe Brass Band has a new record out. They've got a more traditional style than Rebirth/Hot 8/Stooges/Soul Rebels/etc., but they're way funky.

There's another video of the Hot 8 up on youtube. It looks to me like they're playing at the big second line that happened in January, but I wasn't back in N.O. yet so I'm not sure. Anyone know?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfOqPg4hKCc

And here's a piece about trad BB music I did for WWOZ the other day.

http://wwozstreettalk.blogspot.com/

Aug. 21st posting-
"Sousaphone player Jeffrey Hills is a family man with a wife and three kids. Before the storm, they lived in public housing and Jeffrey was known for playing with the big time Olympia Brass Band.

Since Katrina, the Hills have lived in three states, unable to find a way to return to the city. Now they're in Houston. Jeffrey makes the 5 hour commute every week to keep his regular gig at Harrah's Casino.

I caught up with him in between sets, hanging out in his car."

http://houstonpress.com/Issues/2006-10-19/news/feature_full.html

SAYING GOODBYE

Producer/engineer Keith Keller died [of a heart attack]September
6. At Chez Flames, his studio on Annunciation
Street, he produced a variety of musicians, from
Alex Chilton to G. Love and Special
Sauce to Rebirth Brass Band to King
Sonny Ade and Charlie Musselwhite. A jazz
funeral has been arranged to escort Keller’s ashes
to the Mississippi River, where some will be
scattered on the waters. The jazz funeral with the
Treme Brass Band starts Saturday at 1 p.m. at
the Backstreet Cultural Museum (1116 St. Claude
Ave.) and proceeds on St. Claude to St. Phillip, St.
Phillip to Rampart, Rampart to Conti, Conti to
Decatur, Decatur to Iberville and Iberville to
Woldenberg Park and the Mississippi. All are welcome
to help say goodbye to Keller.

What happened to Joe's son?