New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

Aw man, I forgot about that even though I posted about it above. Doh!

Jon Pareles look back at this year's Jazzfest in the NY Times---the Andrews cousins, etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/arts/music/04jazz.html?th&emc=th

He also blogged a bit from there

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/jazzfest-behind-threadhead-records/

Good news...
http://blog.nola.com/davewalker/2009/05/hbo_gives_david_simons_treme_g.html

Looks like HBO will be doing the "Treme" series. Should be a great opportunity for the culture and music - not to mention New Orleans - some attention. Part of the show's theme is about the musicians - and at least in the pilot they were using several brass band musicians.

Yea, David Simon's been making the rounds doing interviews about the state of journalism and his various projects and I heard him discuss this briefly on public radio WAMU in DC. He's a big fan of New Orleans r'n'b. He goes to jazzfest every year and flew a group up to play his son's Bar Mitzvah.

The series' first-season story will begin several weeks after Hurricane Katrina and follow its characters -- based on real-life models Kermit Ruffins, Donald Harrison Jr. and Davis Rogan, among others -- at least through the first Mardi Gras after Katrina. Each subsequent season of the series would advance the story one year further from the storm.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/colley_photo_for_treme_story.html

I know they also used some local musicians in the "brass band" - including Trombone Shorty and Keith Frazier....not sure who else was included...but an article I came across also said Kermit plays himself in the show. This could have some great economic impact for NOLA in general, and the brass bands specifically...It sounds like they are trying to be as real as can be - it's always frustrating to see actors holding instruments with the wrong hands, etc - but they're doing the right homework and bringing in the right people to make it work....kudos to Simon and HBO.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-05-13/music/hopeful-dispatches-from-the-40th-jazz-heritage-festival

..............Hanging in the balance ever since the levees failed is the very existence of neighborhoods like Tremé, which is fast gentrifying (a 52 percent post-Katrina citywide rise in rents doesn't help). But such places have long sanctified what Jazz Fest sells.

....The second-liners and Indians were fewer in number this year, and their traditions are embattled beyond the Fair Grounds (the clubs have twice taken the city to federal court). But they were there, and things would've been a good deal less sacred were they not

Leroy Jones, the hometown trumpeter most deserving of wider acclaim, reassembled nearly all of the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band in tribute to banjo player and bandleader Danny Barker, and to a moment when a fading tradition was rejuvenated. Jones's carefully restrained, sweet-toned playing was featured in five other bands, which gets at one of Jazz Fest's great pleasures: the chance to hear favorite musicians in varied formats. Trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews (playing trumpet, too), and drummer Herlin Riley popped up on stage after stage.

Then there's the festival beyond the festival: beefed-up local gigs in between weekends. Trumpeter Terence Blanchard showcased a new edition of his quintet that gleamed with promise at tony Snug Harbor. Fellow trumpeter Michael Ray re-created Sun Ra's well-arranged psychedelia at the rough-hewn Zeitgeist. Pianist Henry Butler stormed through his former city, reasserting his primacy-in-exile at each stop. And Riley proved that no one hits harder, hipper, and more correctly nearly everywhere, and especially at the Blue Nile, with alto saxophonist Donald Harrison in organist Lonnie Smith's band.

The Fair Grounds is removed from the harsh realities outside its gates, but listen closely, and you'll get the news you need. "This is for all the people who are trying to bring charity back," singer John Boutté announced between tunes. He meant the larger virtue, by way of the latest local hot-button issue: the fight over Charity Hospital, the city's largest health care provider for the uninsured, which has stood vacant since Katrina.

Working musicians in New Orleans face steep enough challenges: Since Katrina, bookings are down by nearly half, while the cost of living has risen 11 percent, according to one recent survey.

...Tuba player Bennie Pete turned down a slot at the modest "Jazz & Heritage" stage for his Hot 8 Brass Band, requesting a bigger-draw tent based on his group's raised profile and international tours: "The festival has an opportunity to help lift up the local musicians," he said. "We want something to aspire to-not just surviving in the streets."

Yet despite hard times and spurred in part by disaster, local musicians have broadened their creative pursuits. Trumpeter Shamarr Allen's new CD is titled Box Who In? "Lately, I'm covering Ornette Coleman and Jimi Hendrix as often as Sidney Bechet and Duke Ellington," Christopher noted. Clarinetist Michael White, an authoritative if often buttoned-down traditionalist, wore a T-shirt and the smile of a pleased mentor while playing with the Hot 8 at Sound Café. And at the Jazz Tent three days later, he sported a colorful West African shirt with Fatien Ensemble, in collaboration with Seguenon Kone, whose balafon and dundun drums bespeak his native Ivory Coast. The group played a new tune of White's, "Ancestral Reunion," then a rhythmically realigned version of "St. James Infirmary."

"I think life as I knew it ended with Katrina," White had told me. "And I'm on to another one now."
-Larry Blumenfeld

From Keith Spera's obit

RIP Sam Butera, the hard-driving, hard-swinging New Orleans saxophonist who was Louis Prima's longtime musical partner, died Wednesday in Las Vegas following a long illness. He was 81.

A prodigy, he turned pro at 14, serving as the human jukebox for strippers on Bourbon Street. "I worked at every joint on that street," he recounted. "You name it and I worked it. All those girls wanted to do was mother me."

At 18, he was voted the "Outstanding Teenage Musician in America" by Look Magazine at Carnegie Hall in New York. After graduating from Holy Cross High School, he considered Notre Dame University scholarships for music and track and a career in mechanical engineering. Instead he hit the road with big bands led by Ray McKinley, Tommy Dorsey and Al Hirt.

By late 1954, he'd cut several records under his own name. He often performed at the 500 Club on Bourbon Street, which was owned by Prima's brother Leon. Looking to staff his new band at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, Prima scouted Mr. Butera at the 500 Club and offered him a job.

More bad news from Offbeat magazine's weekly e-mail:

I was sorry to hear that Marva Wright has had a stroke (read down for more information) and shocked to hear that the lovely Lionel "Uncle Lionel" Batiste had been mugged last week outside of his residence on Frenchmen and Royal Street. Mr. Batiste is fine, but did receive a minor cut on his head, and of course, the violation of being mugged. What are these stupid thugs thinking anyway?

FFS, is Uncle Lionel not one of the most recognizable persons the Marigny/Quarter/Treme? There's an extra-hot wing of hell reserved for anyone who would mug him.

And be well, marva.

yeah, that's messed up. i wonder if he fought the muggers off with his sword cane.

Jordan's band is on tour folks-

Jordan, I'm gonna plug your band, Mama Digdown's tour here:

June 16th - Dick's Den, Colombus OH
June 17th - Bertha's Restaurant & Bar, Baltimore MD
June 18th - Chick Hall's Surf Club, Hyattsville, MD (outside Wash. DC)
June 19th - Turntables on the Hudson @ Water Taxi Beach, Queens, NY
June 20th - Mermaid Parade, Coney Island
June 20th - Flatbush Farm, Brooklyn, NYC
June 21st - Rose Live Music block party, Brooklyn NYC

I missed Rebirth Saturday at the Washington Monument grounds. Heard they were great. Missed Dr. Michael White too, at a paid gig with Pacquito D'Rivera.

yeah, i was checking out the d.c. city paper and it looks like there's been all kinds of new orleans music going on there.

thanks for the hype. i hope we have time to do a little busking at dupont circle on the 18th as well.

And if you don't busk there, head down to Wilson Plaza near the Reagan Building where they have live music most days from noon to 1:30. You can busk once the gig ends maybe for workers and tourists... Or maybe do both. After Wilson plaza, jump on the subway and head up to Dupont Circle...

Did you do any busking? How did the NYC shows go?

great! the rest of the shows were well-attended and hittin'. we did busk at dupont circle the day after the chick's show, made some gas money and sold some cds for sure. thanks again for your help.

tbc brass band has a studio album out, on this weird little l.a. label. it's all good, but at least four tracks are straight, unadulterated fire.

So I guess I gotta give in and pay $15.99 plus postage for it. Have not checked to see if cheaper downloads are for sale anywhere.

As far as regional bands go, Primate Fiasco in Western New England do some mean Dixieland, though mixed in as it is with all kinds of country-blues-psychedelia, so it's not for the purists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rjL44jav7U

(that's keith, not phil btw)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/08/06/cnnheroes.derrick.tabb/index.html

I'm gonna miss Rebirth at the State Theatre in Virginia next week when I'm out in Oakland for work. I might go see hornman and Satchmo voice imitator (and cousin of Trombone Shorty) Glenn Andrews and band band do a mostly unpublicized show for free out in suburban Reston, VA Saturday night.

August 16th at the Kennedy Ctr. Millennium Stage for free (and weebcast) -The Marine Corps Band's Dixieland Ensemble performs selections from the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth Brass Bands, New Orleans' street music, and original charts

Interesting

the typo is mine

I keep missing Rebirth. I was up in NYC with my son and they were playing a late show at a club.

Interesting article Ned Sublette forwarded around about the current population in New Orleans. Here's an excerpt from "The changing face -- and faces -- of New Orleans" by Sarah Carr, The Times-Picayune Sunday August 23, 2009, :

Smith laments the loss of a more vibrant Treme, where children as young as 2 were exposed to the city's musical traditions. Four years ago he said he often saw youths on Dumaine Street forming makeshift bands with pots, pans and bottles.

As the children grew, older musicians provided instruments and training.

"You don't see the grouping of kids making the magic of sound as part of play, " Smith said. "You don't have the relationships that produced Louis Armstrong, that produced Trombone Shorty."

Smith said the city "still showcases the big nickel events, like Jazzfest.
But the bottom, where all that comes from, has been very compromised."

Participation in Tambourine and Fan, the youth club Smith formed in 1968 to preserve New Orleans' cultural traditions, has dropped from more than 500 children before Katrina to about 200 now.

He points to his own 17-year-old grandson, who became fascinated with brass-band music before he was big enough to hold some of the instruments, as an example of what might be lost.

Before Katrina, he played in the band at Thurgood Marshall Middle School.
But he's stopped playing, for now.

"When people ask why, he'll say he isn't comfortable, " Smith said. "So much of what he left isn't here anymore."

Even Perry, who moved to New Orleans just a year before Katrina, has experienced a similar feeling. Welcomed to the city in his first months by a friendly, stable community of coffee drinkers at CC's on Esplanade Avenue, he walks in now and sees "so many new faces, I never know where they have settled, or if they've settled, or if they're here for one week."

He believes, however, that an intangible sense of place will continue to define both New Orleans, and those who live here, as it has for centuries.

"There are no clean slates, " Perry said. "As soon as you settle in a place, you hit an air of culture, of history, of politics. That mitigates all your plans. It shapes you."

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/the_katrinaimposed_exile_of_ne.html

4 years since Katrina. Harry Shearer is mad Obama is not pledging more money for restoring wetlands and fixing levees --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/playing-the-inside-game_b_266746.html
Obama supporters chided me, back in January and February, to "give him some time, he's only been in office for a month/two months/three months." I guess they knew what I didn't, that the presidency gets easier as you go along, that progressively fewer surprises get dumped on your desk as time passes. Obama's remarks about New Orleans during the campaign were anodyne boilerplate, and what he's giving us now is more of the same. He won't even do the obligatory photo-op in the city on 8/29; he told the Times-Picayune he'll come down "before the end of the year". He didn't say which year.

Rebirth Brass Band visiting Hull in 2 weeks. I am totally on it.

Cool.

Ned Sublette is having book release events for his new effort--"The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans." Today (Wednesday) at 5:30 p.m. at Garden District Book Shop, 2727 Prytania St.; Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Mother-in-Law Lounge, 1500 N. Claiborne Ave. (with live music); and Friday, 5-7 p.m., at the Community Book Center, 2523 Bayou Road. http://www.nola.com/books/index.ssf/2009/09/ned_sublette_remembers_new_orl.html

below is from another blog (oops I forgot the link)
The party will be at the Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans: Thursday, September 24. It's going to be the best party ever: live music, two hours of open bar and yes, there will be gumbo.

We've hear talk from friends in New York that they want to come down for it. We'll have a party in New York too, but we'll only have one party at the Mother-In-Law, and you really don't want to miss it.

The Mother-In-Law Lounge, from which the Soul of New Orleans and the Mardi Gras Indians, Antoinette K-Doe. Godmother of the Baby Dolls -- RIP -- directed all good things for her City.

The Year Before the Flood" is not a "Katrina book," but rather a reminder of what life was like "the last year the city was whole," Sublette said, here in the place he calls the northernmost point of the "Saints and Festivals belt." And when he writes of a post-Katrina second-line, with the crowd chanting "Reee-birth!" he says, "Were they supporting the band, or shouting to their city? It was the same thing."

I wonder who's running things over at Mother-in-Law now that Antoinette's gone (RIP).
Also, who's making the gumbo?

Both good questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1MCx1vkOtg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNYGheRf8e0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyx-PJ6hG54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaWqGvv9saU

Those parades (and Rebirth) are awesome.

Now this Ned Sublette hosted event will be pretty cool too (in a different kind of way). I saw Yale prof Robert Farris Thompson do a talk on African and Latin music once that was awesome. He is a showman and an intellectual.

At the invitation of the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, I've organized an event that will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, November 14 in New Orleans. I believe the title we've settled on is "Congo Square: Crossroads of the Afro-Atlantic World." I will give a talk about what the bamboula of Congo Square probably sounded like, with the help of Alex Lasalle on percussion, followed by a talk titled "Kongo with a 'K'" by none other than Master T himself, Robert Farris Thompson, and a panel with Freddi Williams Evans, Connie Zeanah Atkinson, Herreast Harrison, and Luther Gray, and a workshop/party with Alex Lasalle and New Orleans percussionists. This is in association with the J & HF's Congo Square Rhythms Festival, which takes place the following day.

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=2444#comment-11501

That link is in part about hiphop funky New Orleans brass banders influencing balkan style brass groups

fuck "honk!" imo

Yep. And some of that I did not get.

But here's some more interesting news:

Derrick Tabb, Rebirth Brass Band drummer and founder of The Roots of Music education program in New Orleans, is one of 10 nominees for CNN’s Hero of the Year. The Times-Picayune ArchiveDerrick Tabb of the Rebirth Brass drummer and founder of The Roots of Music program heard that he’d be a finalist for CNN's Hero of the Year award via a phone call Wednesday night. Thursday, Anderson Cooper announced the finalists on CNN.
He receives $25,000 for the honor, and will join the other nominees – who include the founder of a mobile soup kitchen in New York, an Indonesian orphanage operator and a Filipino literacy advocate – at “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute,” to be televised at 8 p.m. November 26.

At that event, one of the 10 will be selected CNN Hero of the Year and will be awarded an additional $100,000.

Just curious, why the honk hate? A friend of mine went last year (has connections with Bread and Puppets,) and it seemed interesting to me.

this is my own problem, but i'm a hater when it comes to "wacky" brass bands, especially when they play new orleans brass band tunes. the real bands have such a deep connection to the music and the level of musicianship is so high, it seems really lame and borderline disrespectful when 20 people put on silly hats, pull out their high school instruments, and play shitty & funkless versions of rebirth songs. even though it's fun music, it's something i take seriously, so i don't have time for bands to whom it's a joke.

Fair enough. That linked band didn't do much for me, either. I was thinking more along the lines of Minneapolis' Brass Messengers, a group I like a lot, silly hats and all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N70ghC4mxcY

yeah, they're obviously going for something totally different. i'm not especially interested in that kind of brass band music, but it's cool. i know the clarinet player, he plays in a traditional jazz band in the cities with the sousaphonist from my band.

i could keep linking awful honk! bands but what's the point, when there are so many good second line videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIEXRRDAqBU