New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

Well Glen David Andrews did speak to Offbeat, if not to ILXer Tapestore. There's an interview in the latest issue, not sure if it's available online at their website or elsewhere. The ever-opinionated Andrews while stating he likes Hot 8, badmouths without naming names the younger more hip-hop influenced brass bands, while talking about how important it is to know you brass band music history, and how he now plays at Preservation Hall. Gotta run, I'll mention more later.

The Glenn D. Andrews Interview by John Swenson in Offbeat is online:
http://offbeat.com/artman/publish/article_2941.shtml

Here's part of it:

A lot of the older people have been sidelined since Katrina. You didn’t have to drown to be kept from being able to do what you were doing before. It seems like a big part of the social infrastructure that kept the traditional brass bands going is just gone.
They ran them off. I used to talk to [Olympia’s] Doc Watson all my days. I would just call him and talk to him; he ain’t here to do that anymore. There’s no Tuba Fats left in the Sixth Ward. Tuba Fats taught everybody and not just about the music. He took us to London every year to play, and he took us to Amsterdam.
I talk to Irvin Mayfield a lot. He says, “They know what you’re trying to do. They don’t like people that speak out.” You go against the grain, they stay away from you. Everything’s a clique. That’s why the city’s in the trouble it’s in.

(Q)With so many of the older keepers of the flame out of commission or out of the city, it falls on younger guys like you not only symbolize the new blood in the brass band sound, but now you’ve got to uphold the old tradition, too.

(A)When I saw the Olympia Brass Band for the first time I was like six, seven years old. I knew I wanted to be a part of that. I knew when I saw James (Andrews) at the World’s Fair I knew I was going to be playing with him. I grew up with it in the Treme, it was all around me. Ironing Board Sam. James Black lived around the corner. I grew up with the Olympia, the Pinstripe band all my life, and I realize that’s my niche. I love to sing the old tunes. Every Sunday when I get on the stand at Preservation Hall, I get a chill.

What’s your ideal repertoire for playing there?
I always try to play some Bunk Johnson, some Punch Miller, some Red Allen.

At places like Fritzel’s they play traditional jazz like classical music, note for note reproductions.
I’ve only seen one black musician play there in the 27 years of my life and that was Gregg Stafford. The best place you’re going to get down there [on Bourbon Street] is the Maison Bourbon; Jamil Sharif is there to commemorate the traditional music. That’s the thing about the tradition. You’ve got to know “Sunny Side of the Street” before you can know “Gimme a Dime.” You’ve got to know the tradition. And that’s what’s happening with these new brass bands. It’s the same thing with these Indian chiefs. Everybody wants to be the Big Chief now. There’s like 23 chiefs now; nobody wants to start off being the Spyboy.

So you see your role now, at 27 years old, as an older guy passing along the tradition?
People don’t respect the tradition. The young people don’t seem to respect much. If I’m playing at the Rock ’n’ Bowl, everybody wears suits and ties. Suits and ties. At Preservation Hall, if you don’t come out there with a coat and tie, you can go home. You could be the tuba player, somebody I need. If you don’t come with a suit and tie, you can go home. Tuba Fats told me that’s the way you run a band. You’ve got to pay them, make sure everybody’s looking good and professional and sounding good. Otherwise it’s going to fall on you.

You were also part of the brass band new wave with the Rascals and New Birth.
I did the song “Gimme a Dime, I only got 8” with New Birth. But that ain’t what I want to do. I’m through with that. The new shit dishes the old folks.

So you put that aside.
It’s violence. It’s not music. It’s one chord over the same groove over and over. No offense to the Hot 8. My brother Derek started that band. No offense to the Soul Rebels. I like all those people as people. I don’t want to listen to that. “That’s the street thing,” they say. “I’m trying to do something new.” How the hell are you going to do that if you don’t know where it came from? Do you know “Palm Court Strut?” Do you know who Danny Barker was? You need to find out about some of these things. You need to go by George Buck and get you a couple of them records.

What do you think the future is for brass band music?
There’s not enough cooperation among the younger brass band players. All the white players stick together. All these so-called retro jazz bands, I don’t hear anything I like down on Frenchmen Street outside of Snug Harbor except if it’s John Boutte. It’s sad.

If you’re going to play the traditional music do it the right way. The Storyville Stompers. They’re doing traditional music the right way. Rebirth works so hard and travels up and down that road, so they’re going to survive. Them and the Dozen are all right. Not all the individuals in those bands are all right financially, but those bands are all right as far as work. But I’ve got to worry about myself.

Start w/ Dirty Dozen Brass Band, then maybe that SoulJazz comp of New Orleans funk. Lot of cross over I think. So far as current bands are concerned, not sure since the city barely exists anymore. Early Dr. John is worth checking too.

so rong

U-haul, try reading the thread and you will get ideas on the current status of things.

So far as current bands are concerned, not sure since the city barely exists anymore.

fuck you

btw i bought my ticket for april 25th, playing at donna's that night and at ray's boom boom room (w/bob fr3nch) on april 28th.

I wanna go and stick around for Ponderosa Stomp

I'm psyched about the Trombone Shorty / Lazy 6 double bill at SXSW Thursday night, especially after reading that interview with G.D. All I've ever seen him play is the street stuff.

And the Ponderosa Stomp folks are doing a bill at SxSW also

The official Ponderosa site says in two places that the show is happening on March 14, 2007. Oops.

Went last year at SXSW and it was a really good show; don't know if I will make it this time around because of its location. Once you head down to the Continental you are kind of there for the whole night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppv21Wzb_2s

stooges second line vid. is that big sam on trombone?

2008. Another year in which family and work is keeping me from the French Quarter Fest, Jazz & Heritage Fest, and the Ponderosa Stomp. Oh well.

thought y'all would be discussing this: the kid who killed dinerral shavers gets off scot free. ah, this broken ass city.

i heard about that, that's fucked up.

April 10, 2008

For many months now, we have found the motivation for an entire public awareness movement in one case that has meant a lot to us personally. Dinerral Shavers was our friend and our brother. His murder on December 28, 2006 inspired us to call on our leaders and our fellow citizens to do more for each other and for our city. For over a year now, Dinerral’s murder case has been the focus of our efforts to demand more from our criminal justice system in particular. During this time, we have seen a new Violent Offenders Unit formed at the office of the District Attrorney, and more experienced prosecutors take over murder cases. We have seen an ineffective District Attorney forced from office through public pressure. We have seen new levels of cooperation between police officers and prosecutors begin to slow the notorious revolving door at Orleans Parish Prison, in both directions.

This evening, we also had to watch as Dinerral’s murder case ended in what we must accept as justice, but can hardly embrace as resolution. The defendant in Dinerral’s case was found not guilty by a jury today. So ends the case that has focused us, inspired us, and channeled our energies for over a year.

But the end of Dinerral’s case cannot mark the end of our movement, or of the determination of all New Orleans citizens to raise our voices when we see injustice, inaction, and silence in the face of violence. We will continue to engage with our neighbors and our leaders: to hold our government accountable, but also, as Judge Jerome Winsberg wisely counseled at the conclusion of today’s proceedings, to look inside ourselves and hold ourselves responsible for the chaotic societal circumstances that are breeding violent crime, and which caused Dinerral’s death.

In his closing comments, Judge Winsberg expressed “shock” at what he witnessed during the trial. The way these children are living is not okay, he said, comparing inner-city New Orleans unfavorably with Baghdad. “It is appalling…it is shocking…” over and over said a judge who has presided over scores of criminal cases. The world our young people are living in came to terrifying light through the fearful testimony of witnesses, justifiably afraid; through the defendant’s assertion that he sells drugs in order “to help my family” (this forming part of the defense in this trial); through the repeated references to petty but clearly deadly turf wars being fought by children too young to drive from one neighborhood to another.

We should all heed Judge Winsberg’s call for citizen outrage at these situations, and at many other realities that were rendered more stark than ever over the course of this case:

That brazen intimidation of witnesses is such an ingrained part of the system that witnesses can be threatened while on the stand—and the juror who points out the threats removed.
That police investigations lack the rigor and thoroughness that can stand up in court.
That our standards for education and family are so low that our young people believe that living without parents, taking care of other people’s babies, and dropping out of school are normal modes of youth.

We are not satisfied to be leaving Dinerral’s case behind without a cleaner resolution. But at least we have seen real energy, real attention, and real concern directed toward an inner-city murder case. This, at least, we can take as a step forward—so long as our system commits to treating every murder case with this level of sincerity and seriousness.

“This is our system,” said Judge Winsberg today. “It’s the system we must live by.” We are asking each of you, on behalf of these confused young people, to get to know this system better so we can understand how to fix it. As painful as it is, go watch a murder trial. As reluctant as they may seem, reach out to a troubled young person in your neighborhood. As busy as you may be, take the time to attend a City Council meeting. Clearly, we citizens must continue the hard work of repairing our own city and creating a world for our children that makes some kind of sense.

Our anti-violence movement has been motivated by Dinerral Shavers’s death; many of our programs are influenced by the way Dinerral lived his life. One of these programs, our Youth Music Clinics, will have a final meeting for the spring this coming Tuesday evening, from 6 to 8pm at Sound Cafe. You are all invited to join us. Come show support for and solidarity with these young aspiring musicians as they try to find a positive path through the societal chaos around them.

www.silenceisviolence.org

holy shit:

Witness in Shaver's trial is shot to death
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/new_orleans_man_killed_in_iris.html

That's horrible

I read some online commenters blaming Shaver's son and wife. Saying stuff like 'they must know who did it.' What a sad mess.

Meanwhile its festival time and no matter how much money New Orleans makes, there's no guarantee that it will be anywhere near enough to help address the city's unending problems (without further support from elsewhere on the educational front, the economic front, the law and order and justice front) although it obviously can't hurt

on a lighter note, i'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of brass bands this weekend.

Have a great time.

http://offbeat.com/artman/publish/article_3058.shtml

this is kind of a weird article. there are a lot of little errors, and the premise is "why no new brass band cds?" when it ignores the free agents record, the pinstripes record, the original royal players thing that just came out, etc..

and since it even covers the new album that rebirth is releasing at jazzfest and the ones that hot 8 and the rebels are working on (and supposedly the stooges have a new album coming out for jazzfest too), it's kind of a negative approach to take for the article. i guess any brass band coverage is good, though.

It's kinda odd that he starts with this 'nothing was happening in '07' lede, but then reluctantly must admit that well, there is stuff happening.

Not New Orleans except in spirit and smarts(and studies, prob): a lotta good horns on Easy Beatles, a collection of wild Beatles covers from the Sixties (check forcedexposure.com)

Jordan, maybe you can give Offbeat writer John Swenson grief for his brass band overview Friday night down there at this Offbeat magazine event:

We're having a First-Day-of- Fest-Party at the Seahorse Saloon on the opening Friday of Jazz Fest from 7pm-9pm with music by the Free Agents Brass Band

ha, actually i was planning on being there anyway.

oh shit, this dude put up 15 videos of a hot 8 second line: http://www.youtube.com/user/widgetbrain

A quiet Friday and weekend around DC is not like seeing all the action at the J & H Fest and at area clubs down there. There's finally "Ponderosa Stomp" at the Fest this year, in addition to the 2 nights at HOB Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll just look at those youtube videos and the Offbeat calendar issue I got in the mail and yearn (or maybe buy more cds since I'm not paying for airfare, hotel, food and stuff).

From Alex Rawl's blog (he's an Offbeat Editor)who also spoke at the EMP Pop Conference- talking about New Orleans jazz fest

Susan Cowsill played the Acura Stage for the first time, and debuted two new songs (that I saw - I missed the start of the set), one that she finished that morning and the band learned before the show, and a stronger pop song titled "Dragonfly." Underused fiddle player Tom Maron joined her for the set, and she brought James Andrews, Craig Klein and Derek Huston out to add horns to "Crescent City Snow." I wasn't sure where horns went in the song, but they fit beautifully, adding texture and intensity more than punctuation, and Andrews' trumpet played the bright blare associated with New Orleans.

While at Cowsill's set, I had time to marvel at the horror of the new Grand Marshal area. The audience was backed up at least five yards - now approximately 10 yards from the stage - so that those wealthy enough to make the $450+ price tag had room to wander up and loiter comfortably during the show while fans were pressed against the railing. The area runs the width of the stage, so it's not just a pocket at stage center. It's a strip of prime real estate that has been turned over to the rich.

http://offbeatpoplife.blogspot.com/

Here's his site.

I wonder if any New Yorkers saw the following movie at the Tribeca Film Fest over the weekend (I also think there are a few showings coming up).

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

Faubourg Tremé is a first-person documentary by New Orleans natives Dawn Logsdon and Lolis Eric Elie. Drawing on several years of pre-Hurricane Katrina footage, the film brings alive the history of Black New Orleans through an in-depth look at one historic neighborhood, the Faubourg Tremé. Executive produced by Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Nelson, the film follows journalist and first-time filmmaker Lolis Eric Elie, who sets out to renovate his 19th-century house in this now deteriorating neighborhood. Drawn to the architecture and its mix of old and new, Elie soon finds that the history of this place is the real story. This once vibrant neighborhood, he learns, was in fact the center of African American economic independence and political activism from slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. In recent years, the Faubourg Tremé, now more often referred to as the Sixth Ward, has suffered from blight, drugs, and crime, and even more recently was devastated by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina-the effects of which we see here in heartbreaking detail. Yet Logsdon and Elie bring an insightful perspective to the retelling of this community's past, particularly through its literary and musical artifacts. http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Faubourg_Treme_The_Untold_Story_of_Black_New_Orleans.html

I'm not crazy about Wynton's attitude on some subjects so I wonder what his exec producer role entailed, and I'm curious if he and hornman Glenn David Andrews who is in this, got along (maybe they had no dealings with one another).

Oh, Lolis Eric Elie is a Times-Picayune columnist

http://toulousestreet.wordpress.com/

I don’t know how many of the happy hippy mud dancers or tourists at the Jazz and Heritage Stage at Jazz Fest Sunday understood what it meant when little Dinerral Shavers Junior took the stage holding his father’ s instrument, the snare drum, with his father’s band, the Hot 8. For a kid who didn’t look much older than seven or eight he did a creditable job. I just wish I’d gotten a decent picture. You can see a bit of a blur in one picture of one of the two young men from one of the marching clubs that joined the band on stage. Seeing those three young boys walking in their father’s steps was impressive and encouraging.

May the line of warrior drummers be unbroken in New Orleans.

Can anyone recommend for me a contemporary brass band album? I really enjoy this shit, especially live, but have the sinking feeling that I might not have an appetite for more than one CD's worth. So I want to make sure that I start out on the right foot. But there are sooo many places to go wrong - cheesy bands, over-produced or over-arranged bands, smooth bands, bad recordings, too MOR or too ramshackle, etc etc etc. So: help?

I have been listening to this New York City Live thing by the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, which is pretty fine - love the energy, the melodicism and rhythm, - but it's also maybe a touch too safe, not quite hot/loose/free enough. I'm not looking for anything remotely avant garde but just a bit of uh i don't know, recklessness? My favourite brass band thing I've heard is the Hot 8's version of "Sexual Healing" (even though i usually hate that song). Love the way they play with the dynamics, the different timbres, and then the push of their voices. It feels just a tiny bit bittersweet, cracked around the edges. But I have no idea if the rest of their album/s follow through on that.

oh and for what it's worth i'm really into any band with a bit more of a rhythm section. bring on the brass-band-meets-go-go shit.

sorry that this isn't New Orleans-specific, but you guys seem like experts...

That tune is pretty representative of the whole Hot 8 record. It's hard to pick one representative brass band album, but if I had to it would probably be New Birth Brass Band's D-Boy. It's got a good mix of tunes and as a recording it comes as close to capturing the feel of a second line as anything out there.

i saw some young, young bands this weekend, like trendsettaz and baby boyz. TBC can't really be considered kids anymore, and they sound unreal these days. way sicker than even a year ago.

Jordan, did you happen to catch the To Be Continued Brass Band anywhere? They were playing at the beginning of Bourbon Street near Canal Thursday and Friday nights.

Gah, delete post. Just realized what "TBC" is.

Jordan: great to hear that there are young bands like Trendsettaz and babyboyz happening

yeah, they've got a way to go, but it really does seem like there are more brass bands than ever before.

Did anybody go to this:

COMMON GROUND and GUERRILLA MANAGEMENT PRESENT:

THE PEOPLES COMMUNITY FESTIVAL (Because many residents of New Orleans Can’t Afford A Jazzfest Ticket)

Friday, May 2nd, 7pm To 11pm

1800 Deslonde (at Roman) LOWER 9TH WARD
Featuring:
*MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD
*REBIRTH BRASS BAND
*The NEVILLE FAMILY BACKED BY the CAESAR BROTHERS
*TRIBE 13
*The WILD TCHOUPITOULAS
*TBC (To Be Continued) BRASS BAND
*BIG CHIEF VICTOR HARRIS & FIYIYI
*REVOLUTION 2ND LINE

***FREE! BUT BRING YOUR JOY and CHECKBOOKS to DONATE TO THE RELIEF!***

Sweet!

So the Tuba Fats tribute on the 2nd Jazzfest weekend had to compete with the Neville's return to New Orleans...

We left Jazzfest way before 7 yesterday hoping to avoid the mad exit rush, but stopped to check in at the Jazz and Blues tents before the final goodbye. What strokes of luck! The horn-packed jazz jam tribute to Tuba Fats blew me away with the clarity of each note, the passion, the friendliness of those onstage and the extremely low number of listeners in the tent (the rest still watching The Nevilles, of course). http://vatul.net/blog/index.php/1757/

Five tuba players (including Lacen's young grandson, whose name I didn't catch over the joyful rumble) joined an all-star band combining members of the Rebirth and Pinettes brass bands, plus Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Glen David Andrews (who proved a spirited MC: "Put your hands up for tubas, y'all!") Shamarr Allen, ad hoc members of the Wild Magnolias and one very enthusiastic stage-diving, scaffold-climbing dancer.

The set ended with someone on stage officially announcing the conclusion of Jazzfest 2008.

Minutes later, though, Trombone Shorty was somehow on the Acura stage taking a cameo trumpet solo during the Neville Brothers' rendition of "Big Chief." http://blog.nola.com/living/2008/05/allstar_tuba_fats_tribute_drop.html Dave Walker, Times-Picayune

kid that killed dinerral shavers shoots some other dude. on canal st. specifically, at canal and st charles. during jazzfest. dumb motherfucker.

Can the city get bullet-proof vests and new identities for the witnesses and potential jurors?

i think it depends on whether or not nagin/a city councilperson/bill jefferson has a crony or family member to take an inflated no-bid contract for bulletproof vests and new identities.

Ha.

Back to the music---I love how the horn-playing Andrews cousins--David Glenn and Trombone Shorty--manage to appear on numerous stages at Jazzfest every year. Glenn David's in that Treme movie too.

I just found a postcard in my local bagel place for some hippie jamband fest in Virginia this summer that Trombone Shorty and his Orleans Ave band are gonna be at. That jam band stuff is not for me, but it may be a nicer paycheck for Trombone Shorty these days than just playing New Orleans clubs in the summer after the festivals have come and gone.

May 3rd article on police breaking up another brass band funeral procession--

http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/library-147/1209793205219220.xml&coll=1

excerpt:

The only squad car involved with the parade was the unit that followed the parade, Young said. He doesn't know anything about a second car, the one that allegedly dispersed mourners. "If there was another unit, we don't know about it," Young said.

Yet the marchers say a police cruiser ordered them to disperse and a Dillard University professor who witnessed the incident took a photograph.

Snuffing Saturday's parade was an "attack on the culture," the same culture that gave birth to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, said Wilson's longtime friend, Jerome Smith. He found the timing ironic: At about the same time that police had scattered an authentic funeral march, near Esplanade and Claiborne avenues, Jazz and Heritage Festival-goers were lined up behind a band at the Fair Grounds, ready to follow a second-line recreated for tourists.

Wilson, known to hundreds of protégés as "Coach T-Gully," was a fixture in the 6th and 7th wards because of his involvement at Hunter's Field.

new Rebirth!

Louisiana Music Factory unfortunately sells too much stuff at list price--$17.99 for Rebirth.