The Timekeeper

Keeping up with Doug Garrison

BY KIMBERLY KAYE

Doug Garrison nearly missed his Jazz Fest debut in 1989. That was the year the career drummer was backing rock legend Alex Chilton of Big Star fame… and NOPD wouldn’t let the band into the Fair Grounds because they didn’t have a valid parking pass. “It was a debacle,” he recalls with a dry chuckle. “We’d driven through the night from a show in South Florida to get there in time but didn’t know we lacked the right credentials. We missed half our scheduled set just trying to get in.” He pauses. “Yeah, we were not invited back.”

Fortunately for Garrison—and festival audiences—HE was invited back. More times than the drummer, who started playing professionally at 14, can count accurately. This year alone the New Orleans resident is playing with four locallybased standouts at the Fair Grounds alone: The Klezmer All Stars, that frenetic and updated take on classic Jewish and Eastern European music; The Iguanas, who’ve spent decades marrying Latin-infused New Orleans R&B with vintage rock; Panorama Jazz Band, a pan-global and “genre fluid” celebration of jazz with notable Creole and Caribbean influences; and heavy harmonizers Loose Cattle, the vocally-driven Americana roots rock quintet with a “cowpunk” edge (of which this writer is a member.)

He’s secured proper parking passes for all four shows.

Garrison is unassuming and almost inconceivably affable—every musician who hears his name says something like “that guy is great” or “love him,” a rarity in an industry of big egos and bigger personalities. You’d never peg him as a drummer on sight, let alone one of the most booked and versatile timekeepers in a city that cultivates drummers.

He credits his Memphis, Tennessee, upbringing with diversifying his portfolio from a young age. “I went to school and played in the pep band minutes down the road from Elvis’ Graceland. Stax Records was right there. I was listening to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix because it was that time, but at night my dad was playing Booker T and Al Jackson Jr. records,” Garrison says. “Then I discovered John Coltrane and Art Pepper and that really expanded my view of everything.”

Once Stax Records’ label collapsed, Memphis was left with a glut of very gifted artists struggling to gig through the crisis, making space for young Garrison to start playing alongside stars like blues and funk phenom Rufus C. Thomas. “I couldn’t be starstruck by Rufus because he was such a regular, normal guy in person,” he says, going on to explain how the Stax alums were similar. Which may have influenced his own “regular guy who just happens to be a world class musician” vibe.

“The Memphis side of things always comes out when I’m playing,” notes Garrison. “I don’t try to do that, but there’s a relaxation in the groove that just comes from growing up there.”

The artist’s Jazz Fest presence doesn’t stop at four pretty excellent Fair Grounds appearances. Garrison is a staple of the season’s “after fest” scene, a nighttime orgy of live music pouring out of established venues and guerrilla-style concerts alike. He’s especially excited this year about his annual late-night party at Vaughan’s, the low-key lounge where The Klezmer All Stars and Iguanas join forces to produce a throbbing, thrilling good time into the wee hours.

Afterwards, The Iguanas will again team up at 1 a.m., this time with Southern soul master Papa Mali for a rollicking, witching hour show they’re billing as “The Maliguanas.” If you’re a nightcrawler, all of that’s going down in May.

If this sounds like a tremendous amount of cross-genre work for one man, that’s because it is. Garrison fortunately loves what he does, something joyfully evident when watching him live. And after three decades playing with The Iguanas, ten years with Panorama, and five with Loose Cattle, he’s happily in the pocket experienced musicians get to relax into. “At this point I don’t play pickup gigs during Fest. The only thing that makes me nervous as a performer is being under-rehearsed or not knowing the music, so I just pick and choose shows where I know and trust everyone else onstage. If you’re not having fun, it’s not really worth doing, you know?” O