OffBeat Magazine September 2017

Beaucoup Fall Festivals

LOUISIANA MUSIC, FOOD & CULTURE—SEPTEMBER 2017 Free In Metro New Orleans US $5.99 CAN $6.99 £UK 3.50

Chef Ashley Roussel Joe Ely Second line season—yay!

Derek Trucks

ARCADE FIRE Inhabits New Orleans

PHoto: anton corbijn

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Arcade Fire’s New Neighborhood

“Stanton Moore— New Orleans’ Sexiest Drummer?”

Indie rock’s biggest act is infinitely content in the Crescent City.

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FRESH

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Five Questions with Kathryn Rose Wood; My Music with Shawn Williams; Celebrating Joni Mitchell at Paz Fest; The Tale of Two Talents: Mannie Fresh and DJ Soul Sister; Five Questions with actress Aadyn Encalarde; Fried Chicken Festival and more.

OBITUARY

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The poetic songwriting of alt-country pioneer Joe Ely.

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John Slavich at Effervescence mixes up the Bywater Blueberry Hill for Fats Domino.

Key LaBeaud is In the Spot at Melba’s and Peter Thriffiley reviews Crescent City BBQ.

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REVIEWS

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Saffron NOLA brings upscale Indian cuisine to Magazine Street.

A VIEW FROM LUBBOCK

IN THE SPIRIT

OFFBEAT EATS

The season of the street begins again.

GOLD STANDARD

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The Crooked Vines take risks and detours while remaining cohesive.

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Ashley Roussel left the volleyball court for the kitchen.

SECOND LINEAGE

MUSICAL LANDSCAPES

Stax Records employee Deanie Parker celebrates 60 years.

D.L.. Menard

SERVING US RIGHT

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Ed Volker has always been looking for the song.

A UTOPIAN ENVIRONMENT

Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis

OBITUARY

DREAMLIKE SCENARIOS

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Stanton Moore, Bantam Foxes, Gravy, Joe Lastie, Tony Dagradi, Huval-Fuselier Cajun Trio, Quintessential Octopus, Renshaw Davies, Jeff McCarty and more.

LISTINGS

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BACKTALK with Derek Trucks

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by Christopher Blagg March 2002 “Stanton believes that there is more than enough space and time for him to do the occasional solo project while still being able to devote himself to Galactic. He finds it hard to compare the two.”

To read more, this issue can be purchased at www.offbeat.com/issues/ march-2002/.

SEPTEMBER 2017

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Letters

“I stood where all the greats had stood before. Mind blowing!

The smoke stained ceiling, the loose plaster on the walls—incredible!”

—Graeme Hewitt, England, United Kingdom

Louisiana Music, Food & Culture

September 2017 Volume 30, Number 10 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jan V. Ramsey, janramsey@offbeat.com Managing Editor Joseph L. Irrera, josephirrera@offbeat.com

Jazz Fest with the LA Times

Preservation Hall

The following letter is in response to Sam D’Arcangelo’s news post, “You Probably Shouldn’t Spend $3,995 To Go To Jazz Fest With An LA Times Writer.”

Hey guys, at least let the ink dry on the press release before releasing the hounds! I get where you’re coming from; in fact, I love where you’re coming from, and avail myself of every opportunity to spend time where you’re coming from. That’s a huge part of why I’ll be returning once more next year with a group of music lovers in tow. I’ve been attending Jazz Fest on and off since 1987, made numerous other trips to New Orleans and traveled more broadly throughout Southwest Louisiana precisely because I’m so in awe of the music, the culture, the history, the food, the people… everything that makes it such a wondrous and unique place. I’ve interviewed D.L. Menard at his chair-making shop in Erath, visited with Canray Fontenot at his home in Welsh, two-stepped and waltzed at Mulate’s in Breaux Bridge while Dewey Balfa fiddled and daughter Christine played triangle (when she wasn’t busy serving drinks), and jammed with Marc and Ann Savoy on more than one Saturday morning at the Savoy Music Center in Eunice. And I’ve enthusiastically written about those experiences during my 30-plus years covering pop music for The Times, something I plan to share with travelers, by way of exposing them to several of the remarkable musicians I’ve had the good fortune to spend time with during my time in your wonderful city. I’ll even let members of our groups in on my experience getting married in Preservation Hall some years back, performing Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” on my trusty clarinet on that vaunted stage during the ceremony and topping it off with a joyous second line parade through the Quarter with a raft of family, friends and no small contingent of warm-hearted, empathetic strangers. So when Jazz Fest 2018 does roll around, I hope you’ll be as welcoming to me and this group of visitors as so many New Orleans residents have been every other time I’ve come to the Crescent City. Oh, and Sam—you are more than welcome here in the other L.A. any time. Cheers!

—Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times, California

I lead the High Society Jazz Band here in England and have done now for 45 years. We play every week and all the top jazz musicians join us. Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Chris Barber have all played with my band and on many occasions— Acker and Ken when they were alive. I once played “Stranger on the Shore” during a talent show on board the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship— you can see it on YouTube—and afterwards a guy came up to me and said, “If I’d closed my eyes I would have thought that was my Dad playing.

My name is Peter. I am Acker Bilk’s son.” Whew!

When I was in New Orleans—sadly, only for a few hours as it was one of the stops during a West Coast tour, we managed to find Preservation Hall at 4 o’clock in the afternoon—all shut up, with steel bars over the doorway. I looked in, simply shaking with excitement, being that close to “mecca” and there, in the dim passageway was an old guy just switching off the lights. I called to him. “Any news on ‘Sing’?” Sing Miller had recently been admitted to hospital with diabetes (I believe). From that moment we were old friends.

He came up to the bars and said, “Sing is okay. He should be out soon.” I explained we were only in the city for a brief time and we’d love to come in and have a look at this wonderful jazz hall. He let us in, claiming he should not really and we walked in to where jazz has been played for many years. I stood where all the greats had stood before. Mind blowing! The smoke-stained ceiling, the loose plaster on the walls—incredible! I was hoping to get a couple of publicity pictures for my own band so I had my clarinet with me. “What is your name?

I asked. “Speedy Gonzales,” he replied. “Do you play?” I asked. “No man, I’m just the sweeper up,” but he went to the piano and incredibly, started to play. Within seconds I assembled my clarinet and we played together. “Basin Street Blues.” A magic moment and one I will never forget. It’s on YouTube too so there for posterity. My claim to fame, I played Preservation Hall.

Speedy Gonzales gave me a memory for life. We would have played some more but he was parked on a meter and had to go.

Beat that for the most amazing experience.

—Graeme Hewitt, England, United Kingdom

OffBeat welcomes letters from its readers—both comments and criticisms. To be considered for publication, all letters must be signed and contain the current address and phone number of the writer. Letters to the editor are subject to editing for length or content deemed objectionable to OffBeat readers. Please send letters to Editor, OffBeat Publications, 421 Frenchmen St., Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116.

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Consulting Editor John Swenson Food Editor Elsa Hahne, elsahahne@offbeat.com Listings Editor Katie Walenter, listings@offbeat.com Contributors Rory Callais, Sam D’Arcangelo, Laura DeFazio, Frank Etheridge, Robert Fontenot, Elsa Hahne, Tom McDermott, Jennifer Odell, John Swenson, Peter Thriffiley, Dan Willging, John Wirt, Geraldine Wyckoff, Michael Allen Zell Cover Anton Corbijn Art Director/Food Editor Elsa Hahne, elsahahne@offbeat.com Web Editor Amanda Mester, amanda@offbeat.com Copy Editor Theo Schell-Lambert, theo@offbeat.com Advertising Sales/Promotions Coordinator Camille A. Ramsey, camille@offbeat.com Advertising Design PressWorks, 504-944-4300 Business Manager Joseph L. Irrera Interns Emily Carmichael, Gracie Davis, Marine Laval, Elina Tons Distribution Patti Carrigan, Doug Jackson OffBeat (ISSN# 1090-0810) is published monthly in New Orleans by OffBeat, Inc., 421 Frenchmen St., Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116 (504) 944-4300 • fax (504) 944-4306 e-mail: offbeat@offbeat.com, web site: www.offbeat.com facebook.com/offbeatmagazine twitter.com/offbeatmagazine Copyright © 2017, OffBeat, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the consent of the publisher. OffBeat is a registered trademark of OffBeat, Inc. First class subscriptions to OffBeat in the U.S. are available for $45 per year ($52 Canada, $105 foreign airmail). Back issues are available for $10, except for the May issue for $16 (for foreign delivery add $6, except for the May issue add $4). Submission of photos and articles on Louisiana artists are welcomed, but unfortunately material cannot be returned.

MOJO MOUTH

Redheads and Mayors

N

otice anything different?

Do I look my age?

Got tired of the flaming red and decided to go platinum, which is closer to what my hair really looks like.

But lucky for OffBeat, while one redhead has faded to white, we’ve managed to add another.

Sam D’Arcangelo, our Web Editor for the past two years, has gone on to write for the Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C. If you’re not that familiar with MPP, check them out. They are the group that’s going to make a real difference in this country’s attitude towards marijuana legalization, a subject that I would venture to guess is important to the majority of OffBeat readers. While we surely hate to lose Sam and his excellent writing chops (he wrote our cover

www.OFFBEAT.com

By Jan Ramsey

story this month), we’ve found a great new talent—and a ginger, to boot—to introduce to our readers.

OffBeat’s newest addition as Digital Content Editor/Manager is Amanda Mester.

Amanda is a New York–born, Los Angeles–raised journalist who has been writing about music and culture for 15 years. She earned her Master’s degree in media studies from Fordham University, has taught a media criticism course at Adelphi University for three years and has had writing published with OffBeat, DJ Booth, AXS, Ambrosia For Heads, Hip-Hop Golden Age, UGHH, and more. She’s interviewed an amazing number of hip-hop artists and has partnered with rapper Cormega on a forthcoming book, the subject of which is the role of white journalists in the hip-hop media landscape.

Ms. Amanda brings a fresh perspective and great enthusiasm to OffBeat, with her upbringing steeped in music: Her father is renowned classical conductor Jorge Mester.

The things I like best about Amanda are that she’s smart as hell, open to every kind of music you can throw her way, a great writer and a digital savant. There’s a great piece online that was published by ABC News showing Amanda’s response to a rejection letter she received after a job interview. So she’s got a great sense of humor and a big mane of flame-red locks. What’s not to love?

There’s an important mayoral election in New Orleans coming up.

As many in our music community know, OffBeat sponsored two forums to determine prospective

candidates’ comprehension of the importance of music to the city’s economy and cultural health. These forums were in 2001 (when Marc Morial’s two terms expired) and in 2010 (ditto Ray Nagin). Mayor Mitch Landrieu is leaving office after his two terms in office, and we have an entirely new slate of candidates to choose from. In conjunction with the ELLA Project and the Recording Academy, we’ve organized a third Mayoral Forum to find out how much the current candidates know about our needs as a music community, and we will give the public the opportunity to attend this event on September 11, 2017 at the Carver Theater. Be there to determine which candidate will best serve the music community’s interests. It’s free and open to the public.

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FRESH

Photo: josh brasted

Arcade Fire at Lollapalooza

MY MUSIC

OffBeat.com

Photo: christopher lane dennis

Shawn Williams

“S

ome folks say they like my music because they can tell I don’t really have a filter. That could stem from me not being able to sit there and write a song if it takes me more than ten minutes... ADD? Or because if I do sit there longer, I wake up and start saying, ‘Wait, that’s too dark, too cheesy, too sexual, personal, etc.’ I don’t want to do that. If I’m going to write music, it needs to be raw. It needs to come from the heart, unfiltered.

Every song I write is different. I call my music ‘alt-rocka country-billy serial killer blues,’ because that doesn’t constrain me to a genre. A lot of people ask me what the serial killer blues part means, and if I had to answer in words, I’d say to imagine a serial killer hitchhiking through the desert with heartbreak and the blues.

My favorites at the moment are Mazzy Star, Neko Case, Lucinda Williams, Hank, Patsy, Billie Holiday. Sad music and music that makes me dance. Oh, and Elvis (Presley, of course). I started the world’s first-ever all-female Elvis band when I was living in Atlanta. Pelvis Breastlies is the name. I’m very proud of that.

I think I was 15 when I started playing guitar, but I’ve been writing since prenatal. I used to sit alone in my room, almost all day, playing music instead of socializing. I didn’t think anyone would ever want to hear my music. Plus, stage fright. It’s a huge feeling of nakedness up there.

New Orleans, my birthplace, is what really changed that for me. When I moved back here three years ago, the community were so welcoming, so encouraging. I went from thinking not a single person would want to hear my songs to playing music full-time. I enjoy being naked in front of people now.

Ha ha. It’s like a big nudist colony in New Orleans—we’re all naked together.

I love the way Shadow turned out! I knew the sound I wanted, and [Blue Velvet Studios engineer] Tom Stern helped me get the best musicians that would help paint those songs. The album kinda has a desert-y darkness to it. It rocks, it weeps, it’s sexual. It’s a part of me.

What’s next? Hopefully another album. I have a piss-load of songs for many albums to come. I think the next one will be a lot more personal, more vulnerable. And I want to continue touring, continue pursuing music. I left my radio career this past May, after 13 years, to do just that. Several folks said that if the music thing didn’t work out, at least I had a good resume in radio to fall back on. And maybe they meant it sincerely, or with good intentions, but that kind of BS just adds to my drive. I don’t give up. Maybe it’s my Scorpio persistence. I go after what I want, no matter the obstacle or challenge.”

—Laura DeFazio

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SWEET TWEETS @BantamFoxes Regretting putting a stainless steel shifter in my MINI today because I basically need an oven mitt to change gears. @miaborders First faculty meeting in the books! Glad to be back at @Loyola_NOLA. @AlisonF_NOLA Man, leave it to @wwoz_neworleans to make me weepy in the car playing southern nights & pointing out we are without both Allen & Glen now. @gregoryagid Sometimes we forget that jazz is a social music, not exclusively existing in the institution. @djsoulsister This country is in a state of change. It’s amazing. Scary. Exhilarating.

Real. It’s time! Be on the right side of CHANGE. Forward, not back! @mpatrickwelch Why would @MayorLandrieu give S&WB to Veiola, a company sued 4 FRAUD & NEGLIGENCE in the #Flint water crisis @KhrisRoyal #nolaflood

www.OFFBEAT.com

SOUNDCHECK

FRIED AND FRESH

Five Questions with actress Aadyn Encalarde

The Fried Chicken Festival returns with more space, more vendors and more music

S Y

ou’re in Girls Trip, one of the hottest summer movies, and TNT’s Claws. How’d you explode on the scene?

I’ve acted since I was a baby with my mommy’s projects. She was pregnant with me when she started getting into acting, and I was in her friends’ movies when I was a baby. I liked it and then I got an agent. My mommy put me in all her movies too. After I auditioned, I started getting scenes. I got my first role when I was four years old in Greenleaf. Oprah [Winfrey] produced it. Two months later I found out they cut my scene. Two months after that I booked Girls Trip, then Claws. I just wrapped a short film called Things With Feathers with a director named Jalea Jackson. There’s some other stuff I’m working on, but I can’t talk about it.

What do you think about Hollywood compared to New Orleans?

I like New Orleans because it has Mardi Gras and California doesn’t. And New Orleans has crawfish and snoballs. I like beignets.

Hollywood doesn’t have those either. Who wants to live where they don’t? That’s not fun. Most of my family is here too. I also like my school and my friends.

Do you prefer acting in TV or movies?

I like both. Claws gave me ice cream and let me ride on a horse.

I never did that before. They have twins on the TV show that I get to play with. I like them a lot and we have fun together. It doesn’t matter if it’s TV or movies as long as I can have fun and other kids are on the set. And I like school on set too.

You’re also an advocate for animals. In what way?

Animals are cute. They’re nice to me. I want to protect them because people need to protect them. It makes me happy to heal the pets of the world. I want to have a lot of pets but my parents won’t let me right now. My mommy sometimes lets me go and find animals to help save and protect. That’s really fun and makes me happy.

What music do you like?

I like Beyoncé and Rihanna. Beyoncé is so amazing and a superstar. I saw her star in Hollywood. I want one of those stars.

I want to be just like her when I grow up. I like jazz music too. I take jazz dance class and it’s my favorite out of ballet, tap and jazz. And I like Mardi Gras music.

It makes me dance.

—Michael Allen Zell www.OFFBEAT.com

coff all you like about the deluge of new festivals popping up all over town these days. Whether it was the general conceptual appeal of a day-long fried chicken celebration or the inevitable result of the entire CBD filling with the aroma of juicy, spicy, deep-fried poultry, the inaugural Fried Chicken Festival was a hit—at least as far as appeal.

Festival organizers at the Spears Group estimated that 40,000 people attended the event in Lafayette Square last fall. A large chunk of those attendees complained on social media that the event was too crowded, the lines too long and that food ran out at multiple vending stations.

Since then, the festival, which returns to New Orleans September 23–24, has undergone a makeover aimed in large part at addressing those problems. For starters, this year’s gathering is slated for two days rather than one at Woldenberg Park, which a spokesperson for the Spears group noted is “five times bigger” than the Square.

“Essentially, we’ve boosted the number of vendors, are enhancing vendor relations to ensure each is well prepared and [are] formatting the layout of vendor booths to better accommodate congestion,” Morgan Ballard told OffBeat.

In 2016, all of the food vendors hailed from New Orleans–based restaurants. This year, the 35-vendor lineup—up from 2016’s 28 vendors—has expanded to include offerings from some national kitchens as well. Among them are New Orleans staples like Dunbar’s, McHardy’s and Willie Mae’s Scotch House, plus Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken from Memphis, Tennessee, as well as Boxcar Betty’s from Charleston, South Carolina and Hattie’s Restaurant from Saratoga Springs, NY. Celebrity chefs, including Food Network star Jeff Henderson, are slated to do cooking demonstrations. Other events include a contest to determine the best fried chicken at the fest, a chicken tender eating contest and VIP packages that provide access to lagniappe options like a Moët-sponsored Chicken and Champagne Lounge.

Two stages will host the music program, which has grown as well. Mainstage acts this year include Big Freedia, Naughty Professor, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Sean Ardoin & Zydekool, the Spirit of New Orleans Gospel Choir, Kristen Diable & The City, and Motel Radio.

A second DJ stage will feature sets by DJs T-Roy, Quickie Mart, Raj Smoove and Captain Charles.

—Jennifer Odell SEPTEMBER 2017

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PHoto: ELSA HAHNE

IN MEMORIAM

Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis (1937 – 2017)

D

olores Marsalis was a remarkable woman—beautiful, intelligent, determined and funny.

She and her husband, pianist/ educator Ellis Marsalis Jr., raised six boys—Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason—on the salary of a jazz musician and teacher while on the home front she encouraged her sons to explore the arts and made sure they took their studies seriously.

Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis, the matriarch of the musical Marsalis family, died on July 18, 2017 at the age of 80.

“Her personality is definitely that of one of those strong women who does not play at all when it comes to her kids,” their sixth-born son, drummer and vibraphonist Jason said in a 2014 interview. “My mother was the disciplinarian in the house,” echoed the eldest son, saxophonist Branford. “She has a good ear for music, even with no training so when we sounded like crap, my mom would let us have it.”

It was Dolores, not her pianist husband, who came from a musical family. She was related on her father’s side to Wellman Braud, who was a bassist with Duke Ellington’s band, and on her mother’s side to noted New Orleans clarinetist Alphonse Picou. Her kin also included trombonist brothers Wendell and Homer Eugene.

Music is ultimately what brought the two together in 1956 when both attended vocalist Dinah Washington’s concert at Lincoln Beach. Ellis has been quoted as

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saying that at the time he didn’t know many girls who liked jazz.

They were married in 1959.

One aspect of Dolores’ personality that kept popping up among family, friends and a slew of musicians at the viewing at Rhodes Funeral Home was her discerning sense of humor.

“She could definitely be funny—just straight-up,” her husband says. “She would speak her mind,” their third son, poet/photographer Ellis III agrees.

“You know the term brutal honesty?

You had to be ready for it.”

“Everything she did would be original,” her son, noted trumpeter Wynton Marsalis once said. “Her way of talking was original, the food that she cooked was original and the way she would joke around or mess with you would be original.”

The jazz funeral procession, following a mass at Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church, boasted an all-star band that included her musical sons and many musicians who knew and admired Dolores. It stopped by her and her husband’s modest Uptown home that they bought in 1975 and lived in ever since.

“Neither one of us were ‘things’ people,” Ellis says. “When I say things people, I mean we didn’t have a big car, we didn’t have big liquor bills, we didn’t have any of that so consequently we were able to function with a degree of consistency.”

“She was New Orleans through and through,” Ellis III exclaims.

“Uncle Pomp, her uncle, our great uncle, used to use the term old Creole girl.”

—Geraldine Wyckoff www.OFFBEAT.com

FRESH

PAZ FEST

Five Questions with Kathryn Rose Wood, singer-songwriter and music therapist

Celebrating Joni Mitchell at the Civic

H

ow does music apply to psychological healing?

Music is a non-confrontational medium to address difficult issues. Conventional talk therapy can be pretty intimidating, [but] you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hates music.

Scientific studies show that music is processed by different sectors of the brain than verbal speech. It even impacts your motor skills—like when you’re working out and your favorite song comes on, you’re more empowered to keep going. A number of studies in the music therapy realm show guided relaxation to music to have profound effects on those with serious anxiety and post-traumatic triggers.

Do mental health issues affect musicians more than others?

I think it affects all people equally. But if you look at history, musicians and creative type have used art and expression to navigate and cope with their particular issues.

Why create this inaugural event, Music for Mental Health?

In March 2015 my brother Preston committed suicide. I quit music and soon was on a downward spiral. When I finally admitted to myself that music is how I communicate, that’s when I found motivation to keep trying.

How did the benefit concert’s featured musicians come together?

Alfred Banks was my call, due to his very obvious connections to mentalhealth issues and music [Banks’ latest album is told from the perspective of a schizophrenic]. Kei Slaughter is also a clinical music therapist and a very talented flute player, keyboard player and guitarist. She’s a big champion of discussing mental health, particularly in the African-American community and the LGBTQ community. Mia Borders has been very candid about how music has helped her overcome anxieties and develop strength and confidence. She’s several years sober now and shows how using music is more cathartic than any bottle of booze could ever be.

What is the biggest obstacle to ensuring that New Orleans musicians have adequate access to mental health services?

Finances and insurance coverage. If you’re a creative type, you hustle— not many of us do the 9–5 jobs that come with built-in health insurance.

The New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic does a great job in offering resources, but even they can be overwhelmed at times. And there’s the stigma of not having money, and needing help with mental health.

—Frank Etheridge The Music for Mental Health benefit concert takes place 8 p.m.–10 p.m. Friday, September 22 at the Old U.S. Mint (400 Esplanade Ave.).

Tickets $15 (available at musicatthemint.org or at the door).

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A

s one of the city’s legendary production managers, stage managers and soundmen, Michael Paz has had his finger on the pulse of New Orleans’ music scene for decades, but his most recent creation—Paz Fest, a charitable concert honoring the music of Joni Mitchell—came about through his mother’s love for a decidedly antiquated technology.

“My mother [Ruth] and father moved to Honduras in 1965,” says Michael now about the impetus for the all-star benefit concert, which happens again at the Civic Theatre on September 3rd. “She wasn’t much for bridge, or golf, or any of the other hobbies of ladies at the time—she was into ham radio. And she heard American ‘do-gooders’ coming into the country to help poor Honduran children that needed surgery.” Ruth was grateful for having survived cancer and eager to help others, and she threw herself fully into the cause for nearly 30 years. “When she passed in 1996, my sister and I took her death hard,” recalls Michael, “and we started the Ruth Paz Foundation to honor her legacy.” Two years later, actor Dennis Quaid and New Orleans physician Dr. Mayer Heiman donated a clinic to the foundation that became selfsufficient; Paz began staging concerts in 2000 for a hospital to further his mission, which broke ground four years later.

His love of Joni Mitchell was the main theme. “I was in need of some healing after my mother’s death. One of the first searches I ever did on the internet back then, perhaps the first, was for Joni Mitchell.” After attending several Joni fests around the world, he found that Mitchell fans were not only friendly but legion—and he began to realize Paz Fest and the celebration of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s music, not just hits such as “Help Me” or “Big Yellow Taxi” but her entire catalog. The first Fest presented the cream of local and national talent covering Joni’s classics, including Susan Cowsill, Kim Carson, and Beth Patterson.

Moving to the Civic Theatre for the first time, this year’s Paz Fest features Alex McMurray, Harry Shearer and Judith Owen—and also, for the first time, Deacon John, David Torkanowsky, Asylum Chorus and Joni’s first husband, Chuck. And if you’re wondering, not only has Joni been invited over the years, Michael actually got to meet her a few times thanks to mutual friends.

“We danced to the Neville Brothers the first time we met. She loves to talk—my God, so gracious and intelligent. I’ve never been star struck before,” he laughs.

Deacon John The fourth annual Paz Fest is $25, but there’s also a special preshow at the Ogden Museum on Aug. 31st; tickets for both can be purchased at civicnola.com. You can read more about the foundation and hospital at fundacionruthpaz.org.

—Robert Fontenot www.OFFBEAT.com

Photo: willow haley

Photo: riccardo emilien

SOUNDCHECK

FRESH

A TALE OF TWO TALENTS

Powerhouse DJs come together

“W

hen I got the call, I was thrilled,” Melissa Weber—DJ Soul Sister—says of a recent chat she had with Mannie Fresh.

For many across the globe, Mannie Fresh (born Byron Otto Thomas) is the face of New Orleans hip-hop, due to his early success as part of the Big Tymers duo (with Birdman) before laying down the sound of countless Cash Money hits and his role today as acclaimed producer. But first, Mannie Fresh was a DJ rocking house parties and clubs, and it’s in that mold that he twice shared the stage at the Hi-Ho Lounge during the (now discontinued) legendary Saturday night series hosted by DJ Soul Sister— Hustle, the “right-on party situation” fueled by her expert curating of “rare groove” found on vinyl from the ’70s and ’80s.

“I feel like a lot of people only associate him with his success with Cash Money and all his productions,” Soul Sister explains. “They don’t associate him with old-school. But that’s where he comes from. That’s where all of us come from. Cutting, mixing and scratching—he comes from that tradition. He grew up on that, as did I.” The two DJs’ shared love of that old-school sound is the reason Mannie Fresh made that phone call, with the conversation leading to the first of many planned shared showcases, dubbed Body Rock. “The name comes from the old Treacherous Three song,” Soul Sister explains. “In the early–mid ’80s, the term was slang for dancing.”

“Soul Sister is a real crate digger—her education in music is what drew me to her,” says Mannie Fresh, who lists Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Midnight Star among his favorite old-school artists. “She plays songs I’ve never even heard of. She finds jamming songs that nobody’s ever heard of and she knows exactly when to play them—she reads the crowd and knows exactly what to hit them with. If you’ve been to one of her parties, then you already know.”

The chance to spin for a live audience at Body Rock inspires Mannie Fresh. “Artists get to a certain level of fame, or whatever you want to call it, and they have no idea what’s going on in the world,” he explains. “This gets me back to my roots. Getting people out on the dance floor and escaping from life—that’s what a good DJ does—get people to party like there’s no tomorrow.”

With the two planning to alternate in a series of four sets, Body Rock also allows Soul Sister to do what she enjoys most. “I started out throwing parties because I wanted the DJ to play the way I want to play, mixing music the way I want to hear it” she says. “It’s a control thing, and a fun thing. It’s fun to rock the party.”

—Frank Etheridge Mannie Fresh & DJ Soul Sister’s Body Rock, Vol. I throws down at the House of Blues 10 p.m. Sunday, September 3. Tickets $10.

www.OFFBEAT.com

SEPTEMBER 2017

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IN MEMORIAM

D.L. Menard

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ajun music lost its most beloved and colorful character, Doris Leon “D.L.” Menard, on Thursday, July 27, 2017, after he succumbed to multiple ailments. The legend was 85.

At his funeral, held at Lafayette’s Family Life Church, Professor Emeritus of Francophone Studies and Folklore at University of Louisiana, Lafayette, Barry Ancelet described the largerthan-life character as “a dignified and elegant ambassador of our culture. He was always dignified, respectful and respectable.”

Ancelet also remarked that Menard’s sense of humor was consistently “razor sharp and lightening quick.”

During his illustrious career, Menard performed in 42 states and 38 countries, bringing joy and magic to whoever saw him. “You got to entertain the people,” Menard always preached, and that was a credo he never failed to live up to.

Dubbed “the Cajun Hank Williams,” Menard was most famous for his ubiquitous composition “La Port en arriere,” translated in English as “The Back Door,” that sold 500,000 copies in 1962. Since then, Flat Town Music Company honcho Floyd Soileau estimates that it has sold over a million copies. It’s one of the most recorded songs in the repertoire, not only in French but sometimes in English and other languages.

Longtime friend and bandleader of the Cajun band Jambalaya, Terry Huval, recalls even seeing a version of it recorded in Swedish.

Modeled after Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonk Blues,” “The Back Door” tells the tale of a guy, coming home from a night of honky-tonking and drinking, sneaking through the back door as to not incur the wrath of his father. The song has a moralistic

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bent to it—a few verses later the guy ends up in the pokey, this time entering the jail through the back door as well.

“It’s a song many accordion players learn as their first song,” Huval says about the song’s widespread popularity. “It’s a fairly simple melody and as a result, it’s something kids can pick up quickly and then move on from there.”

In 2014, Rolling Stone included “The Back Door” on its 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time, ranking it at number 72.

In 1994, Menard received the prestigious National Heritage Award. First Lady Hillary Clinton presented the awards that year.

Ancelet writes in an email: “At one point, when they were posing for pictures after the awards, D.L. said to her, ‘Well, Hillary, this was great.

Let’s do it again next year.’”

Huval has been a friend and a bandmate of Menard’s for a quarter

of a century, first as a hired gun and then as packaged shows billed as Jambalaya and DL Menard.

Besides enjoying Menard’s rollicking company, Huval learned a few life lessons from him, one of which was rooted when Menard met Williams.

“He got to meet Hank when he was 19 and visited with him for about 10–12 minutes and asked him lots of questions,” Huval says. “He was so impressed that Hank was willing to talk to a 19-year-old nobody and answer questions about music and the philosophy of regional music, how interactive the audience is and how to sing a song.”

It was an experience Menard carried throughout his career, always taking time to interact with young musicians. “He motivated so many young musicians because he would just give them the time of day,” Huval explains. “He would just sit there and talk to them and tell them how to think about their craft.”

Huval also produced two albums for Menard, 1995’s Cajun Memories and 2010’s aptly named Happy Go Lucky, the second notching Menard his second Grammy nomination. His first Grammy came in 1993 with Le Trio Cadien with Eddie LeJeune and Ken Smith.

Huval remembers the Grammy ceremonies well. Menard was decked out in his dark country suit with musical notes emblazoned on the sleeves. “He was just a hit out there,” Huval recalls. “The other people that were nominated for Grammys would see him and get their picture taken with him.”

Even towards the end of his life, Menard was never far away from his next one-liner in his mission to “entertain the people,” even if bound in a wheel chair. At a recent festival, Menard couldn’t wait to get to the microphone. “So he gets to the microphone as soon as he could and says ‘Hey ladies and gentlemen, I want to let y’all know that I’m in a wheelchair because they cut off my big toe but they did nothing with my throat.’”

Though Menard will be eternally remembered for “The Back Door,” he also leaves behind a body of serious, poignant work.

During his funeral, which can be viewed at the Family Life Church’s Facebook page, Ancelet quoted heartfelt, eloquently expressed lyrics from many of his songs.

Huval describes Menard’s ability to write songs as a natural gift. “I recorded two CDs with him and I speak French. I’ve written songs myself. I’ve never had to suggest any changes to any of DL’s songs.

Every one of them was just plain and complete as it could be. For a fellow who had very little education, he had a real gift for being able to communicate in his music.”

—Dan Willging www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: ELSA HAHNE

(1932 – 2017)

ASHLEY ROUSSEL

Serving Us Right PHoto: ELSA HAHNE

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Ashley Roussel left the volleyball court for the kitchen.

rowing up in Lafayette placed Ashley Roussel in close proximity to food, farms and sports. Her dad was a quarterback for the Ragin’ Cajuns and “the best cook I knew,” while her mom ran a wholesale herb farm in Loranger, Louisiana. Her brother played football (and baseball and basketball) while she played volleyball (and softball and basketball and high jump). Sports was family life, and vice versa. “Outgoing” wasn’t quite strong enough of a word to describe the 6-foot-1 force that was Ashley Roussel at 18. She was six months into a broadcasting major at ULL when a local sportscaster happened to walk by her porch, recognizing her immediately as an important player on the university volleyball team.

“I wanted to be a sports broadcaster on ESPN,” she remembers. “And here’s this guy walking by who’s the weekend sportscaster for Channel 10. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re doing what I want to be doing!’”

He joined her on her porch for a career chat that didn’t go the way the young athlete was expecting.

Within minutes, he’d convinced her that her current path would make her “jaded, cynical and angry.”

“I really didn’t have a clue,” she said. “I was taking classes I couldn’t relate to, lots of technical stuff, lots of cameras and computers. I’m an analog girl, and the digital world was not where I lined up.”

That’s when she called her dad and coach, Butch Roussel, who was one of the original owners of Fat Harry’s. What did he think about hospitality management instead?

Within days, she’d switched majors and was soon off to apply for her first job at Zea—their third restaurant had just opened in Lafayette. They hired her on the spot as a server.

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By Elsa Hahne

www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: denny culbert

“The best kitchens I’ve worked in are the ones that have a team sport mentality, like ‘We’re all in this together.’”

“I had no experience,” she said. “I told them, ‘Shape me, mold me, make me what you want. I don’t have any bad habits to break. I want to learn.’”

She worked her way though all of the roles in the front of the house, and was then moved into a management program, which involved learning each and every job in the restaurant. Soon, Roussel found herself mostly in the kitchen, and having a difficult time leaving it. That’s when she decided to go to culinary school, seeking out the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, a part-time program she combined with a job on the line at ABC Kitchen in Union Square.

“I cried my whole walk to ABC Kitchen that first day,” she recalls. “I was scared out of my mind. But at the end of the shift they’d offered me an opportunity, and four months later, we won Best New Restaurant [James Beard, 2011] in the country— the most surreal experience.”

Of course, living in New York was way too expensive for a line cook so Roussel maintained two other jobs, serving and bartending at the same time. For Jazz Fest and Festival International, she’d travel home and bring a new friend who hadn’t yet been to Louisiana with her.

“And every time, something else was pointed out to me about what makes Louisiana special. I kept being reminded,” she said.

Moving back to Lafayette to open her own place, showcasing local farms and produce, made sense. But on her drive back, Roussel did some research and realized that someone else was now doing just that at a place called the Saint Street Inn. “I was like, ‘Somebody beat me to it!’” she recalls. “Lafayette wasn’t a farm-to-table town yet and I was like, ‘Man, I missed my chance of doing something new!’ But there is so much room; that’s what I didn’t www.OFFBEAT.com

realize. Really, there shouldn’t be any other kind of food in my opinion.”

Yet at the time, Roussel doubted herself, thinking she maybe wasn’t ready after all, so she got back on the line at another new place, Social Southern Table & Bar. Within a month and a half, she’d been promoted to executive sous chef.

The chef there, Marc Krampe, had just moved back to Lafayette from Austin, Texas.

“Ashley has exactly what you look for in a long-term salaried employee,” Krampe told OffBeat.

“She’s a go-getter and she works really hard; she cares about what

been handling farmers’ relations for the short-lived local branch of Good Eggs, at a charity dinner—a boucherie in a backyard compound in the Irish Channel that was organized by Runaway Dish.

“She had a vision for Simone’s Market and she’d eaten my food,” Roussel said. “Simone understood that I understood what it’s like to have beautiful ingredients right around the corner—working with farmers and local guys and giving them an avenue to showcase their beautiful produce without having to set up a stand in a farmer’s market and sweat it out.”

Ashley Roussel’s creation for Simone’s Market —the smoked and fried chicken thigh sandwich she does. As far as being ready to have your own place, you just don’t know, I think most people aren’t ready—I sure wasn’t when I opened my first restaurant—but you do it and then it’s sink or swim.”

“I joke that I’m a perpetual sous chef,” Roussel adds. “I have a lot of fun helping other people’s visions come through.”

In this way, Roussel was a perfect fit for Simone’s Market, which opened last spring on Oak Street.

Roussel met Simone Reggie, who’d

“Plus, a grocery store sounded nice,” she continues. “Something where I could go in and set a menu and roll with the seasonal stuff and get in a little bit more time for me, too. You can only work 90-hour weeks for so long.”

Customers at Simone’s Market might be coming in for a sixpack of beer, or a gallon of milk, or 20 sandwiches.

Their top seller is the fried, smoked chicken thigh sandwich with slaw on a brioche bun.

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Prepared to order (of course), it’s what fast food should be—less fast, and completely satisfying.

“We’re really lucky to have Ashley,” Simone Reggie said. “I think we slept four hours the weekend before we opened and we were still under construction and working out of a commissary kitchen and had 100 pounds of chicken. A friend of mine took it in a huge ice chest to smoke at his house and then Ashley fried it. I was like, ‘Shit better be good, or I’m going to kill you...’ But it was. It was delicious!”

Reggie and Roussel oversee a small, dedicated team. It’s the team mentality that Roussel, quite literally, brings to the table. Chef Kristen Essig of Coquette knows what a rare quality this mindset can be in the restaurant world.

“It’s a rarity to find people willing to work with those around them,” Essig said. “I’m not surprised to learn that she’s played volleyball—she’s one of the tallest people I’ve met.

Food can be very contrived, but hers is honest, because she’s an honest person. She’s dynamic and passionate and self-motivated, and those are some of my favorite traits in anyone.”

Roussel—more than capable of acting as a coach as she calls out the plays in her kitchen—prefers to think of herself as a cheerleader.

“The best kitchens I’ve worked in are the ones that have a team sport mentality, like ‘We’re all in this together,’” she said. “If you drop the ball I’m going to look bad, chef’s going to look bad, managers and servers—it all trickles. If you don’t have the camaraderie and the ability to move around and the actual agility—some of these lines are only so wide and I’m 6’1; I’ve got to be able to maneuver around the guy who’s 5 feet or the guy who’s 300 pounds. You’ve got to be in it for the team. The second you’re in it for yourself, it all falls apart.”

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BRASS BANDS

Second Lineage Da Truth Brass Band

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hen the second line season ends in June each year, enthusiasts of the city’s social aid and pleasure clubs’ annual anniversary parades often find Sunday afternoons a bit empty. So it is with much eagerness that the members of the organizations, the brass band musicians who bring on the street beat and the parade followers greet the arrival of the beginning of a brand new season. As has long been a tradition, the Valley of Silent Men Social Aid & Pleasure Club maintained its position as being first up on the second line schedule, parading on Sunday, August 27 in celebration of its 32nd anniversary.

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As much as these parades have changed through the decades, many aspects have remained the same. An early fan once said he could still hear the power and the tonal qualities of old-time ensembles like the Eureka and Tuxedo brass bands in the horns of the present crop of musicians who now rule the streets. “Just the shoes are different,” he said, laughing on looking at the street scene. The parades, which originally were all-day affairs, are now just four hours long and the “season” that once ended by Christmas presently extends past Father’s Day. The police had been known to raise holy hell blowing

By Geraldine Wyckoff

their sirens and inching up behind the last second liners to push them along. Now, since Big Chief Tootie Montana demanded in the City Council Chambers, “This has got to stop!” in reference to similar treatment of the Mardi Gras Indians, the NOPD does its job of protecting and serving the “lines.”

A common phrase used by the brass bands when talking about the evolution of those who play the parades is “we came up under.”

The Rebirth, which did its first second line for the Sixth Ward High Rollers in 1984, is often mentioned as being influential to all including those participating in this upcoming 2017–2018 season. The Grammy-

winning Rebirth, who shared the streets with the likes of the Dirty Dozen, Chosen Few, Olympia and Soul Rebels brass bands, has now, like those groups, retired from playing the social aid and pleasure club parades—an end of an era and the passing of the torch.

Last year, several names of brass bands working the second lines kept popping up. The Hot 8, which now could be considered one of the elder groups on the streets, as well as the well-established Stooges, was naturally in that number. However others appear to be increasingly getting the calls.

“I lost track after five,” says Travis Carter—the leader and tuba www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: ryan hodgson-rigsbee

The season of the street begins again.

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player of Da Truth Brass Band—of how many lines the group played last year. Da Truth, which was established in June 2004, is enjoying a second coming after dispersing following Katrina and finally being put back together by Carter in 2013. The members of the ninepiece ensemble range in age from their early twenties to their thirties.

“Oh yeah, I look forward to the new season,” Carter declares. “We have a fresh new sound; we have new members and new music. It’s going to be fun. Every Monday and Thursday we practice new original songs and a few new cover tunes that we’re doing. Yeah we’re preparing for what’s to come. We’re noted for our big sound and we play hard. For the four hours we’re out there on a second line, from the beginning to the end we’re pushing.

We’re giving 100 watts.

Da Truth will again be in the last, fifth division of the Young Men Olympian Benevolent Association’s parade. The granddaddy of the clubs celebrates its 133rd anniversary on Sunday September 24, 2017.

“Being in the back we can control our pace—we don’t have to rush,” Carter explains. “We can take our time and it allows the club and the people in the second line to dance. It gets wild in a good way, oh yeah.”

Through the years, the bands playing for the YMO’s last divisions have been known to challenge each other musically. Memorably, the Rebirth and New Birth would go at it and also try to hilariously play some hijinks on each other.

“We have our rivals,” Carter offers with a laugh. “Usually it’s To Be Continued (TBC). That was our rival band comin’ up. Outside of the music, we’re all good friends. But when it comes down to the music, you know, yeah.”

“My favorite part—just is being out there and enjoying

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“Oh yeah, I look forward to the new season ...

We have a fresh new sound; we have new members and new music. It’s going to be fun.”--Travis Carter myself and being free,” he says of participating in the lines. “I can go out there and let all my frustrations out on my instrument and play through the music and make everybody happy.”

“I came up under the Hot 8 and the Stooges,” he continues.

“That’s who we based our band upon—those guys, their music.

Each decade you have maybe three new brass bands—one falls off, two remain. Now it’s like a new band is born all of the time.”

YMO’s spectacular, full-blown event on September 24. “We had a few battles with the Stooges at those [second lines],” remembers 31-yearold Sean Michael “Trumpet Slim” Roberts, who joined TBC soon after its formation. “I’ve spent almost half my life with TBC.” “Nine Times, that was my first parade and I’m from the Ninth Ward and it passes right by my house. Yeah, keep it ‘hood,’” declares the trumpeter and Carver graduate. Last year’s November

Travis Carter of Da Truth Brass Band

The To Be Continued Brass Band, another second line regular, perhaps remains most memorable for its years blowing people away performing at the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets where it built its reputation for its powerful blasts.

Formed in 2002 by students from Carver and Kennedy high schools, these veterans of the streets will be blowing at both the Young Men Olympian’s “mini,” two-hour parade on September 10 and at the

second line originated at his high school alma mater.

It’s difficult to mistake the 10piece, 7 horn–filled TBC, which also rolled last year with the Dumaine Street Gang, Sudan and Revolution clubs, as it makes such a joyful, overwhelming noise.

Roberts, as one of the spokesmen for the democratically inclined band—“everybody has a vote”— points out that brass bands tend to play the music of their era while

keeping the New Orleans funk in it. The TBC, he says, enjoys mixing up familiar melodies like “Land of a Thousand Dances” with their original material. The band, which has recorded and been the subject of a documentary, relies heavily on chanting and getting the crowd involved with call-and-response.

“What I like about the second lines is just playing the music and people dancing—everybody’s on the same accord. Usually when the crowd knows the song they get more in it. Once you play ‘Let’s Go Get ‘Em’ everybody goes crazy.”

The Free Spirit Brass Band is one of the newer ensembles to hit the streets. Formed and led by bass drummer Jerel Brown, the group played its first social aid and pleasure club parade just five years ago, providing the beat for the Nine Times. Free Spirit, which performs regularly in Jackson Square, boosted its street creds in the 2016–2017 season by again working with Nine Times plus the Sudan and Extraordinary Gentlemen and Ladies clubs.

Brown remembers watching the second lines when he was about five or six years old and observing the excitement of the crowd and hearing the energy of the music.

At one time, he also paraded as a member of the Sportman’s Hard Hitters club. “I like the camaraderie and that they [club members] put their money out just to have fun,” Brown says. “It’s part of my culture and it’s truly fun and I love it to death. I was born and raised off it.

As long as it’s there I’m satisfied.”

“When I was younger, I really didn’t understand it as much,” remembers Free Spirit trombonist Robert Walker. “I just wanted to have fun with me and my cousins. But now being a part of it as a professional musician and knowing every musician who is www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: Marc Pagani

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PHoto: JUDY cooper

Above: The TBC Brass Band

www.OFFBEAT.com

Below: The Free Spirit Brass Band parades with Unbreakable Men

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playing on the second lines, it’s a different experience from when I was younger.”

Unlike many brass bands whose members often hooked up during high school or through neighborhood connections, the Free Spirit guys, of ages presently ranging from their early twenties to their mid-thirties, initially met when blowing on the street—Frenchmen and/or Canal and Bourbon. Most call Downtown their home, some Uptown. Two members of Free Spirit also represent a next generation of New Orleans brass band musicians—snare drummer Eric Chapman is the son of Hot 8 trombonist Tyrus Chapman and trumpeter Revert Andrews is the son of trombonist Revert “Peanut” Andrews.

Walker, who also leads his own group, the Street Legends, credits TBC and its late trombonist Brandon Franklin for inspiring him to pick up the trombone professionally. “I learned a lot from just listening to those guys,” Walker extols. “They taught a lot of musicians.”

Passing it on and coming up under remain the constant heartbeats of New Orleans music.

In 2015 my interview with Hot 8 Brass Band founder, leader and tuba player Bennie Pete explained the process simply. “The TBC, they do all our numbers, Da Truth Brass Band do a lot of our songs—all the younger bands. It’s alright, because the guys need to start somewhere like we did.

We did that with Rebirth. We had to learn all the Rebirth numbers because they were the most popular numbers on the street.”

Folk artist Ashton Ramsey once said, “The best second line is every second line because they happen.” The dedication to the tradition of the social aid and pleasure clubs and the brass bands ensures that they do. O SEPTEMBER 2017

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SAFFRON NOLA

Gold Standard

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he large, high-ceilinged dining space at 4128 Magazine Street has had ax rough few years. As Baie Rouge, it struggled to fill its perhaps overly open floor plan.

When Chef Dominique Macquet took it over as Saveur, having given up his former restaurant’s home to what would become Shaya, it lasted less than a year.

A week after Saveur closed, the more casual Tryst opened in its place and shuttered almost as quickly as it appeared.

Now, thanks to Arvinder Vilkhu, his wife Pardeep and their children Ashwin and Pranita, the space may have finally found its true calling. Last month, the family finally opened Saffron NOLA after months of buzz about their plans to take their enormously popular, onenight-a-week Indian restaurant in Gretna—an offshoot of their catering business—across the river for full-time dinner service.

The initially announced March opening was delayed as the Vilkhus renovated, transforming what had been a cavernous room into a sleek, warm interior inspired by the aesthetic of the Indian city Chandigarh.

When Saffron NOLA was ready for business, their devoted following took note, and fast.

“The soft opening was not a soft opening, it was opening hard from day one,” Arvinder said with a smile a few days after the restaurant’s August 10 grand opening. “It’s been nonstop ever since.”

Seated in one of the dining room’s plush, burgundy chairs, his eyes flitted briefly toward the kitchen, where a server inspected a steaming silver tray of curry leaf, garlic and onion-broiled P&J oysters.

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A new generation of Indian food in New Orleans; GM Ashwin Vilkhu The oyster bed roast represents multiple efforts at blending traditional Indian cuisine from various regions of the country with fresh, local ingredients and cooking styles.

The spice-crusted nariyal gulf fish, which arrives on top of a brightly flavored green korma sauce, is another.

“Our fish [is] crusted in Northern Indian spices and tossed on a wok in the Southern spices, that is we’re honoring two cities in India,” he said,

By Jennifer Odell

adding that they grind their own spices. “[In India] either they’re deep-frying it or they do it in the clay oven but we’re crusting with spices, then pan searing— emulating a blackened fish, like Paul Prudhomme’s way of doing it. But we don’t blacken the spices. We only spice it to stay flavorful and then we just get it to caramelized and brown—not the burned—consistency.”

Menu items like the goat masala, Khyber lamb chops and pork vindaloo, all of which

appeared on the West Bank Saffron menu, are available at the Magazine Street location. Other dishes, including the eggplant Hyderabad with coconut, peanuts and tamarind, have appeared at the West Bank Saffron as specials.

My two meals at Saffron featured multiple stunners and happy surprises (not the least of which was a tuna chaat presentation in which the bright pink fish was understandably mistaken for melon cubes by a diner near me). But the engaging, knowledgeable staff and friendly vibe in the restaurant appealed too.

In fact, community seems as central as food to the Vilkhus, who began serving in-house meals out of their catering setup after they returned from evacuating after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“Our clients who were coming back did not have any place to go to eat. So we started opening up our place on Saturday mornings for lunch,” Vilkhu recalled. He and his wife were in touch with customers to let them know they were safe.

“We told them, ‘If you are trying to get some food for your house, come over,’ and that’s when it all started. We started dining in our kitchen front of the house, which was a small retail space.” Eventually, they took over what had been the restaurant next door to them in the Gretna Boulevard strip mall.

Soon, the Vilkhus’ children, Ashwin, who created the inventive cocktail program and now serves as the restaurant’s marketing director and GM, and Pranita, who manages the finances and front-of-house, encouraged them to forge ahead with in-house dining. Having co-founded the original business with Arvinder, www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: elsa hahne

Saffron NOLA brings upscale Indian cuisine to Magazine Street.

PHoto courtesy of Saffron Nola

“In this industry, consistency’s so important and you can only develop it when the owners are always present...”

Ashwin’s wife Pardeep, a psychologist, now serves as Saffron’s catering director.

The concentrated family involvement appears to be paying off, too. As I sipped a balanced, fruity concoction of vodka, lime, bitters, cacao and sparkling rosé, Arvinder trailed a server as he ran three dishes to a pair of women seated at the elegant, walnut shelf–backed bar. Glancing up at Ashwin and without being seen by the

Roti sathi (bread companions): raita, tomato mirchi masala, jeera aloo, daily daal, eggplant Hyderabad, royal paneer, saag paneer and gobi

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customers, the chef wordlessly gestured a few requests to his son aimed at improving the diners’ experience or presentation of food. Ashwin didn’t miss a beat.

“In this industry, consistency’s so important and you can only develop it when the owners are always present on the premises,” said Arvinder, the veteran manager of the Pickwick Club.

“The planning, the staff—all that has to do with the combined effect. Food not only does the job.

We want to develop an experience for our guests. The ambiance here, the happy staff serving you is part of the package.”

The killer food is a nice lagniappe.

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JOE ELY

A View from Lubbock PHoto: matthew fuller

The poetic songwriting of alt-country pioneer Joe Ely.

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oe Ely’s talent and tenacity earned him a place among such Texas singer-songwriter peers as Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Ely’s bandmates in the Flatlanders, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock.

A songwriter of poetic power and a performer with commanding presence, Austin resident Ely turns to West Texas for inspiration. An Amarillo native who turned 70 this year, he spent especially formative years in Lubbock.

In the late 1950s, a Jerry Lee Lewis show Ely witnessed lit his desire to be a performer. He found more inspiration after his family moved to Lubbock. The 1959 plane-crash

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death of Lubbock native Buddy Holly inspired electric-guitar sales and the formation of garage bands all over the rock ’n’ roll star’s hometown. By 1964, Ely was gigging with his own band, the Twilights.

Ely didn’t write songs until the late ’60s. A chance encounter with Van Zandt, plus his preFlatlanders friendship with Gilmore and Hancock, inspired him to write. Songs have been flowing ever since.

Along with his decades of touring, Ely has released 19 solo albums and four albums with the Flatlanders.

He’s performed with the supergroups Buzzin’ Cousins (John Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine and James McMurtry) and Los Super

By John Wirt

Seven (including Freddy Fender, Flaco Jiménez, Doug Sahm, David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas). He also planned a songwriting sabbatical in Mexico with his friend, Joe Strummer, but the former Clash singer’s death at 50 in 2002 stopped that promising collaboration.

Recent years have seen honors come Ely’s way. In 2016, he was named Texas State Musician and inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association’s Hall of Fame (with Roy Orbison, JD Souther and Will Jennings). Last April, he became the first musician inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. The organization’s president cited Ely’s two books, a memoir, Bonfire of Roadmaps, and a novel, Reverb: An Odyssey.

Ely spoke to OffBeat in advance of his September 15 performance at Chickie Wah Wah. You’re a native of Amarillo, but you moved to Lubbock when you were 12. Do you think of Lubbock as your hometown?

Lubbock is where I awakened.

When Buddy Holly died in 1959, garage bands popped up everywhere.

Buddy Holly dying made everybody in Lubbock realize that he was from there. Before that we thought all singers came from the recording centers. L.A., New York and Nashville.

You live in Austin, a city known for music. Why do you go to West Texas for inspiration? www.OFFBEAT.com

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“I just keep playing, for my own satisfaction and just to stay alive.

You have to keep your fingers moving, your brain working.”

I lived in L.A. and New York City and London and San Francisco. A city does not inspire me to write.

But that big emptiness out there in West Texas, I feel like I have to fill it all up. The desert inspires me. I get out there in the emptiness and I find everything.

As important as Lubbock was to your musical development, how much did a performance by Jerry Lee Lewis in Amarillo impress before you moved to Lubbock?

My parents took me to a car lot in Amarillo. They were advertising free hot dogs for the kiddies. And Jerry Lee Lewis was up there with a piano and a microphone in a badass dust storm. You couldn’t hardly see across the street. Everybody had bandanas over their noses and mouths. But Jerry Lee was up there wailing. This madman pounding the piano in a raging dust storm. I thought ‘Well, damn. I can do that.’

You formed the Twilights in Lubbock as a teenager. Was there much opportunity to play in Lubbock then?

Lubbock didn’t have a lot of reason to have a band. It was a dry town. But we played the speakeasies, places where a guy would sit in his car in back of the club with his trunk open selling half-pints of gin. Those were the only places that would pay us. And we worked for tips. If the cotton crop was good, we made good money. If the crop was not good, nobody made anything.

What motivated you to form the Twilights? What repertoire did the band play?

I was washing dishes at a chicken place. I got real sick of that. I thought, ‘If I put a band together, we might make a little money.’

The Twilights played all those old torch ballads. ‘Fever’ and ‘St. James

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Infirmary’ and ‘Ebb Tide.’ We had a real good girl singer. I sang ‘Donna’ and ‘La Bamba.’ We played at those speakeasies for used car salesmen and widows. I made enough money to give up my dishwashing job.

You made your first trip to New Orleans with the Twilights?

A well-known singer from New Orleans saw us in Lubbock. I forget his name. He brought the Twilights to New Orleans to play at a club on Lake Pontchartrain. I got thrown in the New Orleans jail. Me and my friend were arrested for riding our motor scooters up on a barge.

Any other misadventures?

When we were going to New Orleans, we drove down U.S. 90 across the swamp. We were in the bass player’s big old V8 Pontiac.

We’d pass this guy and then he’d pass us. One time when we were going around him he stuck a gun out the window. We punched it.

We were going down that old road a hundred miles an hour. And then we pulled off and hid behind a gas station. I’ll never forget that.

You have many stories to tell.

If you live on the road, the stories find you.

In the past few years, you’ve received many honors. Are you comfortable with that kind of acclaim?

For my home state to give me the Texas Songwriter Hall of Fame Award, that really touched me. I never expected that. I just wrote songs. Not to win awards, but because they needed to be written.

Speaking of Texas awards, you’re from a state that has produced many great songwriters.

In the ’50s and ’60s, nobody wrote songs. I didn’t meet into

any songwriters until I ran into my Flatlanders buddies, Jimmie and Butch. That was the first I realized that anybody can write a song.

Jimmie and Butch wrote about simple things. Life in West Texas.

A dancehall on a Saturday night.

Probably about that same time, I picked up Townes Van Zandt hitchhiking. He was carrying a guitar, so I was curious. And he was in a terrible spot for getting a ride, way on the outskirts of Lubbock.

When I let him off, he pulled an album out of his backpack. He didn’t have any clothes in there, just albums. That was kind of a calling. I thought, ‘Well, I better get busy and write some songs.’

You turned 70 in February.

How do you feel about where you are as an artist?

I never even thought about stopping. Because when I was growing up, so many of my favorite singers were old guys. In Lubbock, the guys who drew the biggest audiences in the honky-tonks were guys who had been around a long time. They knew a lot of songs and had a lot of experience handling the night clubs.

I just keep playing, for my own satisfaction and just to stay alive. You have to keep your fingers moving, your brain working. Music is the best thing I can think of to do that.

Has writing songs become easier through the years?

There are fewer and fewer obstacles, because you have more experience and more things to write about. And I flat don’t give a damn if somebody doesn’t like a song. That sets me free. When I was first writing songs, I worried about what people thought. Later I realized that’s the silliest thing in the world. If they don’t like the song I’m singing, they can go drive around the cotton fields.

You, Jimmie and Butch, a.k.a. the Flatlanders, reunited to write a song for the 1998 movie, The Horse Whisperer. And then did you spontaneously decide to keep the Flatlanders going?

The Horse Whisperer song led to us writing other songs. Before long we had a whole album.

We did more albums every two or three years after that. We’re talking about doing another one.

Do you especially enjoy the songwriter concerts you play on the road?

I feel fortunate when I travel around with my old buddies.

I did a whole bunch of shows with Guy Clark and Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. And I did a tour with Allen Toussaint and Michelle Shocked.

It’s great to play different songs every night. You learn how many ways there are to phrase a song, how many rhythms there are.

There’s so much of everything, when you’re collecting it from other songwriters. That inspires me to write new songs.

You said goodbye to Guy Clark, one of your songwriter pals, last year.

That’s the sad part about living a long time. You have to say too many goodbyes to people who inspired you and intrigued you.

But the music carries on. That’s the real magic. I’ve been doing Guy Clark songs every night since he died. I get this feeling in the middle of the song of extreme gratefulness that he left this song back here on the Earth, with us mortals who’ll cross that same river someday.

O Joe Ely will perform September 15 at Chickie Wah Wah. George McConnell and Tomi Lunsford will open the show at 8 p.m. www.OFFBEAT.com

ED VOELKER

Dreamlike Scenarios

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ammer out those words burnt red from the coals.

Scrape the bark off those gnarly melodies and bend them to your will. Wince at the stinking coal fire smoke and fashion your temple.

Pray to the muse to bring you the song. Should you celebrate or sail away? Will the dream make you whole or tear you apart, agony by agony?

Such is the nature of inspiration.

The pop industry is easy, just another job. But the song, that’s hard work. It’s a vocation, like generations of diligent monks scribing away in the candlelit twilight, like poets in their attics selling their books to eat just so they can keep writing.

New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, Miami, Chicago. The wheels are grinding, the content comes rolling swiftly. There is no choice. The goal is celebrity itself.

New Orleans. The goal can only be the lost song. The poets work in bare, ruined abbeys where the birds bring them stories, tales told by the seers of old, carried forward

by Allen Toussaint and Earl King and Professor Longhair and before them

by Champion Jack Dupree and before him Jelly Roll Morton and…

The lost song contains the secrets hidden from us in our own hearts.

That search is as relentless as it is priceless. It doesn’t matter whether the audience is one or one million.

It’s the search that matters. But it’s got to be the right search. Forget about Faust, forget about Ponce de Leon. They were chumps. The search is for the Grail and nothing less. The Holy Wine Special.

It’s only money/ Just dust on the shelf/ You were always about something else—“Holy Wine (Hey Mac)” Ed Volker has always been looking for the song, the one he heard as a child on the lost radio,

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the one that comes to him in dreams so vividly he has no choice but to keep journals of the experience, to write thousands of songs dating back over the last half century based on the one that keeps visiting him in his dreams.

As if by accident or magic some of these songs made it to the public ear and people liked them.

The songs rode their way through the legend of the Rhapsodizers and brought them to the brink of fame. But the price of that fame was the song itself and Volker refused to sacrifice it. Instead he formed the Radiators, who kept the song intact and all the songs that derived therefrom. As luck would have it a kind of fame came with it and the Radiators got

By John Swenson

the job with the grinding wheels and rolled that wagon around the country for 30-plus years.

All the while Volker kept writing the songs, although the Radiators used fewer and fewer of the new ones as the years went on. Then, a few years after Katrina, Volker told the band he had decided to quit the road and never leave New Orleans again. He has spent his time since then in his alter ego as Zeke Fishhead, organizing his archives and turning out a series of visionary exercises for a seeker and a oneman band working out of his home studio near Bayou St. John. This torrent of material is available over the course of numerous releases available at livedownloads.com and the Louisiana Music Factory.

Holy Wine Special is Volker’s latest creation. He sings and overdubs all the instrumental parts on a new system that has improved the fidelity of his recordings, yet the tracks still have a dreamlike, otherworldly sound to them. Included here are two old songs that Volker has been playing live with his various bands—“Jolly House,” from 1996, and “My Baby’s Got Some Bad Kung Fu,” from 2005. “The Blue Distance,” which closes the set, also hails from ’96. Several songs are about women—earthly and celestial and, well, statuesque would be a good description of the woman in “Antoinette Pines.”

Then there are the figurative songs like “Melt Away”: “It’s 8 in the a.m. in New Orleans/ 99 in the shade/ We’re having a hot time down here on the fiery rock/ And I don’t wanna melt away.”

Despite the fact that Volker is the only player, the songs all have different shapes and feelings. The swirling, hypnotic grooves he builds on with layers of synthesized piano, organ and percussion each move along and stand out from each other like singular organisms. The lyrics speak of the deep recesses of emotion that transcend love and become existential. He has an uncanny ability to build dreamlike scenarios out of concrete images and allusions to archetypes, evoking alternately pleasant and unsettling emotional overtones. Like in “Cigar Box”: “I’m standing on North Lopez/ Cigar box holding my ghost/ It’s a long long time/ Since I left my mama’s home.../ Now what you gonna do/ When that low down chill gets in your brain/ I got one foot in the graveyard/ The other on the monkey train.../ Now I’m dancing on North Lopez/ Cigar box holding my ghost/ We done smoked up all the cee-gars/ But we still got a ways to go.” www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: ERIKA GOLDRING

Ed Volker has always been looking for the song.

ED VOELKER

Volker has written many songs about wine over the years. The Radiators could probably play an entire show of wine-themed material. The metaphor is completely appropriate for the Dionysian search for the other that Volker and the Radiators have always inspired in their audiences, who’ve spilled more wine in their lifetimes than most others drink. “If only I knew now/ What I used to know back then/ Before we came to be what we came to be/ Don’t the wine taste sweeter as the years go rolling by.”

The long game is what’s on Volker’s mind, even if it’s in the late innings. One foot in the graveyard, the other on the monkey train.

The experience gives depth to the appreciation of just about everything. Even the bad stuff, like in “When Your Way Gets Dark”: “And memory is torn and bleeding/ You can’t even recall/ The sad sweet sound of your sister singing/ Every song that lifted your heart/ Whispers away faded and gone/ Pray for the light of another star/ When your way gets dark/ And you stumble blindly through the briar/ The place you intend/ As lost as the place you came from/ No going back now there ain’t nowhere to go/ You keep moving into the unknown/ Pray for light from another star when your way gets dark.”

That urge to “keep moving” is central to “Holy Wine (Hey Mac),” Volker’s tribute to his friend James McNamara, the road manager for Barrence Whitfield and the Savages who died last year. Jimmy Mac loved the Radiators and relished drinking wine with Volker when he came to New Orleans. Volker’s tribute is a joyous call-and-response: “Hey mac (hey mac hey mac)/ Step on the gas/ There’s wine down in New Orleans/ To defrost and dissolve our dreams.”

Who needs celebrity when you’ve got the Holy Wine Special?

O www.OFFBEAT.com

SEPTEMBER 2017

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CROOKED VINES

Musical Landscapes

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ikayla Braun is beaming.

It is not because her band, local funk-pop group the Crooked Vines, is playing to a large and enthralled crowd at Tipitina’s (which they are). Nor is it because the singer/keyboardist clearly has the audience on a string, captivating them with her smoky, soulful voice (she does). No, she is watching her bandmates with genuine pride as keyboardist/saxophonist Stephen Schwartz, saxophonist Lori LaPatka, trombonist James Keene and drummer Woody Hill take solos throughout the set, each getting his or her moment to shine.

Considering the Crooked Vines’ gigging history, Braun has a lot of experience seeing her bandmates hone their craft on stage. “I had never played with any of these guys before, and being onstage for three-hour gigs multiple times a month lets you hear different nuances in ideas and different sounds,” says Braun, “especially when it comes to improvisation and solos. We all have completely different musical influences, and I think it’s really cool to be able to understand and then play off of it.”

The band’s sound was forged in those grueling marathon gigs at Balcony Music Club and at venues on Frenchmen Street. While the band started off playing covers ranging from Elvis Presley to Stevie Wonder to Amy Winehouse to Bruno Mars, the Crooked Vines quickly began incorporating Schwartz’s original compositions into their sets. As the band began debuting their own material, the members were shocked to discover the audience did not drift to the bathroom or bar whenever an original song started. “It was

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cool to realize that people were coming out to see us and getting into the music,” says Keene, “it wasn’t just the noise that’s happening around alcoholism.”

The band recorded a selftitled debut album of Schwartz’s material in 2015 as a vehicle to get gigs. More gigs came, and the band became a tighter unit with three-hour set after three-hour set. As trust was built between the members, collaboration opened up. “The first album was definitely Steve’s vision,” says LaPatka, “but for this new album, we were really writing and arranging stuff in the studio. We would present our own ideas and then go with it. It wasn’t finished when we went into the studio.

We were still working off of each other when recording.”

As LaPatka suggests, that new album—the forthcoming Alive—took some doing to complete. While the band’s newfound collaboration took them to exciting new musical landscapes, it came with some pressure. In 2016, the band launched a Kickstarter campaign

By Rory Callais

to help finance the recording of their second album. The band promoted the campaign with its first tour. There was just one problem: The campaign was too successful. “The goal of the Kickstarter was to fund the recording of this new album, but at that time we only had six songs, so we had to basically double that,” recalls Hill.

“At the end of that first tour, James, Woody, Steve and I stayed in Gulfport for a few days after our last gig in Ocean Springs,” recalls Braun. “We just woke up and wrote all day.” Luckily for the Crooked Vines and their Kickstarter backers, the strategy worked. Alive takes dramatic musical risks and detours while remaining cohesive. The band’s self-affixed “funk-pop” is merely the sonic jumping-off point, allowing the Crooked Vines to plunge into prog rock, hip-hop, jazz and soul with ease, even grace. If the sky is the ceiling, then a deep groove is the floor, a foot-tapping thread to guide the listener through the musical odyssey.

Such a varied sound could only be pulled off with confidence and self-assurance, both of which the band developed at those Frenchmen Street gigs.

“I think a lot of this new album stemmed from the kinds of gigs we had been playing downtown on Frenchmen Street where the energy cycles between the audience and us,” says Braun.

“We love that energy and we love to make people dance.”

Alive not only shows greater musical confidence, but also lyrical depth and maturity. The record is centered on looking back at past trials with a more nuanced perspective. “This new record is more realized in its messages, even when there are similar situations,” says Schwartz.

“The first one was just thinking about these topics. The new one is about internalizing something and learning from it, and learning from the experience is much more important.”

This openness and acceptance comes from the deepening friendship among the members of the Crooked Vines. Between the long gigs, touring, and collaborative writing, their personal bond is evident in both recorded and live performance.

The sheer joy the members display being onstage together makes this obvious. “When I went into the studio and sang all these lyrics, the beautiful thing was that none of these are fiction,” says Braun. “I know the stories behind the lyrics my bandmates write. But the great thing about music is that the audience—who has no idea what the song is actually about—can relate to it with whatever they’re going through in their life. It’s amazing being able to do that with my friends.”

O www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTo: xistence

The Crooked Vines take risks and detours while remaining cohesive.

STAX RECORDS

A Utopian Environment

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his year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the mighty Memphis soul music label Stax Records. Originally named Satellite Records, Stax and its subsidiary, Volt, released classics

by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the Staple Singers, Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor and many more.

As if the names of the label’s artists aren’t enough to illustrate Stax’s place in American music, the company’s sales further show its impact.

Releasing more than 800 singles and nearly 300 albums, Stax sent 167 recordings into the Top 100 pop charts and 243 recordings into the Top 100 rhythm and blues charts.

From 1962 on, Deanie Parker was there for the Stax glory years. Parker was a junior in high school when Estelle Axton, sister of label founder Jim Stewart, hired her to work in the Stax-adjacent Satellite Record Shop.

She later transitioned from record shop staff and aspiring singer to Stax marketing and publicity.

“It is unbelievable that the music we created has been around for 60 years,” Parker said from her Memphis home, a stone’s throw away from the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. “And the music is still as powerful as it was when it was first released. I am thrilled and honored to have been associated with such a magnificent and unique label.”

Parker stays involved with Stax through her work with the Stax Museum. She’s also helping promote the label’s 60th anniversary activities, which include an extensive reissue campaign by the owners of the classic Stax catalog, Concord Music Group and Warner Music Group. The campaign began in May with 10 budget-priced, single-artist hits collections.

In addition to the singers, musicians and songwriters who clinched Stax’s

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commercial success, Parker gives much credit to label executives Al Bell, Axton and Stewart.

“Stax Records was my baby,” Stewart, 87, said in a recent statement. “I am so pleased that the music we created and recorded at Stax is still being discovered, and it continues to reside in the hearts of devotees everywhere who know the joy and power of real music.”

Stewart, Parker said, “was always recognizing talent and providing opportunities. And Estelle Axton was such a nurturing soul. She created that open door-philosophy and gathered all of us kids around that turntable in that record shop.

We analyzed what other companies were doing outside of Memphis.”

Axton led research and development at Stax. “As much as the record shop could provide that

By John Wirt

service,” Parker said. “Listening to the product. Letting the customers listen to it and checking out their reactions.

We called them demos. And then communicating that information to Booker T. and the M.G.’s and Jim Stewart and (Stax musicians) Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love.”

Parker’s own desire to be a singer at Stax quickly dissipated.

“I was going to be bigger than Carla Thomas,” she said with a chuckle. “But my recording career was short-lived. And that’s okay.

I didn’t have the talent. A few people enjoyed my records, but I was never impressed.”

The challenges faced by AfricanAmerican performers during the Jim Crow era also helped dissuade Parker from a singing career.

“I didn’t want to be out here on the road where we couldn’t stay

in good hotels,” she said. “We couldn’t stop at a service station and use the restroom. We couldn’t go in a decent restaurant. I didn’t want to have any part of that.”

All of the above led Parker to admire the Stax artists even more.

“I have such deep respect for those artists who became what they became and contributed to our great music,” she said. “They hung in there. They did it. But I would have thrown in the towel.”

Inside the tall black double-door front entrance to the Stax Record Co., a.k.a. Soulsville USA, the egalitarian atmosphere offered a deep contrast to the injustice outside. Black and white musicians and office staff worked side by side in Stax. Meanwhile, the city of Memphis strictly enforced its segregation laws and AfricanAmericans had slim chance of rising on the socioeconomic ladder.

“It was a utopian environment at Stax,” Parker remembered.

“We would leave our segregated neighborhoods, set aside our differences, our suspicions, our prejudices, and go into Stax Records. We got lost in the creativity going on behind those double doors with the gold studs on them.

That’s all we cared about. What we were doing was in the very marrow of our bones. It was in the sweat. It certainly was in the heart and soul.”

The merger of the singers’ and musicians’ differing backgrounds enriched the music of Stax, Parker said.

“Each of them had a different perspective about almost everything,” she said. “But they enjoyed each other and developed genuine relationships. They learned to love each other to the extent that, when one bled, they all bled. That was happening, maybe, in other places, but not in such a comprehensive way in anyplace other than Stax Records, on the corner of College Street and East McLemore Avenue.”

O www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto: ronnie booze

Stax Records employee Deanie Parker celebrates 60 years.

PHoto: anton corbijn

Arcade Fire’s New Neighborhood Indie rock’s biggest act is infinitely content in the Crescent City.

By Sam D’Arcangelo

I

n the music video for “Electric Blue,” Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist and sometimes-frontwoman Régine Chassagne takes a stroll down Napoleon Avenue, walking, wiggling and singing her way through the aftermath of an unnamed Mardi Gras parade. While most New Orleanians will find a familiar sight in the hodgepodge of broken plastic beads, flashing police lights and clean-up crews, Arcade Fire sees something else. Namely the juxtaposition of beauty and alienation that has been a hallmark of the Canadian band’s work since their seminal debut, Funeral, turned indie rock on its head back in 2004.

“It was this really interesting scene right after the parade ends and before they clean it up. It’s this kind of desolate feeling of people stumbling around and the party’s over,” explains Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler, who co-directed the video with his cousin, Julia Simpson. “I just thought it was this really beautiful scene, with what it did to the light. It also fit some of the melancholy of the song a little bit, that feeling after the parade. It’s like, where do you go when it’s over?”

The emotional toll levied by that endless search for the next party is explored in more detail on “Signs of Life,” another single from Arcade Fire’s new album, Everything Now. For a band that has never had a shortage of things to say about the ways we find meaning in the monotony, this is thematically familiar territory. Though the music itself may have come a long way since the orchestral pop of their early releases, the message is as clear as it’s ever been. Arcade Fire is having second thoughts about society’s desire for instant and eternal gratification. Everything Now wants you to have second thoughts too, maybe even while dancing.

Primarily recorded in New Orleans, where Butler and Chassagne now reside with their four-year-old son (the pair have been married since 2003), Everything Now instantly shot to number one on the Billboard 200 when it was released earlier this summer. Yet despite

www.OFFBEAT.com

its Big Easy origins, the city’s influence on the album is far from obvious. Songs like “Electric Blue,” “Signs of Life” and the title track seem to take more from the melodic disco of ABBA or the skittish new wave of Talking Heads than from anything associated with New Orleans’ storied musical history. If this town found its way into Arcade Fire’s sound, it did so in ways that are more abstract “We weren’t looking to do what you would maybe think of as cliché New Orleans. [The city’s influence] was more in a feeling of freedom, in mashing genres and not worrying about it,” Butler says.

“We would go see the TBC Brass Band play a lot, and some of the other great brass bands. How these bands play in the pocket is very inspiring. It just makes you want to have a better feel I guess,” he adds. “Being in the same physical space as a band that’s so much better than you at something is... I think it’s the same reason the CBGB scene was what it was. You had the Ramones, the Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith and it’s all so different from each other, but there’s no way the Talking Heads didn’t hear the Ramones and want to play harder and tougher. There’s no way that Talking Heads didn’t make the Ramones want to be poppier. In a certain sense, it ends up rubbing off on you. Even though the Ramones sound nothing like the Talking Heads, it still makes you want to get back and work, just being around greatness.”

“Every single time I see Charlie Gabriel [of Preservation Hall Jazz Band] play the saxophone, I stop whatever I’m doing. He’s on so many of the Motown records I’ve listened to my whole life. Aretha Franklin too. Pretty much every note he plays is so thoughtful and coming from a deep place. You can’t help but be inspired.”

Butler and Chassagne moved to New Orleans in 2014 following Arcade Fire’s second appearance at Jazz Fest. At the time, the band was in the middle of a grueling tour supporting their fourth SEPTEMBER 2017

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“If you were to make a triangle of Haiti, Houston and Montreal, [New Orleans] is kind of in the exact middle of that triangle.

So we always felt culturally at home in a way that Régine never felt anywhere else in the U.S.”

album, Reflektor. That record marked a bit of a stylistic shift as the group veered further into dance rock territory and incorporated Afro-Caribbean musical influences, particularly Haitian rhythms, into their sound. It was an interesting move for an act whose previous album, The Suburbs, was lauded enough to earn a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. For some fans, the changes were divisive. But for Butler, the new musical direction—and the subsequent move to New Orleans—felt just right.

“I grew up in Houston and my dad came to New Orleans a lot for work, so I visited when I was a kid. Régine, my wife, her family is from Haiti and she grew up in Montreal,” Butler says. “If you were to make a triangle of Haiti, Houston and Montreal, [New Orleans] is kind of in the exact middle of that triangle. So we always felt culturally at home in a way that Régine never felt anywhere else in the U.S.” “I think the last time we headlined Jazz Fest, we stayed there for like three weeks and we didn’t even really talk about it,” he continues.

“It just kind of happened. We didn’t have a big conversation about it.

We just kind of looked at each other and were like, ‘Yep, this is where we’re going to stay.’”

By the fall of 2014, Arcade Fire had wrapped up their Reflektor tour and settled into a performing hiatus that would last nearly two years.

The much-needed break from the road gave Butler and Chassagne time to get better acquainted with their new home, and the pair quickly discovered an arts scene that was as vibrant as anything they’d encountered in other parts of the world. The fact that this scene extended beyond the confines of what most people consider “New Orleans culture” only made it that much better.

“I just barely caught it, but there was this huge graffiti project that happened on the West Bank,” Butler says, referring to street artist Brandan “B-mike” Odums’ acclaimed 2014 project ExhibitBE. “That was incredible.

I thought that was a really world-class art event… I had to jump the fence to see it because they had just closed it, but that kind of shit I find really inspiring. There was so much great work and so many man hours put into it and such talent. That shit’s not happening in Brooklyn.”

Their extended break from touring also gave Butler and Chassagne a chance to get acquainted with some of their new friends in town, including Preservation Hall Jazz Band creative director Ben Jaffe. After meeting him at California’s Coachella festival, the pair quickly developed a rapport with the bassist/tuba player, who has since become one of their best friends. “Our kids play together,” Butler notes.

Arcade Fire’s growing relationship with Jaffe and the PHJB would eventually take the form of a very public collaboration when the time came to honor one of the greats. For Butler and Chassagne, David Bowie wasn’t just a musical and cultural pioneer; he was an early proponent of their work and, more importantly, a friend. His death in January 2016 affected them deeply, so when Jaffe suggested putting on a memorial for the late English rock icon, they got to work planning something special.

“I don’t think it was on anyone’s radar how hard it was going to hit when he passed, or that he would pass,” Butler says. “The way he made that record [Blackstar] and gave it to the world right as he died.

The whole artfulness of his whole, basically his whole career, it just felt very fitting. It seemed like a lot of people would want to have some way to mourn him in a public way.”

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Somber occasions often have a way of taking on a celebratory tone in New Orleans, and a memorial parade for David Bowie was the celebration many New Orleanians didn’t know they needed. At least not until the idea was presented to them. Before the PHJB and Arcade Fire announced the event, they secured a permit for a 400-person parade through the French Quarter. When the memorial went down two days later, thousands showed up to join in.

In hindsight, it’s kind of baffling that they expected anything less.

The middle of January is the middle of Carnival season, after all.

Beyond that, Bowie was nothing if not a champion of freedom and creativity. He may not have had many personal connections to this city, but none of his myriad personas would ever seem out of place in, say, the French Quarter. They certainly didn’t seem out of place that day when a mass of costumed people followed the PHJB, Chassagne and a megaphone-wielding Butler down Toulouse Street to the river.

“Even if you don’t know someone, you have this intimacy from listening to their records. And he touched so many people at so many different points of his career,” Butler says. “He was someone I really looked up to and was lucky enough to collaborate with… He deserved a big send-off.”

Still, the gathering was not without its critics. Some locals wondered if the PHJB had strayed too far from its original mission, while others questioned whether it was right to call the event a second line (it was originally billed as such before quickly being relabeled a “memorial parade”). It’s an impulse Butler understands, even if he doesn’t think he’s the right target.

“New Orleans should defend its culture, of course, by all means necessary,” Butler declares. “I lived in Montreal for 15 years, where they have extremely intense laws about language… I think, ultimately, the reason that people still speak French in Montreal and they don’t speak French in Louisiana is because they fought extremely hard to defend that culture. So I think that it’s worth defending, and I personally don’t feel like us doing a parade for David Bowie really encroaches on the spirit of New Orleans in any way. It’s something that, if we tried to do it any other city, it just wouldn’t happen.”

“I don’t think I’m the best symbol for the problem of gentrification in New Orleans, but if people want to make me into that, then I’m cool with that too,” he continues. “That’s totally fine. I mean, I live Uptown. I don’t live in the Bywater. My neighborhood was gentrified like 200 years ago. But my only minor quibble is that I think there are a lot of people that aren’t actually from New Orleans that end up dominating the conversation. There are a lot of adoptee New Orleans people that, a lot of the time, have the loudest voices about some of the politics of it, but I think the instinct is absolutely correct.”

Around the same time that Arcade Fire led a very public procession through the streets of New Orleans, they privately began the yearlong process of recording Everything Now. While parts of the album were laid down in Montreal and Paris, the bulk of it—“80 percent to 90 percent” by Butler’s estimation—was recorded at the band’s own BoomBox Studios in New Orleans. These sessions featured production from Thomas Bangalter of French electronic music giants Daft Punk and bassist Steve Mackey of British alt-rockers Pulp. Lost Bayou Ramblers drummer Eric Heigle, whose production credits include Anders Osborne, Eric Lindell and GIVERS, engineered the whole www.OFFBEAT.com

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Régine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, Win Butler, Jeremy Gara, Will Butler, Tim Kingsbury album and helped the band get their studio up and running. The record was also mixed at New Orleans’ Parlor Recording Studio.

“Motown’s studio in Detroit is like down in the basement of a house. It’s this tiny room,” Butler adds. “Most studios you go to have this sound-deadening foam everywhere, and the idea is to suck up all the sound and to isolate everything. When I first went to Motown, they had lacquered wood on the walls about shoulder height. The idea was that sound bounces and hits the ears of the musicians and it’s a more exciting sound.”

“The idea [for BoomBox Studios] was to take—we had this really small space, maybe 18 feet by 10 feet with a really tall ceiling—just one room and put all the gear in there and have all the kinetic energy of everyone bouncing off each other physically, and the sweat, and just kind of play.”

Arcade Fire got into something of a routine as the album was coming together. Two or three week sessions with the full band—Chassagne, Win Butler, Will Butler (keys, bass), Jeremy Gara (drums), Tim Kingsbury (guitar, bass) and Richard Reed Parry (guitar)—would be followed by reflective periods in which the group listened to its new material and tinkered with arrangements. All those stints in New Orleans rubbed off on the other members too, especially Parry. Originally an upright bass player, his frequent trips to Preservation Hall inspired him to dive back into the instrument with renewed vigor. “He got pretty deep into it,” Butler recalls.

Arcade Fire recruited a few New Orleans musicians to join them in their new studio as well, including Helen Gillet, Rebecca Crenshaw and Preservation Hall’s own Charlie Gabriel. The Harmonistic Praise Crusade, a local choir, contributed some backing vocals, as did a choir consisting of Jelly Joseph (of Tank & the Bangas), Akia Nevills, Kayla Jasmine and Tracci Lee. Canadian musician and producer Daniel Lanois, who ran Esplanade Avenue’s famed Kingsway Studios in the ’90s, even added his pedal steel to two tracks.

Notably, Arcade Fire’s New Orleans–based fans have their own moment on the new LP. During the band’s headlining set at Voodoo Fest 2016, Butler asked the crowd to join him in singing part of what would become the title track from Everything Now. After a few minutes corralling the crowd, they got what they were looking for. “You’ll thank me when you’re older,” Butler joked at the time.

“It’s used in the breakdown, that kind of a sing-along part during the breakdown of the song,” he says. “It was tough getting people to sing something they’ve never heard before. Now that the record’s out, everyone

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sings it. But it was sort of an experiment because I was just kind of hearing a crowd singing that part, and it seemed like the best way to do that was to have an actual crowd singing that part rather than faking it.”

In the months after that Voodoo Fest set, Butler made a number of trips to the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans’ Central Business District. He wasn’t there to rehearse for an arena tour. He was simply enjoying one of his favorite pastimes: basketball. A student of the game since childhood, Butler played reserve center and power forward on his high school’s varsity team. The 6’ 4” rock star even took home the MVP trophy at last year’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game.

When asked if moving to New Orleans has turned him into a Pelicans fan, Butler replies with a very emphatic, “F**k yeah, man.”

His thoughts on the team could warrant a story of their own, but it’s safe to say he’s been following them closely. And like many fans of the Pelicans, he has a few ideas for turning their fortunes around. “[Anthony Davis] is a once-in-a-decade sort of talent. That dude could totally bring a championship to New Orleans and they better try,” Butler says of the Pelicans star. “Jrue [Holiday] is a top-five defender in the NBA. AD is a top-five defender. We could be a dominant defensive team. So to me, it’s a bit like the Spurs where you just need dudes that can shoot and play defense... I don’t think you need a lot of playmaking and shit when you have Anthony Davis and Boogie. Those dudes are going to get 70 a night, and then everyone else on the court should be able to shoot and play D. No exceptions.” www.OFFBEAT.com

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Butler’s basketball fandom extends to the University of New Orleans too, and he often goes to shoot hoops at the school’s Lakefront Arena. When the team graduated a number of seniors last year, they needed an extra player to run 5-on-5 during practice. Butler was happy to be the tenth man for a couple of weeks.

“I would just come and scrimmage at the end of practice, which is pretty much my dream in life. To not have to do the basketball practice and like lift weights, but to play,” he says. “So I definitely have a soft spot for that team.”

Incidentally, Butler will return to the Lakefront Arena when Arcade Fire headlines the venue on September 26 as part of their “Infinite Content” tour. They’ll be supported by Wolf Parade, another indie rock outfit that got its start in the same Montreal music scene that birthed Arcade Fire.

“We’ve been doing these shows with the stage in the middle of the room, kind of like a boxing ring,” Butler explains. “There are so many musicians in the band, and the stage is really small, so there’s been an extremely fresh energy. It really changes how you play songs… We love playing Jazz Fest, but this will be cool too because the production of our show is something we put a lot of work into, and it’s really a whole different animal.”

Considering Arcade Fire’s upcoming touring schedule—the band has 40-plus dates in three continents on the horizon—Butler and Chassagne won’t be spending as much time in New Orleans as they’d like in the near future. “Unfortunately, my professional obligations are kind of like being in a pirate ship,” Butler laments.

Nevertheless, the pair would like to dedicate more time to their philanthropic endeavors when Arcade Fire with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band during the their schedule allows it. In particular, they’d like to David Bowie second line in the French Quarter last year continue their involvement with the Preservation Hall Foundation, as well as their work with the It’s encouraging to hear that Butler is concerned with local political KANPE Foundation, a group that provides aid to rural communities issues. Over the decades—the centuries, really—artists who fall in love in Haiti (Chassagne, whose parents fled Haiti in the 1960s during the with New Orleans have been a dime a dozen. From Edgar Degas to Duvalier dictatorship, co-founded the latter organization). Those worlds Tennessee Williams and Trent Reznor, countless people have created actually collided in December 2015, when the PHJB helped KANPE bring beautiful works here, only to pack their bags when the muse calls instruments to a youth group in the Haitian village of Baille Tourible. them elsewhere. If one is truly to make their home in this place, they Additionally, Butler would like to assist groups that are fighting some need to confront the bad as well as the good. When it comes to New of this state’s most important political battles. “Something that’s really Orleans, Butler has no qualms insisting his relationship isn’t a fling. close to my heart in New Orleans that—I’ve kind of put out feelers—but “It’s the only city in America I could imagine living in,” he says. something that I would like to be a lot more heavily involved with “It’s where we’ve chosen to raise our son. We’re not pulling up is prison reform in Louisiana. To me, one of the most heartbreaking stakes, other than this pirate ship of a tour that we have to do for an aspects of the last election was being so close to getting rid of private indeterminate amount of time. I have a picture on a wall in my house prisons and then having it be deferred, having all that work go in the of my grandfather [swing era bandleader Alvino Rey] playing with garbage,” he says. “If anyone, through this article, has any way I can be Louis Armstrong. It’s not a passing flirtation.” helpful in moving that conversation along… I’m all ears.”

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photos: Elsa Hahne

John Slavich/Effervescence

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ight after Hurricane Katrina, I worked at the Copeland’s on the Westbank. This was right after Fats had lost his house in the Ninth Ward and he came in one day in pure Fats regalia, with the boat captain outfit and everything else, and he came up to the bar and asked me—apparently Fats likes to drink sherry—did we have sherry? We didn’t, so I ran to the CVS that was right next door and picked up a bottle of Dry Sack just so I had something for him to drink. ‘Here you go, Mr. Domino!

Here’s your sherry.’ And he was like, ‘Baby, call me Fats.’ After that initial conversation, he was the coolest human being I’ve ever met in my life.

I wanted to make a cobbler, a traditional summertime drink for him. Since I knew Fats likes sherry, I was thinking I could make a blueberry shrub—‘Blueberry Hill’ was the inspiration for that. And

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then I put Seven Three Distilling’s St. Roch Vodka in there, which made sense, because it’s close to the Ninth Ward and really good—everything just tied in together. This is like a really tricked out Cosmopolitan— the kind of Cosmopolitan I’d drink; no cranberry juice, no triple sec.

Shrubs are a great way to preserve fresh fruits and berries—especially in New Orleans with the short growing season. It’s a great way to preserve local fruit. A shrub can last you a year if you keep it refrigerated.

I’ve been bartending since I was 18. Way back when Bruning’s was on the lake, I was a bar-back there and a friend of mine was a manager at a different bar and asked if I really wanted to bar-back or if I wanted to work as a bartender. Later, I went to Lafayette to go to school and bartended in the college bars around there, and then I came back to New Orleans again.

‘Walking to New Orleans’ is probably my favorite Fats song.

By Elsa Hahne

When I got back to New Orleans after the storm, it was the first song playing on the jukebox when I walked into Le Bon Temps. The whole ordeal with the storm and then coming back to familiar but bizarre surroundings and having that song play when I walked in, I was like, ‘Now I’m back home.’”

Bywater Blueberry Hill 1 1/2 ounces Seven Three Distilling St. Roch Vodka 3/4 ounce blueberry shrub (see recipe below) 1/2 ounce Averell Damson Gin Liqueur 1/2 ounce Hidalgo La Gitana Manzanilla Sherry 1 dash Bittermens Burlesque Bitters Sparkling wine Shake with ice and top off with sparkling wine.

Blueberry Shrub 1 pint champagne vinegar 1 pint fresh blueberries 2 cups sugar 1 pint water Pour vinegar over berries and let macerate in a covered container in the refrigerator for three days, then strain, mashing berries to get the juice out of them. Make simple syrup by simmering sugar in water for a few minutes; let cool. Add simple syrup to berry-vinegar. Bottle and refrigerate. www.OFFBEAT.com

FRENCH Café Degas: 3127 Esplanade Ave., 945-5635 La Crepe Nanou: 1410 Robert St., 899-2670

GERMAN Jaeger Haus: 833 Conti, 525-9200

ICE CREAM/CAKE/CANDY Aunt Sally’s Praline Shop’s: 2831 Chartres St., 944-6090 Bittersweet Confections: 725 Magazine St., 523-2626 La Divina Cafe e Gelateria: 621 St. Peter St., 302-2692 Sucré: 3025 Magazine St.,520-8311 Tee-Eva’s Praline Shop: 4430 Magazine St., 899-8350

INDIAN Nirvana: 4308 Magazine St., 894-9797

AFRICAN Bennachin: 1212 Royal St., 522-1230.

AMERICAN Barcadia: 601 Tchoupitoulas St., 335-1740 Brown Butter Southern Kitchen: 231 N Carrollton Ave., 609-3871 Poppy’s Time Out Sports Bar & Grill: 1 Poydras St., 247-9265 Port of Call: 838 Esplanade Ave., 523-0120 Primitivo: 1800 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., 881-1775

BARBECUE The Joint: 701 Mazant St., 949-3232

COFFEE HOUSE Café du Monde: 800 Decatur St., 525-4544 Morning Call Coffee Stand: 56 Dreyfous Dr., (504) 300-1157, 3325 Severn Ave., Metairie, 885-4068

CREOLE/CAJUN Cochon: 930 Tchoupitoulas St., 588-2123 Cornet: 700 Bourbon St., 523-1485 Galatoire’s: 209 Bourbon St., 525-2021 Gumbo Shop: 630 St. Peter St., 525-1486 K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen: 416 Chartres St., 524-7394 Mulate’s: 201 Julia St., 522-1492 New Orleans Creole Cookery: 508 Toulouse St., 524-9632 Restaurant Rebirth: 857 Fulton St., 522-6863

DELI Stein’s Market and Deli: 2207 Magazine St., 527-0771

FINE DINING Bombay Club: 830 Conti St., 586-0972 Broussard’s: 819 Conti St., 581-3866 Commander’s Palace: 1403 Washington Ave., 899-8221

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IRISH The Irish House: 1432 Saint Charles Ave., 595-6755

NEIGHBORHOOD JOINTS Biscuits and Buns on Banks: 4337 Banks St., 273-4600 Cake Café: 2440 Chartres St., 943-0010 City Diner: 3116 S I-10 Service Rd E, 8311030; 5708 Citrus Blvd., 309-7614 Cowbell: 8801 Oak St., 298-8689 Dat Dog: 601 Frenchmen St., 309-3362; 5030 Freret St., 899-6883; 3336 Magazine St., 324-2226 Live Oak Cafe: 8140 Oak St., 265-0050 Parkway Bakery and Tavern: 538 Hagan Ave., 482-3047 Sammy’s Food Services: 3000 Elysian Fields Ave., 948-7361 Tracey’s: 2604 Magazine St., 897-5413

ITALIAN

Chiba: 8312 Oak St., 826-9119 Mikimoto: 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., 488-1881 Seoul Shack: 435 Esplanade Ave., 417-6206 Sukho Thai: 4519 Magazine St., 373-6471; 2200 Royal St., 948-9309 Wasabi: 900 Frenchmen St., 943-9433

LOUISIANA / SOUTHERN Fulton Alley: 600 Fulton St., 208-5593 Mondo: 900 Harrison Ave., 224-2633 Praline Connection: 542 Frenchmen St., 943-3934

MEDITERRANEAN Byblos: 3218 Magazine St., 894-1233 Mona’s Café: 504 Frenchmen St., 949-4115

MEXICAN/CARIBBEAN/SPANISH Barú Bistro & Tapas: 3700 Magazine St., 895-2225 Juan’s Flying Burrito: 2018 Magazine St., 569-0000 El Gato Negro: 81 French Market Place, 525-9846

MUSIC ON THE MENU Banks Street Bar & Grill: 4401 Banks St., 486-0258 B.B. King’s Blues Club: 1104 Decatur St., 934-5464 Buffa’s: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038 Chickie Wah Wah: 2828 Canal St., 304-4714 Dmac’s Bar & Grill: 542 S Jefferson Davis Pkwy, 304-5757 Gattuso’s: 435 Huey P Long Ave., Gretna, 368-1114

PIZZA Midway Pizza: 4725 Freret St., 322-2815 Pizza Delicious: 617 Piety St., 676-8482 Slice Pizzeria: 1513 St. Charles Ave., 525-7437 Theo’s Pizza: 4218 Magazine St., 894-8554; 4024 Canal St., 302-1133; 1212 S Clearview, 733-3803

SEAFOOD Basin Seafood and Spirits: 3222 Magazine St., 302-7391 Crazy Lobster Bar & Grill: 1 Poydras St. 569-3380 Deanie’s Seafood: 841 Iberville St., 581-1316; 1713 Lake Ave. Metairie, 834-1225 Pier 424 Seafood Market: 424 Bourbon St., 309-1574 Royal House Oyster Bar: 441 Royal St., 528-2601

SOUL Praline Connection: 542 Frenchmen St., 943-3934

STEAKHOUSE La Boca: 870 Tchoupitoulas St., 525-8205

VIETNAMESE Namese: 4077 Tulane Ave., 483-8899

WEE HOURS Buffa’s Restaurant & Lounge: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038 Mimi’s in the Marigny: 2601 Royal St., 872-9868

Key LaBeaud hits the

Adolfo’s: 611 Frenchmen St., 948-3800 Little Vic’s: 719 Toulouse St., 304-1238

JAPANESE/KOREAN/SUSHI/THAI

Ye Olde College Inn: 3000 S. Carrollton Ave., 866-3683 Warehouse Grille: 869 Magazine St., 322-2188

Spot

How often do you come?

With my band, the Key Sound, Melba’s has always been one of these places I come back to.

Open 24 hours, of course it’s a musicians’ hangout—late-night, decent food, you can come here after a gig and kind of loaded— ‘Hey, let’s go to Melba’s.’

What do you eat here?

Today, I’m going to have the stuffed bell peppers and a side of gumbo. Sometimes I get the chicken; their fried chicken is good. It has a nice taste to it.

With 50 washing machines in the adjoining room, do you ever do laundry here?

No, but a friend of mine brought her blankets. I appreciate that the owners, Scott and his wife, make an effort to treat their workers right, just trying to be more familyoriented and open to the community.

Melba’s —Elsa Hahne 1525 Elysian Key LaBeaud sings each Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. with the Key Sound at Fields Ave. the Marigny Brasserie.

(504) 267-7765 www.OFFBEAT.com

Photo: ELSA HAHNE

Kingfish: 337 Chartres St., 598-5005 Mr. B’s Bistro: 201 Royal St. 523-2078 Restaurant R’evolution: 777 Bienville St., 553-2277

Hard Rock Café: 125 Bourbon St., 529-5617 House of Blues: 225 Decatur St., 412-8068 Howlin’ Wolf’s Wolf Den: 907 S. Peters St., 529-5844 Le Bon Temps Roule: 4801 Magazine St., 895-8117 Little Gem Saloon: 445 S. Rampart St., 267-4863 Maison: 508 Frenchmen St., 289-5648 Mid City Lanes Rock ‘N’ Bowl: 4133 S. Carrollton Ave., 482-3133 Palm Court: 1204 Decatur St., 525-0200 Rivershack Tavern: 3449 River Rd., 834-4938 Southport Hall: 200 Monticello Ave., 835-2903 Snug Harbor: 626 Frenchmen St., 949-0696 Three Muses: 536 Frenchmen St., 298-8746 Three Muses Uptown: 7537 Maple St., 510-2749

DINING OUT

Crescent City BBQ Over the last several years, the number of Saints pre-game drinking and dining options has exploded along with the development of the southern portion of the Central Business District corridor leading into Central City. With the rise of every mixed-use apartment complex and high-end condominium tower, a complementary opening of a craft cocktail bar, an ethically sourced coffee purveyor or a forks-over-knives café seems to follow close behind. Football fans generally prefer a knives-over-forks pre-game meal, and Central City BBQ will serve as a new option for Who Dats on Sundays this season.

Located in the shadow of the Superdome on the other side of the expressway, the opening of Central City BBQ at the end of 2016 was highly touted as a resurrection of local pitmaster extraordinaire Rob Bechtold, who had earned a cult following operating NOLA Smokehouse from a pop-up to a short-lived brick-andmortar restaurant. Bechtold was set to team

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up with Chef Aaron Burgau of Patois, who along with his business partners purchased a cinderblock building that formerly served as a seafood market and Chinese restaurant.

After a renovation, the 160-seat space opened to much fanfare just before Christmas. But three months later, Bechtold was out—his “mutual” departure punctuated by a less-thangraceful exit that the Mooch would be proud of.

Fortunately, the quality of the food has transitioned seamlessly in the postBechtold era. Burgau and his team consistently produce the highest quality ribs in the city— tender pork fingers encased in a pink ring of smoke and then sprinkled with flakes of crunchy sea salt. The signature item on the menu remains burnt ends—crusty nuggets of fatty beef brisket that are a BBQ lover’s equivalent of cracklins.

Links of boudin and pork sausage develop an additional level of flavor from an extended sauna in the smoker, as do chicken wings before a toss in one of the handful of house sauces.

Hand-cut french fries are a luxury not often seen at barbecue joints and are not

Photo: RENEE BIENVENU

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to be missed. Same goes for the rich sweetcorn spoonbread, with kernels popping up throughout the buttery custard.

A large rectangular bar is ideal both for bloody marys before a noon kickoff or a leisurely Friday lunch capped off with an extra round of one of the many craft beers on tap. Grab a roadie for the walk to the Dome and remember that no matter the outcome of the game, the pits at Central City BBQ will still be smoking after the final whistle blows.

—Peter Thriffiley 1201 S. Rampart St., open daily 11a–9p, (504) 558-4276, centralcitybbq.com.

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Reviews When submitting CDs for consideration, please send two copies to OffBeat Reviews, 421 Frenchmen Street, Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116

CDs reviewed are available now at 421 Frenchmen Street in the Marigny 504-586-1094 or online at LouisianaMusicFactory.com

New Orleans’ Great American Songbook

Stanton Moore With You in Mind (Mascot Records) The late Allen Toussaint wrote hundreds of songs, many never recorded, many turned into local and national hits. He’s now entered the stage where eminent musicians are devoting entire albums to his legacy. The first I know of was Jon Cleary’s feisty 2012 Occapella. Now we get drummer Stanton Moore with an all-star New Orleans cast and With You in Mind.

It’s a nice mix. There are superstandards (“Southern Nights,” “Everything I Do Gone Be Funky,” the only ones that overlap with the Cleary CD), lesser-known hits from the day (“Java,” from 1958, made a national hit by Al Hirt in 1964, and “Life,” a Dr. John staple) and some real obscurities.

Moore steers the ship ably without drawing undue attention to himself. Of the musical guests, the star here may be Cyril Neville, who squeezes a lot of juice out of these lyrics; it shows what a fine singer he is given the right material.

Donald Harrison and Nicholas Payton put in good showings too.

Nicholas, unless I’m imagining things, doing a nice bit of staccatoHirt stylizing on his “Java” take.

This version cleverly extends the bridge to facilitate blowing; while

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disorienting at first, you quickly hear how it makes sense.

Other tinkering—especially the odd meters—is a little less satisfying, but then, complicating things is one thing jazz guys do. Playing “Life” in 7/4 causes the singer to swallow some syllables to accommodate.

“Everything…” in 5/4 is better, but I wonder how a kicking 4/4 take with some of the best New Orleans players alive might have come out.

The album opens with Toussaint’s latest hit. Ernie K-Doe’s “Here Come the Girls,” re-used for a British TV commercial before making the Irish and British charts in 2007–8, is played straightforwardly with just the right bit of attitude. And it ends ingeniously, with Wendell Pierce reciting the splendid lyrics to “Southern Nights,” making you hear them anew, before the band grooves out on a gospel waltz.

The title track, “With You in Mind,” merits special mention, a magisterial take redolent of Abdullah Ibrahim that shows off Moore’s regular New Orleans jazz trio and the CD’s house band: pianist David Torkanowsky and bassist James Singleton.

All in all, it’s a fine performance

by Stanton in his continuing evolution from funkateer to allaround drum eminence, with great sidemen and material. For now, Toussaint is New Orleans’ Great American Songbook and Beatles combined; let’s hope the cover trend continues, and as creatively as it’s done here.

—Tom McDermott

Tony Dagradi Oneness (Astral Music) Saxophonist Tony Dagradi, who remains most noted as a founding

member of New Orleans’ all-star modern jazz ensemble Astral Project, multi-tasks as leader on Oneness. On an album of self-penned material, Dagradi not only utilizes the sax’s family of instruments—tenor, soprano, alto and baritone—but also picks up the flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and even mans the keyboards. The talented musician isn’t a one-man band here, however, as he mixes it up by alternating bass players—Chris Severin or Roland Guerin—and brass men: trumpeters Barney Floyd or Jamil Sharif, plus trombonist Rick Trolsen. Dagradi’s Astral Project partner, guitarist Steve Masakowski, enhances four tunes, with drummer Ricky Sebastian in on the entire musical journey. Steeped with experience playing Latin music and boasting a fiery approach, Sebastian contributes greatly to the flavor of the release.

The Latin tinge is in evidence on the opening title cut, “Oneness.”

Dagradi’s recognizable tenor tone and style comes in early on his first solo. He uses the horns of Floyd and Trolsen as a section that, with the help of overdubs, he too is a part of. Next, the leader moves to the keyboards with the recognizable electric bass of Chris Severin layin’ down a solid foundation.

The rhythm appropriately moves to a groove on “The Big Tees,” which stands as a tribute to saxophonist Earl Turbinton and brother keyboardist Wilson “Willie Tee” Turbinton, who definitely knew how to get their groove on.

The always-masterful guitar of Masakowski remains elegant though in keeping with style of the era.

Dagradi has long demonstrated his spiritual side both in his compositions and blowing. His lovely “Hymn” is melodically memorable and uplifting.

From its gentle start, it builds in

emotional impact, particularly when the horns of trumpeter Jamil Sharif and trombonist Rick Trolsen (and we assume Dagradi too) give the impression that the saxophonist is fronting a big band.

Dagradi and the talented and experienced musicians on the album boast their own distinctive voices. Each individual can be distinguished even as they join together on Oneness.

—Geraldine Wyckoff

The Huval-Fuselier Cajun Trio The Huval-Fuselier Cajun Trio (Independent) The Huval-Fuselier Cajun Trio formed when the distance between Lafayette-based teenagers Zach Fuselier and Huval brothers Phillip and Luke became too impractical to gig regularly with New Orleans accordionist Cameron Dupuy as Huval, Dupuy & Fuselier. Since then, Luke has developed into a peppy and precise accordionist with enough chops to tackle meaty tunes (“Amede Two Step”) and drive them into the ground. With his sweet, lyrical tone, Fuselier is among the upper echelon of Cajun fiddlers.

The proceedings are threaded with three concurrent themes, www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS the first being the royal glove treatment given to the traditional tunes “Les Veuves de la Coulee,” and “Grand Texas.” Belton Richard’s “I Don’t Want You Anymore” is as robust as it can be for a smaller aggregation, replete with a grandiose flair.

The second is the trio’s association with nonagenarian fiddler Milton Vanicor, former Iry LeJeune sideman, which accounts for the three LeJeune classics heard here. On the rollicking “Bosco Blues,” Fuselier makes sure to include Vanicor’s repurposed Jimmie Rodgers line “Because I can get more women than a passenger train can haul,” which still gets great crowd response.

Lastly, the trio shows how it injects ingenuity into the tradition, as evidenced by “You Are My Sunshine.” It’s first sung in English, then bounces into Cajun French and finishes in English capped by Huval blood harmonies, making it the first rendition of its kind. A Cajunized hillbilly tune of Cleoma Breaux’s, “Long Lonesome Road,” is also resurrected and features splendid flat-picking by recording engineer Joel Savoy.

But wait, there’s more. On the album’s lone original, Luke leads the way on a beautiful fiddle duet, “La Valse a Luke.” Impressive stuff, indeed.

—Dan Willging

A Party-Friendly Album Gravy Get Busy Living (Independent) Gravy announce a new sound, a new vibe, on this stellar recent release with blissful authority right from the start: The filthy old-school funk groove of opening track “Uptown Getdown” explodes into a masterful digital mix right as lyrical imagery of Carnival, love and “lonely grey days” begins. Next, the uptempo, sun-is-shining pop of “looking for fun” in “I Should Be the One” is bouncy and infectious in the mold of groovy-soul stalwarts Jamiroquai—a far cry from the blues-based guitar-driven rock that has defined the quartet since its 2004 inception. Gravy’s maturation comes perhaps best explained in a promo video (check YouTube) for Get Busy Living via interviews with producers, Galactic’s Robert Mercurio and Ben Ellman. Interspersed with clips from Gravy’s rowdy shows, Mercurio acknowledges the 11-song album’s “emotional sensibility” while Ellman says it’s a strength “having the openness to change your sound, explore the studio, paint a different kind of picture from what you do live.” This praise from the intrepid producers helps explain the switch to primarily keyboardist Chris DiBenedetto’s upper-octave vocals, harmonious and captivating throughout, with his hypnotic oozing of the 88s propelled atop buoyant rhythms courtesy of Aaron Walker (drums) and Marcus Burrell (bass/vocals). Guitarist Stephen Kelly unleashes a raging riff to reveal the blistering blend of rock at Gravy’s core for the intro to “Hear You Say,” a tune returning him to his familiar lead vocal spot. Kelly delivers a delicately smooth solo at the bridge in “Gone Blind” before the “we live in a subliminal daydream” vocal refrain. Dreamy sonic waves drive “Ribbon,” future dub flourishes on “Includes,” while the poetic party-girl lament of “Fifty Cent Ways” reflects an urgent emotional ethos—“get busy living, or get busy dying”—that informs this powerful, yet party-friendly, album.

—Frank Etheridge www.OFFBEAT.com

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Renshaw Davies The Heat (Independent) Musicians often speak of surrendering themselves to the music they create. On The Heat, local indie folk/Americana duo Renshaw Davies take this sentiment further than most. Succumbing to external forces is a theme that runs throughout the record, be they weather, exhaustion or unrequited love, as on the synth/ folk pop standout “If I Can’t Have You.” Throughout the six-song EP, that force is often the biblical heat of New Orleans summers, whether

on the reserved, solo acoustic title track (“It’s the heat that makes me crazy” says a narrator conceding all agency to the elements) and opener “Summertime,” where vocalist/ keyboardist Emily Davies sings, “A hundred degrees and you’re on your knees in the pouring rain/ What will be comes a melody that will slip away” before she and singer/guitarist John Renshaw resign that “Now it’s gone/ There’s something wrong/ Sometimes it’s nice to close your eyes in the summertime.”

“Summertime” best showcases the EP’s greatest musical strength: the marriage of Americana ballads with

New Orleans in Me Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound Jazz Corner of the World (Independent) Drummer Joe Lastie, a member of New Orleans musical Lastie family who perhaps remains most recognized for his years with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, steps out as leader of his New Orleans Sound on Jazz Corner of the World.

The first 10 cuts of the album represent chestnuts from the traditional jazz songbook played straight-up by guys who obviously love the music they’ve been performing for decades.

It opens with the toe-tapper “Back Home in Indiana,” featuring clarinetist Louis Ford, whose perfect execution and beautiful tone never fail to impress. No squeaking here, even when he goes up for the highest notes. Trombonist Jerome Jones is up next, backed by Richard Moten’s walking bass while Lastie keeps the song swinging. Trumpeter Kid Merv—who sings on several cuts—takes his turn, followed by pianist Rickie Monie, who freshens the tune with his more modern style.

The ensemble is at its happiest when working on uptempo numbers like “Ice Cream,” which kicks into the spirit with Lastie’s drums. He and Calvin Johnson do a rarely heard drum/vocal duet on the lively number. Johnson takes the reedman role, performing on soprano saxophone with Steve Walker coming in on trombone. “Come on, Uncle Joe, let’s swing out,” encourages Johnson. Some fine bass playing here too.

The last cut, “New Orleans in Me,” a tune penned by Lastie soon after Katrina, takes an entirely different stylistic route with mostly a different cast of characters. It’s got a street beat that’s a blend of brass band—complete with the sousaphones of Arian Macklin and Ben Jaffe, trumpeter Mark Braud, and saxophonists Clint Maedgen and Roger Lewis—and Mardi Gras Indians influences. At the center is the voice of Big Chief David Montana who, in song, tells the story of the hurricane’s repercussion with the ensemble completing the call and response. “You can take me out of New Orleans, but you can’t take New Orleans outta me...”

—Geraldine Wyckoff

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REVIEWS

new wave/synthpop production.

The opening track sets the EP’s tone by finding gloomy, wistful common ground between the disparate genres, blending mournful lap steel guitar with ominous Joy Division synths. In a Gambit interview accompanying the record release, Renshaw said that the record’s synthetic textures began as a means to remedy his struggles to play to a metronome. Producer Carson Thielen of Bear America Records used an electronic drumbeat as a temporary timekeeper, and the result sparked a new direction. The happy accident found Renshaw

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Davies succumbing yet again, this time to a good musical idea.

None of this is to suggest that Renshaw Davies lack a sense of self.

The essence of their sound—flawless harmonies, melancholic melodies, and an intuitive feel for using space—are The Heat’s backbone.

The group’s trademark hushed voices over delicate acoustic plucking comprise two of the EP’s six songs, which is a bit of overkill despite each song being haunting in its own right. Rather, Renshaw Davies address identity as an open-ended question that may never have a definitive answer. That may sound distressing, but as The Heat shows, losing oneself can lead to finding something pretty interesting.

—Rory Callais

Quintessential Octopus All Hallows Barking (Independent) We all miss David Bowie, don’t we? If there was anybody on the local scene more fit to craft a tribute

than the twisted indie-pop duo Quintessential Octopus, it would be hard to imagine who. Naturally, the song “Bowie” bypasses the Anthony Newleyism’s of his early career and also his later arena rock persona and dives right into the angular, detached art-rock of his Berlin period. Well, close to it, anyway: As the first song on their new EP, “Bowie” basically puts “Station to Station” in a trash compactor and gets it over with in 2 minutes 42—which is sort of their modus operandi. It also explains why the song segues right into a tender ballad named “Food Dreams,” picking up the remnants of the late great millennial emo scene. Like the Thin White Duke, restlessness is their watchword.

The Octopus follow up their excellent debut Mother with five short exercises in this musical restlessness: humanistic, but relentlessly exploring. If you need a single, or standout for your playlist, you can pick “Saddle,” which captures the thrilling offhand innocence of early MGMT. Or you

can challenge yourself with the inscrutable psychobilly disco of the closing “Dean Koontz.” Hard to tell if that’s a homage, but these guys are proving themselves to be anything but hacks.

—Robert Fontenot

Jeff McCarty Step Out (Whiskey Bayou) Singer-guitarist Jeff McCarty is Tab Benoit’s discovery, a Houma native with a big expressive voice and guitar skills to match (though they’re no match for the swampblues master himself). He can rock as hard as Tab, but his approach to blues-rock is steeped in Southern and classic rock traditions. If you’re looking for new ideas, you won’t find them here, but Jeff’s approach is plenty powerful enough to get across these 10 originals. As for the one cover, his take on Bad Company’s “Live for the Music” is even funkier than the original—and in a very Louisiana way.

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REVIEWS Better still is the fact that he’s also got a very strong soul streak; he approaches meat-and-potatoes blues-rock as if it were his own personal source of strength and absolution, a calling but also a rock.

It’s why he opens with a utopian vision (“One World, One Life, One People”), titles the song about a troubled relationship “My Soul Will Never Be Free,” and also why his Stax bellyrubber ballad “Love” starts out with the words “Be present in your moment.” It’s why he can switch right up from swamp pop on “Make Our Love Stronger” to “Figure It Out,” which would find itself at home in any funk set at Tipitina’s. His longest, slowest, moodiest number, “Angel Fly,” reveals itself almost immediately to be a farewell benediction. You’ve heard the phrase “I’ve seen heartache and pain” before, but when McCarty sings it, it sounds like you haven’t— and especially when you’re carrying on a tradition, honesty is the acid test.

—Robert Fontenot

Big Easy Playboys Preview (Independent) You can’t be something you’re not, which is certainly the credo of New Orleans’ Big Easy Playboys (BEP). BEP isn’t from the epicenter of zydeco, St. Landry Parish, nor does it have centuries of Creole lineage behind it. But as evidenced by this five-song EP, the group uses all of its resources to craft a sonic, fun-filled signature that’s totally unlike its Creole contemporaries.

Whereas the vocalist of most zydeco bands is its accordionist, with BEP, it’s drummer Stephen Randall, who’s known to mix second line rhythms into his zydeco beats. Accordionist Greg Speck provides a rollicking first generation flavor by playing the piano-note accordion like Clifton Chenier did. There’s even a fiddler in BEP’s arsenal, Michael Harvey, who helps conceptually draw the connection between Cajun and old-time Creole music while playing with a rock ’n’ roll edge.

Most songs follow themes of party and dance. “Dance’s mes amis” has a solid snap and pop to it; “This Old Boy” is BEP’s catchiest original,

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as just another caricature of the Old West, but that would be in danger of ignoring the context of “Ruby Red Slippers,” whose protagonist finds herself stuck halfway down the yellow brick road for life (“Sometimes you dream your name in lights/ And other times a dream is dead/ But most times you’re so damn tired you only dream in bed”). Likewise, the bittersweet “Second Star on the Right” seems to suggest that indulging in your Peter Pan complex especially given Randall’s line “Lovin’ through debauchery may be the only you took a heavy toll but I prayed to sure way to immortality. the saints and they saved my soul.”

Assisting him in his undertaking is “Lafayette” is essentially a zydecoDr. Sick, violinist for the Squirrel Nut ized rendition of Joe Falcon and Zippers, whose jaunty gypsy/hillbilly Cleoma Breaux’s 1927 iconic Cajun fiddle adds an extra dimension tune “Allons à Lafayette” and closes of both irony and menace to his out with stomping beats and noisy worldview. There’s just the right party crowd clamor. The last song, mixture of sadness and anger on “Hook Me Up,” is an experimental concoction of zydeco meets industrial the near-murderous betrayal ballad via the band Orgy but still manages to “The Butcher and the Bull” or the fit BEP’s mash-up personality. Though gorgeous “Emeralds,” which seems to be about the blessing or curse Preview is only a mere handful of songs, it offers a clear view into BEP’s brought by a lifetime of loving green-eyed ladies. Yes, it reads individualistic approach to zydeco. depressing, but it plays out oddly —Dan Willging hopeful, like a lot of folk music, America and life itself.

Aden Paul —Robert Fontenot Bad Seeds & Precious Stones (Independent) Something about going full Americana always seems to sharpen your songwriting focus—probably has something to do with the fact that when you subtract volume, distortion and big fistfuls of rhythm from the equation, you don’t have much choice but to tell a story. And that’s exactly what Rotten Cores member Aden Paul does on his solo debut: 11 originals that trade the Cores’ sad comedy of punkabilly for simple guitar and fiddle hoedowns.

Like a lot of local bands, the Cores were already great at finding the common tragic possibilities of legalized Bohemia, but Paul digs deeper on Bad Seeds & Precious Stones. His characters have their ambition torn right out from under them, often in a metaphorical way that suggests staying home and drinking yourself to death might even be a better bet. You can look upon an uptempo folk ballad like “The Cain of Cameron County,” whose title is pretty much self-explanatory,

Kyle Huval and the Dixie Club Ramblers Straight Allons (Valcour Records) Kyle Huval contends that if you add a few scratches to his new disc, you get an old Cajun record that’s a few generations removed. Other than today’s studio technology being vastly superior to yesteryear’s variety, he’s right. Many elements of this record are a joyful throwback.

The mics are strategically placed for an antiquated dancehall ambience. There’s virtually no electric bass but choke chords played by Josephine Vidrine for a delightful rhythmic thud and a

A True Believer Bantam Foxes Pinball (Independent) Sadly, the Crescent City has never been what you might call the epicenter of power pop: There are just too many world musical cultures passing through here for that. God bless this duo from St. Louis for trying to establish a foothold anyway. The classic construct is romantic pop writ large with giant arena hooks, from Raspberries to Weezer, but Bantam Foxes’ latest EP—cut live in the studio and therefore rawer than their earlier efforts, like their own mini-Pinkerton, is at once nervous and ferocious, a product of recycling classic rock and punk riffs into thoughtful, moody pieces amplified by a post–White Stripes attack. “Blood in the Water” captures that 120-proof bubblegum feel perfectly, “Bombshells” exploits the old quiet-loud alternative dynamic with fidget spinner verses exploding into sexually frustrated angst, and “Quicksand” perfectly flanges its guitar effect for maximum metaphor. Turns out pop-rock hasn’t played itself out any more than folk or blues; all that’s ever required is a true believer.

—Robert Fontenot www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS stabilizing dance beat. Joel Savoy and Mitch Schexnyder’s twin fiddles add a luscious layer with glorious harmonies and occasional screaming high notes.

And then there’s Huval, a multiprong threat in his own right. Not only is he a crushing accordionist with an unsinkable buoyancy, he’s also an adept steel guitarist who either echoes the melody rides or strikes rhythmic pulses while others solo. Huval pays homage to the classic Cajun vocalists by singing in that classic high lonesome, somewhat restrained style.

If the aforementioned attributes sound unlike today’s fare, so will the song selection. Huval sought out rarely recorded tunes (“Fais Do Do,” “If You Don’t Love Then Leave Me Alone” and cast Ann Savoy’s “Woman with a Broken Heart” into “Boy With a Broken Heart” with a completely different melody. There’s no doubt he’s clever, as evidenced by his combining “Flammes D’Enfer” and Austin Pitre’s “Tante Adele” into a completely different story line.

Of his other two originals, “Day After Day” is soulfully stunning while “Mes Miseres” has haunting moments of despair. If this isn’t one of the best Cajun discs of 2017, I’ll gladly eat mon capuchin.

—Dan Willging

Steve Judice Loose Ends (Independent) Steve Judice is a full-time lawyer and part-time musician who’s taken a simple but rather brilliant approach to making his name as a traditionally countryish troubadour: He simply finds out where his heroes are playing and opens up for them. It’s not only smart marketing, it’s a good guide to who he is when he’s not in a courtroom: He’s opened for Billy Joe Shaver, Roy Book Binder, James McMurtry, and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and the dozen songs on his fourth release sound like what you would get if you blended those styles together—an only sometime-comic rumination on what it’s like when your hope grows as weird as your body. www.OFFBEAT.com

In fact, Loose Ends would be a depressing album if Steve wasn’t so agreeably offhand about the inevitability of aging and the unreliability of long-term commitments. The first five songs on this set paint a pretty bleak picture of what happens when a man stops believing in love: “We’ve frayed the fringes of our last loose ends.” “I bloodied up my knuckles when I punched our bedroom wall.” “I dine on scraps from tables that you’ve turned.” As you can see, he’s mastered a country veteran’s ability to summon tragedy from an ordinary detail and twist a metaphor into a tragedy, so it doesn’t matter that his voice is mostly just serviceable—in fact, the raggedness suits the drama just right.

Judice eventually leavens that drama with a little comic relief with “Bitch Slapped (By the Hands of Time),” about growing older and finding a stranger in the mirror every day, and he gets a little generic with more gimmicky songs like “Radio,” which is really just an oldies playlist sung aloud, and “Mystifying,” which doesn’t offer anything you didn’t already know about the worst flaws of human nature. But then he brings it all back home with the closer “Dementia,” which takes an equally unflinching view of the title subject, wondering where exactly the mind goes when it starts to go. Like the frayed rope on the cover, Steve is fixated on things coming apart, but his vision—at least metaphorically— hasn’t started to fail him yet. Like any great country artist, he can see right through you.

—Robert Fontenot SEPTEMBER 2017

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Find complete listings at offbeat.com—when you’re out, use offbeat.com/mobile for full listings on any cell phone.

Listings

EXPRESS

These listings are abbreviated. For complete daily listings, go to offbeat.com. These listings were verified at the time of publication, but are of course subject to change. To get your event listed, go to offbeat.com/add-new-listings or send an email to listings@offbeat.com.

AF African AM Americana BL Blues BU Bluegrass BO Bounce BB Brass Band BQ Burlesque KJ Cajun CL Classical CR Classic Rock CO Comedy CW Country CB Cover Band DN Dance DX Dixieland DB Dubstep EL Electro FO Folk FK Funk GS Gospel GY Gypsy HH Hip-Hop HS House IN Indian Classical ID Indie Rock IL Industrial IR Irish JB Jam Band

MJ Jazz

Contemporary TJ Jazz Traditional JV Jazz Variety KR Karaoke KZ Klezmer LT Latin MG Mardi Gras

Indian ME Metal RB Modern R&B PO Pop PK Punk RE Reggae RC Rockabilly RK Rock RR Roots Rock SS Singer/

Songwriter SK Ska PI Solo Piano SO Soul SW Spoken Word SP Swamp Pop SI Swing VR Variety ZY Zydeco

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 1

Apple Barrel: Adam Crochet (BL) 6:30p Bombay Club: Los Tres Amigos (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Calvin Johnson (JV) 6p, Riverside Jazz Collective (JV) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Hog Leg (VR) 8p Civic Theatre: Sylvan Esso, Flock of Eagles (ID) 8:30p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 6p, Grayson Capps (RR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Synth Lords (JV) 7p, the Tipping Point with DJ RQ Away (HH) 10p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p, Latin Night (LT) 11p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Taste the Rainbow feat. Sea Battle (PO) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Esso (AF) 8p, Flashback to the Future ‘80s and ‘90s Dance Party (VR) 11p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Wes Williams Band (FK) 10p Howlin’ Wolf: DJ T-Roy (HH) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Little Freddie King (BL) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat. Romy Kaye and the Mercy Buckets (BQ) 11p Joy Theater: Boyfriend’s Birthday Extravaganza (VR) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Joni Mitchell Tribute (VR) 10p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 4p, Midnight Love Band, Gumbo Funk (FK) 10p

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Maple Leaf: Brint Anderson Band (FO) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a NOSH: DJ Abibas, Weedie and Khris (VR) 8p One Eyed Jacks: Berracudda New Orleans: Southern Decadence (VR) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Brass feat. Daniel “Weenie” Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Wiseguys (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Favorite Albums Live presents Core from Stone Temple Pilots (RK) 8p; Deck Room: Solunar (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Séance with Jasmine Infiniti, Bbymutha, Dandy Warhol and Edgeslayer (VR) 9p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Foundation Free Fridays feat. Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Miss Mojo (VR) 10p

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 2

Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Quartet (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Dayna Kurtz (VR) 6p, Vanessa Carr (VR) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Sarah Quintana, Kid KaBoom (VR) 8p Creole Cookery: Trad Stars Jazz Band (JV) 11a d.b.a.: Jazz Vipers (JV) 7p, Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet, Cyril Neville and Swamp Funk (FK) 11p Dragon’s Den: Samba Soul Saturday feat.

Brazilian Fashion Show (LT) 7p, Sexy Back with DJ Dizzi and DJ Heel Turn (VR) 10p; Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p Gasa Gasa: Quintessential Octopus, Marine, Particle Devotion, Food Group (ID) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Louisiana Leather (VR) 7p, Pink Room Project (HH) 11p Howlin’ Wolf: Music x Art Maddness III (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Shannon Powell (JV) 8p Joy Theater: A Very Sordid Wedding feat. Del Shores and Emerson Collins (VR) 2p; Sophie, Delish Da Goddess, Nice Rack, B2B, Rusty Lazer (HH) 10p Kerry Irish Pub: Van Hudson (FO) 5p, Beth Patterson (FO) 9p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Lakeshore Landing: A Sneak Peak of Lakeshore Landing feat. Naughty Professor, the Fortifiers (FK) 3p Little Gem Saloon: Benny Turner CD-release party with Carolyn Wonderland (BL) 8p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Leah Rucker, Smoking Time Jazz Club (SI) 1p, Raw Deal, Big Easy Brawlers (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Khris Royal and Dark Matter (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a NOSH: DJ Torque and Otto (VR) 8p One Eyed Jacks: Joe Fiore presents Fur Ball: Southern Decadence (VR) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Boogie Men (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Germaine Bazzle and Larry Sieberth Quartet live recording (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Antoine Diel and Arsene DeLay (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Davis Rogan (JV) 10p

Three Keys (Ace Hotel): JD Samson and Christeene (VR) 10p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Russell Welch (JV) 6p, Luke Winslow King (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Future Families of Funk feat. Ryan Batiste and Raw Revolution, the Rahim Glaspy Experience, R&R Music Group (VR) 8:30p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: the Troubadour (KJ) 1p, Bayou Cajun Swamp Band (KJ) 5p, T’Canaille (KJ) 9p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Rhythm and Rain (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p UNO Lakefront Arena: Labor Day Comedy-Soul Fest feat. Anthony Hamilton and Michael Blackson (CO) 8p

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 3

Bacchanal: the Tangiers Combo (JV) 12p, the Tradsters (JV) 4:30p, Roamin’ Jasmine (JV) 7:30p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Pfister Sisters (JV) 4p, Gerald French Trio (JV) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Greazy Alice (VR) 9p Civic Theatre: Paz Fest IV: A New Orleans Tribute to Joni Mitchell feat. Chuck Mitchell, Judith Owen, Harry Shearer, Deacon John and many others (RK) 7p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Bites (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Sunday Swampede with Corey Ledet and his Zydeco Band (ZY) 10p Dragon’s Den: Open Jazz Jam with Tristan Gianola Trio (JV) 7p, Church (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Gasa Gasa: Me and the Aral Sea, Melon Kids, AR Plovnick (RK) 9p House of Blues: Body Rock feat. Mannie Fresh and DJ Soul Sister (HH) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Little Gem Saloon: Glen David Andrews Gospel Brunch (GS) 11a Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs, the Function, Sidewalk Swing (JV) 10a, Meghan Stewart, Higher Heights (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Russell Batiste and Walter “Wolfman” Washington (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old Point Bar: Gregg Martinez (RK) 3:30p, Sunday Night Jazz (JV) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Brad Walker Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: John Lisi and Delta Funk (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Thrills and Wonders with Nicole Lynn Foxx, Ray Gun and the Moonshine Players (VR) 7:30p & 10:30p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascal (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Brandon Moreau and Cajungrass (KJ) 2p, Bayou Cajun Swamp Band (KJ) 7p

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 4 Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Helen Gillet (JV) 7:30p

Banks Street Bar: Adam Crochet’s Mid-City Jam and Hang (SS) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Justin Molaison (VR) 5:30p, Alex McMurray with Paul Sanchez (RR) 8p Dragon’s Den: Monday Night Swing feat. Joe Goldberg and the Function (JV) 7p, Hangover Mondays with DJ Ill Medina (VR) 11p Funky Pirate: Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (MJ) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French Trio (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Two Sheets to the Wind (FO) 8p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, RnR Music Group (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Chris Mule and the Perpetrators (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation All-Stars feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Carolyn Broussard (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. AllStars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Tropical Isle Original: Graham Robinson Band (RK) 5:15p, Trop Rock Express (RK) 9:15p

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 5

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Mark Weliky (JV) 7:30p Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Chip Wilson and Marcello Benetti (VR) 6p, Alvin Youngblood Hart (BL) 8p, Jamey St. Pierre (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Mario Abney (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Marc Stone (BL) 7p Maison: Eight Dice Cloth, Gregory Agid Quartet (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p One Eyed Jacks: Thee Oh Sees, Bottomfeeders (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p SideBar NOLA: Loren Pickford and Todd Duke (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (JV) 5p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Jay B. Elston Band (RK) 5p, Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 9p

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 6

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Jesse Morrow (JV) 7:30p Bombay Club: John Royen (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Chickie Wah Wah: Lillie Lewis (VR) 6p, Mike Doussan Band (FK) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RR) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Groove Therapy (HH) 9p, Reggae Night (RE) 10p Gasa Gasa: Think No Think, Bahamacide, Jack and the Jackrabbits (RK) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Progression Music Series (VR) 9p House of Blues (the Parish): Will Hoge, Dan Layus (FO) 7:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Think Less, Hear More: Improvisational Band to Movies (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Glen David Andrews (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Mason Ruffner (BL) 7p Little Tropical Isle: Jay B. Elston (RK) 5p, Reed Lightfoot (RK) 9p Maison: Dinosaurchestra, Jazz Vipers, Brasszilla (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Gravitones (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Yat Pack (SI) 8p SideBar NOLA: Greg Schatz Trio with Paul Santopadre and Dave James (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Delfeayo Marsalis and Uptown Jazz Orchestra (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 7p Tipitina’s: Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Lightnin’ Malcolm (BL) 9p Tropical Isle Original: Debi and the Deacons (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 7

Bombay Club: Joe Ashlar Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Gumbo Cabaret (VR) 5p, Tom Saunders and the Hot Cats (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy (VR) 6p, Paul Sanchez and Justin Molaison (VR) 8p d.b.a.: Jon Cleary (PI) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Crescent Fresh Stand-Up (CO) 7p, Disco Thursday feat. DJ Randall Smooth (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Downtown Boys, Special Interest (PK) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: 90s Mixtape Party feat. Chapter Soul (FK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Paintbox with Dave James and Tim Robertson (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Cecile Savage (JV) 7p Maison: Good For Nothin’ Band, Sweet Substitute Jazz Band, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Johnny Vidacovich Trio (JV) 10p NOSH: Sasha Masakowski and Bloom (JV) 7p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours (JV) 6p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Louis Ford (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas (ZY) 8:30p SideBar NOLA: Alex McMurray and Jonathan Freilich (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Brian Quezergue Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Up Up We Go (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): the Asylum Chorus (SO) 10p

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Three Muses: Paul Kemnitz (JV) 5p, Gal Holiday and the Honky Ton Revue (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Wild Magnolias Reunion Show (MG) 9p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p Vaughan’s: DJ Black Pearl (VR) 9p, Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 8

Bombay Club: Riverside Jazz Collective (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Sweet Substitute (JV) 6p, Freddie Blue and the Friendship Circle (VR) 9p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 9p Check Point Charlie: the Jerk Offisers (RK) 11p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Jon Cleary (PI) 8p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Max Bronstein Music (JV) 7p, the Tipping Point with DJ RQ Away (HH) 10p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p, Latin Night (LT) 11p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p House of Blues (the Parish): Sam Riggs (CW) 9p House of Blues: Bustout Burlesque and the Bustout Jazz Band (BQ) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat. Romy Kaye and the Mercy Buckets (BQ) 11p Joy Theater: Stand-Up NOLA feat. Matt Owens, Kamari Stevens, Mary Devon Dupuy, Lauren Malara, Vincent Zambon, Allison Hotard and Lane Lonion (CO) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Roy Gele (FO) 5p, Crossing Canal with Patrick Cooper and Ruby Ross (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Diaz Trio (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Reed Lightfoot (RK) 5p, Frank Fairbanks (RK) 9p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 4p, New Creation Brass Band, Big Easy Brawlers (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Alvin Ford Jr., DJ Raymond, Brandon Butler, Josh Connelly (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a NOSH: DJ Abibas, Weedie and Khris (VR) 8p Old Point Bar: Rick Trolsen (PI) 5p, Truman Holland and the Back Porch Review (RK) 9:30p One Eyed Jacks: Jordan Anderson Band, John Daigle, Brain Cream (VR) 9p Orpheum Theater: Darcy Malone and the Tangle (RR) 9:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Brass feat. Daniel “Weenie” Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Groovy 7 (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Erica Falls album-release show (SO) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: DJ Soul Sister’s 11th Annual Birthday Jam feat. DJ Jazzy Jeff (FK) 10p Tropical Isle Original: Down River (RK) 1p, the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 9 Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 7p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Quartet (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Cate Rodgers and the Gentilly Stompers (JV) 6p, the Royal Rounders (VR) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Papa Mali’s Wake of the Dead (VR) 9p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 7p, Quintron and Miss Pussycat (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Gasa Gasa: Paul Sanchez, Bob and the Thunder (RK) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Brown Improv (CO) 8p, Pink Room Project (HH) 11p House of Blues: ZOSO: the Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience (CB) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Charley Crockett (CW) 10p Howlin’ Wolf: Pancakes and Booze (VR) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Shannon Powell (JV) 8p JW Marriott Ballroom: Chamber Opera Series presents Astor Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires (CL) 2:30p & 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Dave Hickey (FO) 5p, Three (FO) 9p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Luneta Jazz Band, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 1p, Vegas Cola, Groove Faction (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a NOSH: DJ Torque and Otto (VR) 8p One Eyed Jacks: ROAR!, Kerchief (VR) 9p Orpheum Theater: Hot Summer Nights in the Ice Pit feat. DJ RQ Away and friends (HH) 10:30p Preservation Hall: Salon Series: Bruce Brice Retrospective Opening Reception with Will Smith and Preservation All-Stars (TJ) 3p, Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Republic: TWRK, CRWNS, Deathtouch, Derek Taylor (VR) 10p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Contraflow (RK) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis and the 21st Century Trad Band (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Zombies Eating Sheep, the Void, Naughty Palace (VR) 8p, Werewolf ‘80s Cover Band (CB) 9p Spotted Cat: Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Honey Island Swamp Band (RR) 10p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Flow Tribe, Stoop Kids (FK) 10p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: the Troubadour (KJ) 1p, Bayou Cajun Swamp Band (KJ) 5p, T’Canaille (KJ) 9p

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 10

Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Little Coquette (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius, Orange Kellin and Benny Amon (JV) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 8p Circle Bar: Micah McKee and friends, Blind Texas Marlin (FO) 7p, Country Night with DJ Pasta (CW) 10p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Bites (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, G. Burns Jug Band (FO) 10p Dragon’s Den: Open Jazz Jam with Tristan Gianola Trio (JV) 7p, Church (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour Open Mic (CO) 8p, Gaslight Girls presents A’oleon Broomfield (BQ) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p JW Marriott Ballroom: Chamber Opera Series presents Astor Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires (CL) 2:30p & 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 8p Little Gem Saloon: Glen David Andrews Gospel Brunch (GS) 11a Little Tropical Isle: Frank Fairbanks (RK) 5p, Mark Parsons (VR) 9p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs, Sidewalk Swing, Leah Rucker

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(JV) 10a, G and the Swinging Three, Higher Heights (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: Mike Lemmler, June Yamagishi, Doug Belote (JV) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old Point Bar: Anais St. John (JV) 3:30p, Sunday Night Jazz (JV) 7p Preservation Hall: Salon Series: Lars Edegran’s New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra (TJ) 3p, Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Cameron Dupuy and the Cajun Troubadours (KJ) 5:30p Snug Harbor: Los Tres Amigos (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: G and the Swinging Gypsies (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Ruby and Bart (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Spyro Gyra (VR) 9p Trinity Episcopal Church: Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra performs “A Night in Kansas City” (JV) 5p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 11

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Helen Gillet (JV) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Adam Crochet’s Mid-City Jam and Hang (SS) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Antoine Diel and Sam Kuslan (JV) 5p Chickie Wah Wah: Justin Molaison (VR) 5:30p, Alex McMurray (ID) 8p Civic Theatre: Modest Mouse, Mass Gothic (ID) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Soul Brass Band (BB) 10p Funky Pirate: Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (MJ) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Justin Howl (BL) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French Trio (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Carolyn Broussard (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. AllStars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Arsene DeLay (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 7p

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 12 Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Chip Wilson and Marcello Benetti (VR) 6p, Jon Cleary (PI) 8p, Jamey St. Pierre (VR) 11p Columns Hotel: Don Vappie and John Rankin (JV) 8p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: New Orleans Guitar Night (VR) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Ricardo Pascal’s New Orleans Wildlife Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Marc Stone (BL) 7p Little Tropical Isle: Mark Pentone (RK) 5p, Frank Fairbanks (RK) 9p Maison: Gregory Agid, CoolNasty (VR) 6:30p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p SideBar NOLA: Simon Berz and Annie Ellicott (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Sam Friend (JV) 5p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Jay B. Elston Band (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13

Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Lillie Lewis (VR) 6p, Russell Welch Gypsy Jazz Jam (JV) 8p, Mike Doussan Band (FK) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RR) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Think Less, Hear More: Improvisational Band to Movies (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Glen David Andrews (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Tim Robertson (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Mason Ruffner (BL) 7p Little Tropical Isle: Jay B. Elston (RK) 5p, Reed Lightfoot (RK) 9p Maison: Eight Dice Cloth, Jazz Vipers, Juan Tigre (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Gravitones (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p One Eyed Jacks: Melvins, Spotlights (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Republic: GoldLink (HH) 10p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Boogie Men (SI) 8p

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SideBar NOLA: David Torkanowsky and friends (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Delfeayo Marsalis and Uptown Jazz Orchestra (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): XL Middleton and Moniqua (HH) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajungrass (KJ) 7p

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 14

Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski with Matt Johnson (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Yvette Voelker and Josh Paxton (JV) 5p, Tom Saunders and the Hot Cats (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy (VR) 6p, John “Papa” Gros Band (VR) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Sarah Quintana and the Miss River Band (JV) 7p, Dinola (VR) 10p Dos Jefes: Matt Lemmler Trio with James Singleton and Steve Masakowski (JV) 9p Dragon’s Den: Crescent Fresh Stand-Up (CO) 7p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Drab Majesty, Pyramid Club (PK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Aural Elixer (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Cecile Savage (JV) 7p Maison: Good for Nothin’ Band, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Johnny Vidacovich Trio (JV) 10p

NOSH: Sasha Masakowski and Reed Rex (JV) 7p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours (SO) 6p Old Point Bar: Bruce Tyner Trio (RK) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Louis Ford (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble (ZY) 8:30p Scandinavian Jazz Church: N.O. Quarter Shantey Krewe (FO) 7p SideBar NOLA: Simon Berz and Annie Ellicott (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Adonis Rose and NOJO Jam (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Up Up We Go (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Superdome: U2: the Joshua Tree Tour (RK) 7:30p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Little Cosmicana, Sun Seeker (FO) 9p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p Vaughan’s: DJ Black Pearl (VR) 9p, Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 15

Bombay Club: Tim Laughlin Trio (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Alexandra Scott and her Magical Band (VR) 6p, Asylum Chorus (VR) 9p Check Point Charlie: Lips and the Trips (RK) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Joe Ely (VR) 8p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 6p, Dave Jordan and the NIA (RR) 10p Dragon’s Den: the Fat Trio (JV) 7p, the Tipping Point with DJ RQ Away (HH) 10p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p, Latin Night (LT) 11p

Gasa Gasa: Dead Leaf Echo, U.S. Nero, Jack and the Jackrabbits, Norco Lapalco (ID) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Dead Leaf Echo (VR) 8p, Flashback to the Future ‘80s and ‘90s Dance Party (VR) 11p Historic New Orleans Collection: Players Ella and Louie Tribute Band (TJ) 6p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Jai Ho! Bollywood Dance Party (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat.

Romy Kaye and the Mercy Buckets (BQ) 11p Joy Theater: Hanson (PO) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (IR) 5p, Stephen’s Green (IR) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Diaz Trio (JV) 7:30p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 4p, Soul Project, Big Easy Brawlers (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Fufu All-Stars (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a NOSH: DJ Abibas, Weedie and Khris (VR) 8p Old U.S. Mint: Colin Lake (BL) 7p One Eyed Jacks: DJ Soul Sister presents Soulful Takeover (FK) 10p Orpheum Theater: Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight (CO) 7:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Brass feat. Daniel “Weenie” Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Topcats (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Mothership: Tribute to Led Zeppelin (VR) 8p; Deck Room: the Arbitrary, Arsonwave, Stepping Sideways (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Selwyn Birchwood (BL) 10p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Kudzu Kings (VR) 10p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Bayou Cajun Swamp Band (KJ) 5p, T’Canaille (KJ) 9p

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 16

Abita Springs Town Hall: Abita Springs Opry feat. Steve Anderson Group, Julio y Cesar, Coobie Joe Cajun Band, King James and the Special Men (VR) 7p Bombay Club: Leroy Jones (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Fr. Ron and friends (VR) 6p, Phil the Tremelo King (JV) 9p Café Istanbul: Aural Elixir CD-release party (SS) 6p Carver Theater: Deepa Soul and the Love Soul Orchestra Concert Live Album Recording (SO) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: the Beatles Live at City Park (VR) 9p Civic Theatre: New Orleans Burlesque Festival’s Queen of Burlesque (BQ) 8p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p Creole Cookery: Trad Stars Jazz Band (JV) 11a d.b.a.: Jazz Vipers (JV) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 11p Dragon’s Den: Samba Soul Saturday feat.

Brazilian Fashion Show (LT) 7p; Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p, Sexy Back with DJ Dizzi (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Dent May, Video Age, Sexy Dex and the Fresh (ID) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Big Easy Live (CO) 8p, Pink Room Project (HH) 11p Howlin’ Wolf: Doug Stanhope (CO) 8p Jazz and Heritage Center: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Neisha Ruffins (JV) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Speed the Mule (IR) 5p, Roux the Day (IR) 9p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Cajun/Zydeco Fais Do Do with T’Canaille, Amy Nicole and Zydeco Soul (JV) 1p, Smoking Time Jazz Club, Brass-AHolics, Gene’s Music Machine (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: Boukou Groove (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a NOSH: DJ Torque and Otto (VR) 8p Old Point Bar: Gal Holiday and the Honky Ton Revue (CW) 9:30p One Eyed Jacks: Rareluth album-release show, Sphynx, Toonces (VR) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Republic: Slander (EL) 10p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Karma (VR) 9:30p Saenger Theatre: Tedeschi Trucks (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Roderick Paulin CD-release show with Jolynda Phillips (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Tin Star (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: Russell Welch Band (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Jack Freeman, CoolNasty, Big Reeks (RB) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Sarah McCoy (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bouvier and the Royal Bohemians (VR) 11a Tropical Isle Original: Down River (RK) 1p, the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 17

Bombay Club: Tom Hook (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Ben Fox Trio (JV) 4p, Gerald French Trio (JV) 7p Circle Bar: Micah McKee and friends, Blind Texas Marlin (FO) 7p, Country Night with DJ Pasta (CW) 10p

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Civic Theatre: the Chris Robinson Brotherhood (RK) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Bites (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Lagniappe Brass Band (BB) 10p Dragon’s Den: Open Jazz Jam with Tristan Gianola Trio (JV) 7p, Church (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Gasa Gasa: Frankie Rose, Suburban Living, Lawn (ID) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour Open Mic (CO) 8p, Stripped Into Submission (BQ) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: the Poor Clares (IR) 4:30p, Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs, Dinosaurchestra, the Function (JV) 10a, Leah Rucker, Higher Heights (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: Amari Neville (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a One Eyed Jacks: Quicksand, No Joy (VR) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Fais Do Do with Bruce Daigrepont (KJ) 5:30p Snug Harbor: Ted Ludwig Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jamey St. Pierre and the Honeycreepers (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Ruby and Bart (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Brandon Moreau and Cajungrass (KJ) 2p, Bayou Cajun Swamp Band (KJ) 7p

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 18

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Helen Gillet (JV) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Adam Crochet’s Mid-City Jam and Hang (SS) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Justin Molaison (VR) 5:30p, Alex McMurray with Greg Schatz (ID) 8p d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 7p, Soul Brass Band (BB) 10p Dragon’s Den: Monday Night Swing feat. the Gentilly Stompers Little Big Band (JV) 7p, Hangover Mondays with DJ Ill Medina (VR) 11p Funky Pirate: Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Gasa Gasa: Sleeping Lessons, Dusty Tupelo, Gools (RK) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (MJ) 10p House of Blues (the Parish): Grieves, Dem Atlas, Billsberry Flowboy (HH) 8p Jazz Playhouse: the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Joy Theater: Two Door Cinema Club, Circa Waves (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Roy Gele (FO) 8p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, RnR Music Group (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Orpheum Theater: Ice Pit: the Accidentals (VR) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Overkill, Crowbar, Havok, Black Fast (VR) 6p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p, Washboard Rodeo (JV) 8p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 7p

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 19

Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Chip Wilson and Marcello Benetti (VR) 6p, Jamey St. Pierre (VR) 8p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Plastic Picnic, Killer Dale (PO) 9p House of Blues: P.O.D., Alien Ant Farm, Powerflo, Fire from the Gods (RK) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Nayo Jones Experience (JV) 8p Joy Theater: 2 Chainz, Young Dolph (VR) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison: Jonathan Bauer Quintet, Gregory Agid (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p SideBar NOLA: Simon Berz and Brad Walker (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Noggin (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (JV) 5p, Messy Cookers (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Jay B. Elston Band (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 20

Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Lillie Lewis (VR) 6p, Russell Welch Gypsy Jazz Jam (JV) 8p, Mike Doussan Band (FK) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RR) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Groove Therapy (HH) 9p, Reggae Night (RE) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Progression Music Series (VR) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Think Less, Hear More: Improvisational Band to Movies (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Glen David Andrews (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Mason Ruffner (BL) 7p Maison: Royal Street Winding Boys, Jazz Vipers, Steve Lands Kota Band (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Gravitones (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Palm Court Jazz Café: Lars Edegran and Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Yat Pack (SI) 8p SideBar NOLA: James Singleton and Karl “Pickles” Kummerle (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Delfeayo Marsalis and Uptown Jazz Orchestra (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): SONO presents the Shape of Jazz to Come with Cliff Hines and G. Maxwell Zemanovic (JV) 9p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Schatzy (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Original: Debi and the Deacons (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 21

Bombay Club: Tom Hook Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Gumbo Cabaret (VR) 5p, Tom Saunders and the Hot Cats (JV) 8p

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Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy (VR) 6p, John “Papa” Gros Band (VR) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Sarah Quintana and the Miss River Band (JV) 7p, Andrew Duhon (SS) 10p Dragon’s Den: Crescent Fresh Stand-Up (CO) 7p; Upstairs: Soundclash (HH) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Ashlin Parker Trio (JV) 5p, BrassA-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Dave Hickey (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (FK) 11p Little Gem Saloon: Cecile Savage (JV) 7p Maison: Good for Nothin’ Band, G and the Swinging Gypsies, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Johnny Vidacovich Trio (JV) 10p NOSH: Helen Gillet and Luke Brechtelsbauer (JV) 7p Nunemaker Auditorium (Loyola University): Jazz Underground presents Blue Train at 60 feat. Tony Dagradi, Ashlin Parker, Michael Watson (JV) 7:30p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours (FO) 6p Palm Court Jazz Café: Duke Heitger with Crescent City Joymakers (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Louis Ford (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Lil Nathan and the Zydeco Big Tymers (ZY) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Dmitri Matheny Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Up Up We Go (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Preservation Hall Salon Series: Film Screening of “Dreamstates” by Anisia Uzeyman with music by Saul Williams (VR) 5p, Afro-Punk Mixtape with Saul Williams (VR) 10p Three Muses: Paul Kemnitz (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Beach Combers (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p Vaughan’s: DJ Black Pearl (VR) 9p, Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 22

Bombay Club: David Harris (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Keith Burnstein (VR) 6p, Davis Rogan (VR) 9p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Danny Brooks and Lil Miss Debi (VR) 7:30p, Lynn Drury’s Farewell To Showbiz Tour (BL) 9p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 6p, Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers (ZY) 10p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: Los Hombres Calientes feat. Bill Summers (LT) 6:30p Dragon’s Den: Max Bronstein Music (JV) 7p, the Tipping Point with DJ RQ Away (HH) 10p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p, Latin Night (LT) 11p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Dave Jordan and the NIA, Roadside Glory, Paw Paw’s Medicine Cabinet (RK) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Chk Chk Chk (!!!), Algiers (PK) 11p House of Blues (the Parish): Perturbator, Glitch Black, Caffetine (EL) 9p House of Blues: Superjoint, King Parrot (ME) 9p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat.

Romy Kaye and the Mercy Buckets (BQ) 11p Kerry Irish Pub: Van Hudson (FO) 5p, Foot and friends (FO) 9p Le Bon Temps Roule: Steve DeTroy (PI) 7p, Billy Asprodites and the Lagniappe Band (VR) 10p Little Gem Saloon: Diaz Trio (JV) 7:30p Louisiana Music Factory: Basin Street Records album-release party feat. Kermit Ruffins, Irvin Mayfield (JV) 6p SEPTEMBER 2017

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 4p, Groove Faction, Big Easy Brawlers (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Stevo’s Birthday Bash feat. Frogs Gone Fishing (RK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a NOSH: DJ Torque and Otto (VR) 8p Old U.S. Mint: Music for Mental Health: An Evening of Song and Discussion feat. Alfred Banks, Mia Borders, Mike Doussan, Kei Slaughter, Kathryn Rose Wood (VR) 8o Orpheum Theater: the LPO presents Old American Songs and Spirituals feat. New Orleans Black Chorale and Xavier University Chorus (FO) 7:30p Palm Court Jazz Café: Kevin Louis and Palm Court Jazz Band (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Brass feat. Daniel “Weenie” Farrow (TJ) 8p, Salon Series: Preservation All-Stars with Saul Williams (TJ) 11:59p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Bag of Donuts (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Dirt: An Alice in Chains Tribute (VR) 8p, Where Y’acht (VR) 9p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Clashback with Yung Vul (VR) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: the Magnificent Seven feat. Dave Malone, Tommy Malone, Mark Mullins, John “Papa” Gros, Rob Mercurio, Raymond Weber, Mike Skinkus (VR) 10p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Jay B. Elston Band (CW) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23

Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 7p Bombay Club: Matt Johnson (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Jerry Jumonville and Jump City Band (JV) 6p, Dirty Rain Revelers (FO) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: John “Papa” Gros Band (VR) 9p Circle Bar: Alex Cameron, Jack Ladder, Max and the Martians, Mythological Hybrids (ID) 9:30p Creole Cookery: Trad Stars Jazz Band (JV) 11a d.b.a.: Jazz Vipers (JV) 7p, King James and the Special Men (RB) 11p Dragon’s Den: Samba Soul Saturday feat. Brazilian Fashion Show (LT) 7p, Kompression (VR) 10p; Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Retrofit album-release show, the Quickening, Daria and the Hip Drops (SO) 10p House of Blues (the Parish): Dada, Debris (RK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: Sexy Fest feat. Sexual Thunder, Sexy Dex and the Fresh (FK) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Tom Hook (JV) 4p, Michael Watson (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Neisha Ruffins (JV) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Mike Kerwin and Geoff Coats (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Luneta Jazz Band, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 1p, Dysfunktional Bone, Gumbo Funk (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Lost Bayou Ramblers (KJ) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a NOSH: DJ Torque and Otto (VR) 8p Orpheum Theater: DJ Soul Sister presents Hustle! at the Ice Pit (FK) 11p Palm Court Jazz Café: Greg Stafford and Palm Court Jazz Band (JV) 8p

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Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers, John Mooney and Bluesiana (VR) 9p Saenger Theatre: Meek Mill (VR) 10p Snug Harbor: Dr. Michael White and the Original Liberty Jazz Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): La Noche Caliente with Muevelo (LT) 10p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bouvier and the Royal Bohemians (VR) 11a

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 24

Bombay Club: Tom Hook (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Nattie Sanchez’s Songwriter Circle (SS) 4p, Steve Pistorius, Orange Kellin and Benny Amon (JV) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Malcolm Holcombe with David Robert King (VR) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Bites (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, the Fessters (VR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Open Jazz Jam with Tristan Gianola Trio (JV) 7p, Church (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour Open Mic (CO) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Traditional Irish Session (IR) 5p, Chip Wilson (FO) 8p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs, Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 10a, Brad Walker, Higher Heights (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: Charlie Wooten Trio (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Orpheum Theater: TajMo: the Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ Band, Black Pacific (BL) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Sunday Night Swingsters (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Salon Series: A Mediterribbean Afternoon with the Panorama Jazz Band (TJ) 1p, Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Fais Do Do with Bruce Daigrepont (KJ) 5:30p SideBar NOLA: Simon Berz, Rick Trolsen and Albey Balgochian (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Johnny Sansone and John Fohl (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Ruby and Bart (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Time Out: the Moxie Kings (VR) 11a Trinity Episcopal Church: Soprano Maria Elise Thomas and friends (VR) 5p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 25

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Helen Gillet (JV) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Adam Crochet’s Mid-City Jam and Hang (SS) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Justin Molaison (VR) 5:30p, Alex McMurray with Jeff Treffinger and Brendan Gallagher (ID) 8p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 7p, Soul Brass Band (BB) 10p Dragon’s Den: Monday Night Swing feat. John Zarsky and the Trad Stars (JV) 7p, Hangover Mondays with DJ Ill Medina (VR) 11p Funky Pirate: Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Gasa Gasa: Madeline Kenney, Julie Odell (ID) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (MJ) 10p House of Blues: the Lany Tour: Part 2 (ID) 8p Jazz Playhouse: the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: 1916 Band (IR) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maison Bourbon: Mark Wayne Rhythm and Blues Band (JV) 3p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, New Creation Brass Band (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Andre Bohren (JV) 5p

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 26

Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Chip Wilson and Marcello Benetti (VR) 6p, Andrew Duhon (SS) 8p, Jamey St. Pierre (VR) 10p

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Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 9p Dos Jefes: Tom Hook and Wendell Brunious (JV) 9p House of Blues (the Parish): Goatwhore, Toxic Holocaust, the Covalescence (ME) 6:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Ricardo Pascal’s New Orleans Wildlife Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: NOLA Dukes Showcase (VR) 7p Maison: Geovanne Santos Brazilian Quartet, Gregory Agid Quartet (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p SideBar NOLA: Mike Dillon and Simon Berz (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Noggin (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Sam Friend (JV) 5p, Messy Cookers (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Yelawolf, Mikey Mike, Big Henri (VR) 9p UNO Lakefront Arena: Arcade Fire (ID) 7:30p

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 27

Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p

Chickie Wah Wah: Lillie Lewis (VR) 6p, Johnny Sansone’s 60th Birthday Bash (VR) 8p, Mike Doussan Band (FK) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RR) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dos Jefes: George French Trio (RB) 9p Dragon’s Den: Groove Therapy (HH) 9p, Reggae Night (RE) 10p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: Zola Jesus, John Wiese (PO) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Progression Music Series (VR) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Think Less, Hear More: Improvisational Band to Movies (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Glen David Andrews (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Mason Ruffner (BL) 7p Maison: Kettle Black, Jazz Vipers (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: Gravitones (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Orpheum Theater: Mac DeMarco (SS) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Lars Edegran and Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 6p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Republic: Zomboy, Trampa, Xilent (EL) 9p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Gal Holiday and the Honky Ton Revue (SI) 8p SideBar NOLA: James Singleton and Phil DeGruy (VR) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Terrance Taplin and Uptown Jazz Orchestra (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Marina Orchestra (VR) 10p

Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p Tipitina’s: Skatalites (VR) 8:30p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 28

Bombay Club: Tom Hook Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Tiffany Ann Pollack (JV) 5p, Tom Saunders and the Hot Cats (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy (VR) 6p, John “Papa” Gros Band (VR) 8p d.b.a.: Jon Cleary (PI) 7p Dragon’s Den: Crescent Fresh Stand-Up (CO) 7p; Upstairs: Soundclash presents Throwback Thursday (HH) 10p House of Blues: SZA, Ravyn Lenae (RB) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Ashlin Parker Trio (JV) 5p, BrassA-Holics (BB) 8:30p Joy Theater: Daniel Johnston and friends, Preservation Hall All-Stars (VR) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Vincent Marini (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Cecile Savage (JV) 7p Maison: Dinosaurchestra, Good for Nothin’ Band, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Johnny Vidacovich Trio (JV) 10p NOSH: Sasha Masakowski and Reed Rex (JV) 7p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours (FO) 6p One Eyed Jacks: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (VR) 8p, Fast Times ‘80s and ‘90s Night (VR) 10p Palm Court Jazz Café: Duke Heitger and Tim Laughlin with Crescent City Joymakers (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Will Smith (TJ) 6p, Salon Series: Heart

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC and Soul Queen of New Orleans feat. Irma Thomas, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Preservation Legacy Quintet (TJ) 8p Republic: Rezz, No Mana (EL) 10p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Geno Delafose (ZY) 8p Snug Harbor: Grayson Brockamp and the Wildlife Band (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Sacred Reich, Intrepid Bastards, Byzantine (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: Up Up We Go (JV) 2p, Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Soundbytes with PJ Morton and friends (VR) 9p Three Muses: Arsene DeLay (JV) 8p Vaughan’s: DJ Black Pearl (VR) 9p, Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 29

Bombay Club: Don Vappie (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Steve DeTroy Band (JV) 6p, Zoukeys with Beth Patterson and Josh Paxton (VR) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, the Fortifiers, the Plowboys (VR) 9p Circle Bar: Rik Slave’s Country Persuasion (CW) 7p, Abe Partridge (RK) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tuba Skinny (JV) 6p, George Porter Jr. and his Runnin’ Pardners (FK) 10p Dragon’s Den: the Fat Trio (JV) 7p, the Tipping Point with DJ RQ Away (HH) 10p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p, Latin Night (LT) 11p Hi-Ho Lounge: Flashback to the Future ‘80s and ‘90s Dance Party (VR) 11p House of Blues (the Parish): the Bronx (PK) 8:30p House of Blues: Buddy Guy (BL) 8p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat.

Romy Kaye and the Mercy Buckets (BQ) 11p

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Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Guitar Slim Jr. (BL) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 5p, Jamie Lynn Vessels (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Diaz Trio (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Reed Lightfoot (RK) 5p, Frank Fairbanks (RK) 9p Mahalia Jackson Theater: Mann’s World Family Tour feat. Tamela Mann and David Mann (CO) 7:30p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 4p, Brasszilla, the Grid (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Eric Johanson with guest Tab Benoit (RR) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a NOSH: DJ Abibas, Weedie and Khris (VR) 8p One Eyed Jacks: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue, South Jones, Greazy Alice (VR) 9p Orpheum Theater: Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band (BL) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Kevin Louis and Palm Court Jazz Band (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Brass feat. Daniel “Weenie” Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Crescent City Soul (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: the Producers (VR) 7:30p; Deck Room: Bending, Catbamboo, Chemical City Rebels (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p Three Muses: Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tropical Isle Original: Down River (RK) 1p, the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 30

Bombay Club: Larry Scala (JV) 8:30p

Buffa’s: King’s Quartet (JV) 6p, Marina Orchestra (VR) 9p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Honey Island Swamp Band (RR) 11p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: New Orleans Blues Society’s Blues Challenge (BL) 5p Gasa Gasa: Big Ups, Hound (RK) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Pink Room Project (HH) 11p House of Blues: Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas (RK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Jenna Hunts Band (RK) 10p Howlin’ Wolf: Itchy-O, the Unnaturals, MC Trachiotomy (EL) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Tom Hook (JV) 4p, Michael Watson (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Vali Talbot (IR) 5p, Beth Patterson (FO) 9p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p Little Tropical Isle: Jay B. Elston (RK) 5p, Reed Lightfoot (RK) 9p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Royal Street Winding Boys, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 1p, Big Easy Brawlers, Soul Company (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Ron Holloway (JV) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a NOSH: DJ Torque and Otto (VR) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Duke Heitger and Palm Court Jazz Band (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 6p, Preservation AllStars feat. Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: 90 Degrees West (CW) 9:30p

Snug Harbor: Herlin Riley Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): PGHxNOLA with Bouffant Bouffant and Aaron Clark (VR) 10p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p Time Out: Andre Bouvier and the Royal Bohemians (VR) 11a Tropical Isle Original: Down River (RK) 1p, the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

FESTIVALS September 9 The New Orleans Jazz Museum presents its Downriver Festival on the theme of shrimp and snoballs at the Old U.S. Mint and French Market, featuring food vendors, live music, panel discussions and cooking demonstrations.

Facebook.com/DownriverFestival/ September 22-23 Best of the Bayou Music Fest takes place in downtown Houma.

Facebook.com/BestoftheBayou/ September 23-24 The National Fried Chicken Fest at Woldenberg Park features live music and national and local food vendors serving Southern dishes.

FriedChickenFestival.com September 29-October 1 Gretna Heritage Festival features food vendors, carnival rides and live music including KISS, Huey Lewis and the News and the B-52s.

GretnaFest.com

www.OFFBEAT.com

BACKTALK

Derek Trucks

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erek Trucks met his wife Susan Tedeschi in July 1999 in New Orleans at the Saenger Theatre. Already an accomplished prodigy and slide-guitar virtuoso, Trucks has since forged a family with the Grammywinning singer/guitarist Tedeschi and found fertile musical ground in their own Grammy-winning ensemble, the transcendent Tedeschi Trucks Band.

Heirs apparent to the rock/soul/blues scene that has surrounded him from the cradle to today, Trucks recently spoke by phone from his native Jacksonville, Florida home “in the swamp” with OffBeat about loss, late nights at Tipitina’s, and his sources of inspiration.

What’s it like creating music with your wife?

It’s a pretty amazing thing to be able to share that with somebody. I guess being on the road as a kid, band and family always co-mingled—there was never a separation. Almost any band I’ve played in, we stayed together 10, 15, 20 years.

It feels natural, you know? It has to be the right person and the right musical sensibility. When we first met in New Orleans at the Saenger, it was the musical connection first. That made it pretty simple.

PHoto: Elsa hahne

What can you tell us about that first meeting between you and Susan?

It was one of the first tours I had done with the Allman Brothers as a member of the band, and she was opening a whole month of shows. You don’t run across people like that often. [laughs] You just don’t run across a musician of that caliber, especially in that package.

Europe, but outside of that, it’s just a few weeks at a time—so it feels manageable. But I think all of us get a little stir crazy if we’re not gigging and I definitely know that the more this band plays, the better it seems to get. So you always want to keep it moving.

Y’all just wrapped up your summer tour and are preparing to hit the road again real soon.

Why tour that frequently?

It’s a 12-piece band. It doesn’t work well unless you work it. We have to stay on the road quite a bit to make it float. I think we’ve always done that.

We’re lifers. We’re used to working and we’re used to touring. And I think the other thing you realize is that the music and the band only get better the more you play. We’re starting to figure out how to adult tour a bit more, where there are actually decent breaks in between tours so you don’t feel like you’re burning the candle at both ends at all times.

We do the one really long summer tour every year now, and maybe we’ll do a long tour of

One thing that has always struck me about the Tedeschi Trucks Band is the instrumentation. It’s a huge ensemble for a touring blues/rock band. From a conceptual standpoint, why have a 12-piece band?

Some of it just kind of evolved into what it is now. When I was moving on from my solo group and wanted to start a band with Susan, we had a few concepts in mind. One was just a small group, a five-piece band, but I really wanted to experiment with two drummers, having played with Jaimoe and my uncle for so long [in the Allman Brothers Band]. And towards the end of the [Eric] Clapton tour that I did, he had two drummers out. It’s just such a good sound, a good feel, to be out in front of all that that I wanted to experiment with it. And playing the music that we play, you always hear a horn section on certain things. So that was in the mix.

I hadn’t been working with [vocalist] Mike Mattison all that long when I quit my band, when I stopped doing my solo group, and I felt like there was a lot of meat on the bone there still. I

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talks back

love writing tunes with him; I love collaborating with him. And so we started thinking about ways to make that work, too. He was really into the idea of two male background singers, like Gladys Knight & the Pips. Usually, it’s a male lead singer and a few female background singers, but he liked the idea of experimenting with the reverse of that.

Which people have done here and there, but it’s not as common. So that was the concept going in.

And you meet people along the way. I remember Eric Krasno was down in our studio, writing tunes and recording with us, and Alicia Shakur showed up with him one day when we were making a record. She hopped in with the singers and she really filled out the sound. It was pretty immediate. So then we started thinking, ‘There’s already 11 out. What’s the harm in having 12?’ We realized we had enough bunks on the bus. [laughs] I think we are officially out of bunks on the bus until we can move up to another bus.

So that’s why the cap’s been at 12.

The Allman Brothers have a storied tradition of legendary shows in New Orleans. Clearly, Tedeschi Trucks is starting to match that legacy. Do you have a certain sense when you come to play New Orleans that it’s a different scenario from other tour stops?

New Orleans is a unique city in the world. It’s got its own energy. It’s one of the few places in SEPTEMBER 2017

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“You have to remind band members, if you are there [in New Orleans] for more than one night, that you have to get to bed before the sun rises.”

the United States that, if you were just dropped off in the city, you’d know where you were. You know it when you’re in New Orleans. It seems that, in this day and age, a lot of places are starting to look and feel the same across the country, but New Orleans is certainly not that. Obviously, as a musician you know a lot of the musical history of the place, and you know that a lot of the music that we play was birthed there. So, there’s always that heightened awareness when you play New Orleans.

And over the years you start building and having great shows yourself, so then you feel and remember some of those, too. Some of the Jazz Fest shows, some of the late-night Tipitina’s shows. I remember playing with Michael Ray, from Sun Ra’s band, and with Col. Bruce Hampton at Tipitina’s. It must have been ’92 or ’93, because the Braves were playing the Blue Jays in the World Series; I remember hanging with Col. Bruce Hampton backstage and for years he would talk about that gig and about Joe Carter’s home run in that game.

There are a lot touchstone moments that happened in New Orleans for me growing up as a kid. I remember the first time running into Dickey Betts after he was ousted from his own band—it was at Tipitina’s and we had a great hang. I have a lot of history with that place. It seems like Red Rocks is that way, and playing New York City, the Beacon Theatre, is that way, and certainly New Orleans, no matter the venue, is that way. Where you want to give it that extra ‘oomph’—whatever that is. And you have to remind band members, if you are there for more than one night, that you have to get to bed before the sun rises. [laughs] There are certain things that go along with playing New Orleans.

The last time y’all played New Orleans was Jazz Fest in 2016 and I remember the last number was a cover, Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help from my Friends.” How do y’all select the covers that you play?

When we did the Joe Cocker tunes, we had just done this show at Lockn’—this festival in Virginia—that was a Mad Dogs & Englishmen tribute. We had Leon Russell on board and I think a dozen members of that original Joe Cocker band. We had learned a whole night of that music for the gig. We were paying with Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear, Chris Stainton—who I played

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with in Clapton’s band—all these badasses. Chuck Blackwell. When we were playing that music, there were a few tunes that felt so good, that were so fun to play, that we kind of rolled them into our show off and on for a year or two. So at that Jazz Fest, we were just coming off of that.

And Leon passed not long after we did that gig with him. So you’re thinking about those people, too. When we do a song like ‘A Song for You,’ that’s a Leon Russell tune, so that’s who we’re thinking of there. Occasionally there’s a tune you play just because you love it—you’ve always loved the tune and you’ve always wanted to go at it. But the covers we do, generally there’s a connection to the band, whether it’s personal or some band you played with or a direct emotional connection.

The past year—for you personally and the scene that surrounds you—has definitely been tough with the deaths of your uncle [Butch Trucks], Gregg Allman and Col. Bruce Hampton. How has that affected you?

It’s been a tough year, man. We lost some of our biggest mentors, personally and musically. For me and my siblings growing up, my uncle is larger than life. And Gregg was this mythical figure that I didn’t really know until I started touring and playing with him. These were major figures for us.

When I met Bruce, I was around 12 years old.

He really became a part of our family and us a part of his. Bruce was a tough one. It’s still hard to wrap your head around all of it. It puts things in clearer perspective in certain ways—you realize it’s on us a little bit more now to keep things rolling. To keep those figures in people’s minds. You’re sort of groomed to do it in a lot of ways.

Growing up playing with Bruce, he’s constantly trying to prepare you for any type of loss at any time. That’s kind of his MO: ‘What would you do if this happened? And what would you do if this happened?’ He’d throw out some of the most unthinkable scenarios. So when he passed—which was right in front of us [on stage at Atlanta’s Fox Theater on May 1]—you’re not sure how to process something like that. But you have to keep moving on and realize that you’re lucky to know people like that when they’re here.

In some ways, it makes the job we do maybe a little weightier. Where you feel like you need to be out there doing it. And it’s also a great release to get on stage and play. That’s where some of our best connections with these guys

were, musically on stage, so it feels good to get out there and play. Sometimes you’ll play tunes you played with them; sometimes you’ll play their tunes. It helps you sort through it.

But it’s been a hell of a year, that’s for sure.

So is it fair to say that there an actual sense of the torch being passed? Of you now being a torchbearer?

I guess so, in some sense. We were definitely disciples of those guys. So, yeah. And not for nothing—there’s a lot of shitty music out there. A lot of people with shitty intentions. A lot of people playing music for the exact wrong reasons.

So I do think it makes you hone in on that a little bit more, to make sure your intention is right and to make sure you are spreading music to people in the right way and for the right reasons. It is definitely something you think about.

What inspires you?

It’s a lot of the things we’ve been talking about. Growing up with Bruce, he was always turning you on to music at the right time. I remember he turned me on to different classical Indian musicians when I was of a certain age. I remember he bought me John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme when I was in my teens. He was like, ‘Are you ready? Are you ready yet?’ [laughs] ‘I don’t know, Bruce!’ He’d always drop a record on you, or a book on you, and it was always things that would keep your mind wide open, things to keep your senses wide open.

I think with all of our favorite musicians, you’re constantly trying to follow what does move you. Sometimes it’s elusive. But to simplify it, it does come down to, when you hear something with pure intentions, it hits you in a certain way and it feels a certain way.

Those are the things that you’re after.

I have two kids that are teenagers now—which is insane. Trying to keep them on the right path and spending time with them, those are things that keep you lit up. Being in a band like ours, being able to play every night next to someone like Kofi Burbridge—he’s healing up from some heart stuff right now, but he’ll be back on—and play with the rhythm section that we have, and getting to hear Susan sing every night, those are the things that keep you moving.

O Tedeschi Trucks Band performs at the Saenger Theatre on Saturday, September 16. www.OFFBEAT.com