OffBeat Magazine December 2018

Steve Riley The Revivalists John Waters Professor Longhair

Jon Batiste Busts Out

NEW ORLEANS MUSIC, FOOD, CULTURE—DECEMBER 2018

Free In Metro New Orleans US $5.99 CAN $6.99 £UK 3.50

The Dave Bartholomew Century EVAN CHRISTOPHER's Faubourg Variations

Steve Riley The Revivalists John Waters Professor Longhair

COVER PHoto: by Rambo

JON BATISTE BUSTS OUT

NEW ORLEANS MUSIC, FOOD, CULTURE—DECEMBER 2018

Free In Metro New Orleans US $5.99 CAN $6.99 £UK 3.50

.BLAST

Without the Mask

LETTERS

6

MOJO MOUTH

7

FRESH

8

Five Questions with bassist Nick Benoit; Debbie Davis’ Christmas; My Music with Chris Stafford of Feufollet; Howlin’ Wolf turns 30; Ellis Marsalis and Germaine Bazzle with Lula Elzy; Five Questions with Evan Christopher; WWOZ’s 39th birthday and more.

14

Tony Joe White

I Did Every God Damned Thing Myself

16

The Dave Bartholomew century.

The Fess Centennial Professor Longhair’s 100th birthday.

www.OFFBEAT.com

Modern Times

By Geoffrey Himes March 2007

Jon Batiste busts out of the proverbial box. Page 24

THE DAVE BARTHOLOMEW CENTURY EVAN CHRISTOPHER'S FAUBOURG VARIATIONS

Obituary

FROM THE PAST

Music is Freedom

22

Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys celebrate 30 years.

OffBeat Eats

30

Restaurant Review

31

Michael Dominici reviews Jack Rose restaurant.

A Dream and Hard Work

32

Saint-Germain gets back to the basics.

REVIEWS 34 The Revivalists, Tom Hook, Christian Serpas & Ghost Town, The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music Jazz Orchestra, Blake Miller & the Old Fashioned Aces, The Wanting, Live at Little Gem Saloon, Future Cowboys, Beth McKee and more.

LISTINGS 40 20

BACKTALK with John Waters. 45

With the Mamou Playboys 30th anniversary we went back to our 2007 interview with Steve Riley: “It’s a tricky proposition when you try to create new work in a tradition as strong as Cajun music.

If you change too much, the continuity ruptures; if you change too little, the culture calcifies.”

(To read more this issue can be purchased at http:// www.offbeat.com/shop/ back-issues/2007/offbeatmagazine-march-2007/)

DECEMBER 2018

O

5

Letters

“Forget African-American. You are an American. Forget the race card. Get off the plantation. Forget the Grammys. They mean nothing. Play the blues.”—Bob Vernon, Lafayette, Louisiana

The following letter is in response to Dan Willging’s feature article “Getting His Due” [October 2018] about the legacy of Caesar Vincent.—Ed. Caesar was my great-grandfather’s brother.

He was known as a raconteur et chanteur (story teller and singer). My great-grandfather died in 1965 and we drifted apart as families do. Then because of a shared interest in genealogy, cousins started finding each other and in some instances we knew each other but didn’t realize we were all part of the Vincent family. Anytime we got together Nonc Caesar was always a topic of discussion and right before several older family members passed away they were able to tell us more about Nonc Caesar. Then I ran into Barry Ancelet [Cajun folklorist and expert in Cajun music and Cajun French] and asked him if he would like to know more about Caesar. Barry met with the family and then discovered his recordings and off he went and did what he does better than anyone else! Our family is so appreciative of his efforts and the efforts of all of the musical talent that will bring this important legacy as an infusion of new very very old French music!

Thank you for this wonderful article!

—Kevin Reese, Scott, Louisiana The following letter is in response to Jan Ramsey’s blog post “Needed: A Different Type of Business Leader” [March 2018] indicating that every musician and band is a business and an entrepreneur.—Ed. I have been working in the local music industry since I was 17—I am now 44. I absolutely love music; it has brought me through so much. I have to watch bands struggle to make ends meet and not be able to do what they absolutely love because there is no money in it. I am not in this industry to be a millionaire. I have been booking shows and not making any money but I’m not complaining at all. I do it because I love music.

I agree with everything you said in your blog.

I am extremely interested in helping in any way I can to make it possible for musicians to actually make some money doing what they love.

—Crissy Babin, Gulfport, Mississippi

Banned by the Grammys The following letters are in response to Chris Thomas King’s open letter saying he’s been banned by the Grammys.—Ed. Chris, I’ve known your family since before you were born. Your Dad was the real thing.

A couple of things: You are from Baton Rouge. Forget Jagger/Richards/Clapton.

They ripped off a lot of black people and their music. Ask Irma Thomas about “Time Is On My Side.” Stay with the real blues.

Forget Adele covers. You don’t have her voice. Forget African-American. You are an American. Forget the race card. Get off the plantation. Forget the Grammys. They mean nothing. Play the blues. Blues came from the entire Delta area, including Mississippi.

Nothing else matters.

—Bob Vernon, Personal Manager for Nathan Williams, Lafayette, Louisiana The bottom line here Thomas King is offended he got removed while Jagger gets celebrated. There are many problems with blues organizations, programmers and profiteers—people who want to promote blues as anything with feeling—to the mainstream rock audience. Which is erasing what blues was in favor of the rock audience. Thomas King is right on some of these points. However, he exhibits a tone deaf attitude when his record, taken as a body of work is a scattered mish-mash of genres that I wouldn’t consider on my blues radio program. What are serious issues in the blues world he makes serve him as the marginalized artist. Selfishly too, I might add.

The bottom line, Hotel Voodoo (yes, I’ve listened to it) is not a blues record per se. It’s a mainstream record that goes from genre to genre. To not acknowledge that his artistic product doesn’t fit well within the blues standard shows a remarkable lack of insight.

This is just ‘I’m pissed you booted my record while Jagger gets his ring kissed therefor you are being racist.’ A tone deaf temper tantrum.

—Stephanie Levine, Long Beach, California

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.

6

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Louisiana Music, Food & Culture

December 2018 Volume 31 Number 13 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jan V. Ramsey, janramsey@offbeat.com Managing Editor Joseph L. Irrera, josephirrera@offbeat.com Consulting Editor John Swenson Layout and design Eric Gernhauser, eric@offbeat.com Listings Editor Katie Walenter, listings@offbeat.com Contributors Noé Cugny, Michael Dominici, Herman Fuselier, Raphael Helfand, Amanda Mester, Brett Milano, John Swenson, Christopher Weddle, Dan Willging, John Wirt, Geraldine Wyckoff Cover Photograph by Rambo Web Editor Amanda Mester, amanda@offbeat.com Videographer/Web Specialist Noe Cugny, noecugny@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 James Bittner , Devorah Levy-Pearlman 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

/offbeatmagazine Copyright © 2018, 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

Hope for Support

I

’m writing this preThanksgiving and thinking about the upcoming holiday season. Thanksgiving and Christmas kind of run together for me, and are always a time for me to count my blessings: I’m still pretty healthy (for as long as that lasts). I’m married to a great guy whom I love. All my siblings are alive and well, as are their children and grandchildren. My daughter is beautiful, happy, healthy and content. I have a granddaughter who’s also lovely, smart, talented and capable (in case you’re not aware, she works here at the magazine). And now I have a beautiful healthy 20-month-old great-granddaughter: the apple of my eye.

I love my work, and the really

www.OFFBEAT.com

hard-working dedicated OffBeat team, whom I appreciate very much, including my husband Joseph. I’m thankful that OffBeat has been around long enough to help to promote and to educate others about music in New Orleans. I’m hopeful what we’ve tried to accomplish has changed the city’s attitude towards music and musicians. But somehow I never feel that I’ve done enough because musicians are still not appreciated as they should be, and many are still struggling to make a good living making music. Some are aging, and can’t work as much as they did. Many have serious health issues that are difficult because it’s hard to pay for even a minimum amount of insurance for themselves and

By Jan Ramsey their families on what a musician makes. That is a “pity and a shame,” in the oft-repeated words of my quirky hubby, but it’s very true.

New Orleans has never committed one hundred percent to its music, artistic and cultural community in the way that it should. As a whole, our wonderful unique culture is still taken for granted by city and state government, the business community, the people who have lived here most of their lives, and also by newcomers to the city. I just don’t think that they “get it.”

New Orleans (and Louisiana, for that matter) has a moral and civic obligation to nurture and sustain its culture through marketing and promotional

programs, educational initiatives, research and monetary support of its culture bearers. I perceive over the past three decades that New Orleans has been very imperceptibly losing its cultural soul, and it’s tragic.

There’s massive money pumped into this city via sports, particularly the Saints football team, and I understand why and how. But the impact of culture is almost impossible to quantify (unlike sports). The survival of our culture is rooted in the survival of our culture producers: people.

Those people are not the ones who make a lot of money, so they have very little power or clout. They need your support.

Have a beautiful holiday season. O

DECEMBER 2018

O

7

FRESH

Five Questions with Nick Benoit

Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles at One Eyed Jacks.

8

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

photo: courtesy of the artist

B

assist Nick Benoit is booking the Instant Opus Improvised Series, a concept that aims at putting musicians who have never played together on a stage to improvise, which gave birth to a different series called Common Tone Music Series.

Describe what was passed down to you in the Instant Opus Series.

I started becoming more interested in the experimental and improvised music scenes in New Orleans. The first time I ever played an improvised show was because Jason [Van Ness] booked me on Instant Opus.

When Jason knew he’d be leaving town he asked me if I’d look after the Opus for him. I’ve been doing my best to book as many musicians who have never played the series before, and as many underrepresented people, as I can.

How did that give birth to Common Tone?

Unlike Instant Opus, Common Tone is not an exclusively improvised music series, although that is more than allowed and encouraged. The only hard and fast rule I really have for it is to please play no outright covers, there are a ton of places in New Orleans where that’s basically mandatory.

What is it that you seek in the music scene?

Shortly after I got to New Orleans nine years ago, I started immersing myself in as much of the city’s culture, particularly musically, as I could.

I love the music we typically associate with New Orleans but there’s so much more to music here. If we can appreciate the inherent value in more than one form of expression, it shouldn’t be too hard to find diversity of them.

How do you approach playing and booking?

It’s an incredibly difficult balance to strike. It’s absolutely a labor of love and the root of much stress for me. I’ve had the pleasure of working with so many incredible professional musicians in town, and a lot of them love blowing off steam and being able to escape the public eye for just a night.

What is the value of having space for experimentation in a music scene?

There is a relative dearth of places to really be adventurous and take chances. It’s important to remember and keep alive the spirit of innovation that led to the creation of these unique forms of expression. I sometimes find myself wondering what Louis Armstrong would make of the music.

Would he find it to be incoherent, at odds with what music is even about, or a logical continuation of something he helped found?

—Noe Cugny Instant Opus takes place every Monday night at SideBar Nola.

Common Tone occurs every Tuesday night at Hi-Ho Lounge.

Photo by Noe Cugny

SWEET TWEETS

SOUNDCHECK

WWL-TV @WWLTV Tipitina's could be sold as owner faces lawsuits; musical acts' checks bounce MaCCNO @musicculture504 The Dew Drop Inn is getting close to redevelopment, with plans including 15 hotel rooms, a restaurant, music venue and museum of New Orleans music.

The Junior League @TheJuniorLeague I’ve never seen them. I’ll brave jazz fest to see them tho. I really love the stones.....from 1963-1971!!! I do love Emotional Rescue and their cover of Harlem Shuffle as well!

Alison Fensturkeystock @ AlisonF_NOLA It’s probably going to be the worst Stones show I’ll ever see.

But it’ll probably still also going to be one of my top shows ever ;) Renee McC Taylor @ RMACTAYLOR So glad I saw The Stones play in Memphis. As much as I would love to see them again I think Jazz Fest will be a zoo if they come there.

maggie_twit Breesus

@

www.OFFBEAT.com

FRESH

Oh Crap!

My Music

“I

10

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Debbie Davis

PHOTo: CONNER DWYER, courtesy of the artist

started with piano when I was super young. My mom realized I was interested in music so she put me in piano lessons. My teacher got frustrated with me because I refused to read music. Eventually she was like maybe you should encourage him to play an instrument that doesn’t require reading. My uncle had this accordion and wasn’t using it. I was messing around with it one day at his house and he let me take it home. On the way home I learned a song. ‘Well,’ my mom said, ‘I guess he has an ear for this’ and set me up with lessons with Steve Riley.

After that, I started playing guitar. My mom showed me some chords and I just ran with it. I was at a friend’s house and he had just gotten a Fender Stratocaster. I was like whoa, an electric guitar.

I realized you can play much higher up on the neck. I figured out how to play melodies, pentatonic blues and major scales. For most of my childhood, I had a guitar in my hands.

Feufollet was formed because I was in French immersion and we had this singing group Les Petits Amis led by Jane Vidrine. We would learn French songs, sing and perform. I was learning accordion so she let me play accordion in the group. We formed this band called Les Acadiens and played around town. Eventually we had a few changes in personnel that led us to reform the band and name it Feufollet in 1999. But it grew out of the French immersion scene and this cultural renaissance community of Lafayette. I’m very much a product of that movement.

Steve [Riley] was the producer of our first two records. He had a huge part in my musical development at a young age. To me, [Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys] made it okay to be creative in Cajun music. They wrote their own material but it wasn’t writing songs that recycled the same, old motifs. They were writing songs that mattered.

They made albums like rock bands did. All the songs went together and told a story. Nobody ever did that in Cajun music before. I don’t think I was aware of that at the time but I’ve always gravitated towards their music.

Later on in my life, in high school, I got into the Beatles, then New York underground rock, post-punk and proto-punk and later new wave and power pop. That has all made the band what it is today. We are into all kinds of different music now. We all like country music and that has been a big influence in the band, especially with Kelli [Jones]. She has been a country music fan her whole life and she is propelling the band in this different direction.”

—Dan Willging

C

PHOTo: courtesy of the artist

Debbie Davis’ Christmas

Chris Stafford of Feufollet

hristmas music has a special place in Debbie Davis’ heart, and she’s now got one of the city’s holiday music traditions to her name. For the fourth year in a row, she and husband/musical partner Matt Perrine are building a show around their gem of a seasonal album, Oh Crap, It’s Christmas! This year’s show happens at Cafe Istanbul on Sunday, December 16 and features the usual mix of special guests, warm spirits and just a little cynical humor between the lines.

“We’re not the traditional Christmas show, and we’re not the cynical, too cool for school Christmas show,” she says. “We’re the island of misfit toys, and I want everyone to feel like they have a place here. You find the humor in the seriousness, and the seriousness in the humor—that’s how you keep a joyous time from getting overblown, and how you keep what may be a hard time from getting too sad. You don’t have to be a total Christmas nerd to enjoy the show, and you don’t have to be a cynical pain in the ass to get all the jokes.”

This year’s show is very much a family affair. Both of Davis and Perrine’s kids will be performing, as will her sister—Dallas-based steampunk performer Darwin Davis—and even her mom, soprano Barbara Davis.

Also set to play are newlyweds Beth Patterson and Josh Paxton, along with singer/guitarist extraordinaire Spencer Bohren and his son Andre.

The finale will include Johnny Sketch and the Bandicoot 4—actually a reunion of the original Dirty Notes lineup. Perrine leads the house band which features familiar names like guitarist Alex McMurray, keyboardist Richard Scott, string players Harry Hamlin and Jack Craft, and the younger Bohren on drums.

Expect a mix of well-loved Christmas tunes and more left-field choices, like the Tom Lehrer and Elvis Costello songs that appear on the album— plus a couple of newly added surprises. “We have a couple of songs that people never attempt in New Orleans, because they’re not as ambitious or not as crazy as we are.”

Davis and Perrine have been doing these songs since they started sending audio Christmas cards to friends back in 2002. And Davis is glad to admit that she still loves both the songs and the holiday. “As music become more compartmentalized, it may be the one thing we all share.

We don’t have folk or blues as a common musical language, but every four-year-old still knows ‘Jingle Bells.’”

—Brett Milano www.OFFBEAT.com

Happy Birthday

Celebrations including Dave Bartholomew and WWOZ

www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTo: courtesy of the artist

D

ecember is a big month for birthdays, including Dave Bartholomew, who will be 100 years old on December 24, and Henry Roeland “Professor Longhair” Byrd, who was born 100 years ago on December 19, 1918.

Bassist George Porter Jr. turns 71 on December 26, and Roselyn Leonard, one-half of the New Orleans busker husband-and-wife musician team of David and Roselyn, will celebrate 80 years on the planet on December 26 as well. She celebrates with friends and family at Cafe Istanbul that evening from 7 p.m. to midnight, with Roselyn Leonard special guest Al “Carnival Time” Johnson. Roselyn and David have bought a house and raised four children by playing music on the streets here and throughout the world. Roselyn: we salute you! 80, and still singing and playing beautifully and enriching New Orleans musical culture.

And another: WWOZ will celebrate the beginning of its 39th year on December 4.

It’s going to be an all-day celebration that will bring in musicians from all over the city into the OZ studio on North Peters to perform and reminisce about OZ’s origins, the great music that’s been played over the years, and to celebrate the station’s growth into the powerhouse of New Orleans music that it has become.

Brothers Jerry and Walter Brock started the station on December 4, 1980, which originally broadcast from a small transmitter building beneath a shared tented broadcast tower. A few months later, the station moved to a cramped two-room apartment with no air conditioning that was located above Tipitina’s. According to station lore, when artists performed live downstairs, with Tipitina’s permission, their performances were broadcast via a microphone lowered through a hole in the floor. Ultimately, the station moved to a dilapidated yet functional building in Armstrong Park in 1985.

Interestingly, the very first song they played on-air was a reggae track (both Brocks were into reggae) called “Keep Cool Babylon,” by Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus (look for it on YouTube).

The station’s license, which was originally held by a non-profit called the Nora Blatch Educational Foundation, was donated to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. WWOZ will also present an exhibit at the Jazz & Heritage Gallery at 1205 North Rampart Street. The exhibit features images from its team of volunteer photographers, including Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee, Charlie Steiner and Leona Strassberg Steiner, Kichea Burt, Bill Sasser, Jamell Tate, Olivia Greene, Black Mold, Eli Mergel, Ken Maldonado, Keith Hill, Mac McAndrew, Marc PoKempner and Michele Goldfarb. The opening reception is Friday November 30, from 5 p.m. through 8 p.m. and closes at the end of the year.

DECEMBER 2 018

O

11

FRESH

SOUNDCHECK

Howlin’ Wolf turns 30

Five Questions with Evan Christopher

Howie Kaplan

H

owie Kaplan had zero experience running a major music venue when he bought the Howlin’ Wolf from Jack Groetsch in 2000.

Just over 30, Kaplan had spent his entire adult life in the hospitality industry: waiting tables, bartending and booking shows. He was running Rock ’n’ Bock, a neighborhood bar in Metairie, at the time and had just recently started booking bands there when the opportunity came.

“There was an article in the Times-Picayune that said [Groetsch] was putting the Wolf up for sale,” Kaplan remembers. “That was Friday. That same weekend, we had Quiet Riot at Rock ’n’ Bock, a tiny little place. That was Saturday. That Monday, I reached out to Jack. It was supposed to be 15 minutes. It ended up being a couple hours. He’s a great guy. We came to terms on the place, he handed it off and the rest—the last 18 years—is history.”

Groetsch opened the original Howlin’ Wolf in Metairie’s Fat City district on December 8, 1998, making the club 30 years old this month. Two years later, he moved it to 828 S. Peters Street in the then-developing warehouse district. In 2005, Kaplan moved it again, to its current location at 907 S. Peters Street, just down the block and across the street. Katrina delayed the move, but only slightly. The Wolf reopened in time for MOMs Halloween Ball that year. “We were one of the first places to reopen,” Kaplan recalls. “We got lucky. With people coming back, we were kind of a meeting place.”

During Kaplan’s reign, the Wolf has hosted some legendary shows. He lists some favorites: “The Mardi Gras shows we did with Rebirth and Papa Grows Funk—in my mind, one of the most underrated funk bands around, some of the nicest guys; the chance to do the first Meters reunion club show during Jazz Fest a few years ago. It’s been an honor, really, having these amazing musicians come in and grace us with their presence.”

Kaplan has expanded the wolf into more than a venue. It is now also an artist management agency, currently working with the Hot 8 and Rebirth Brass Bands, Mike Dillon, Naughty Professor, RumpleSTEELskin and Sexual Thunder. Moving forward, Kaplan plans to focus more and more on this side of the business.

“The real growth and fun has been in managing bands and taking on new clients,” he says. “The Wolf isn’t just a music club. It’s all these different things. It’s about the production company. It’s about the bands.

I think that’s really where we’ve grown most over the last 10 years. The relationships we’ve built as an independent venue have really helped all these bands we put on the road. It’s not limited to these four walls.”

—Raphael Helfand

12

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

E

van Christopher will debut his new work “The Faubourg Variations” at the New Orleans Jazz Museum on Sunday, December 9 at 2 p.m. The performance has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America’s 2018 New Jazz Works program funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Did you propose this piece for the commission or did you write it after you were selected?

For CMA's New Jazz Works grant, a blind panel listens to composition and performance samples. Proposals can favor conceptual, academic projects, so this current process encourages more diversity among grantees. Upon the award’s announcement, I tailored my vision to the grant's ‘extended life’ phase and created ‘The Faubourg Variations’ with the trajectory of an album-length recording.

What is the theme of “The Faubourg Variations”?

The overall theme is New Orleans, naturally! The composition's main theme, however, is a slightly modern nineteenth century–style hymn.

Several variations celebrate the neighborhoods, traditions, grooves and style-specific language of the New Orleans idiom.

You have used different Clarinet Road bands, but this quartet is special. They seem just right for the project. What role do the special guests play?

For performances of my own music, yes, I frequently call upon David Torkanowsky, Roland Guerin and Brian Seeger, whom I featured on my last recording. The CMA grant doesn't distinguish guests from core ensemble members, I did that. Herlin Riley is a ‘guest’ because the honor of his participation feels immense, and I don't work with him regularly.

NYC-based Jon-Erik Kellso is a ‘guest’ because his appearances in New Orleans are special. These five musicians were chosen because they are all incredible, individual stylists who approach New Orleans music with respect and clarity.

It’s an honor to be the first New Orleans–based recipient of this award.

It's indeed an honor. Creating this showcase for these musicians who have helped me form my musical identity is also intended to express gratitude to the larger cultural community. Hopefully, other cats will say, ‘THAT guy got a grant?? S***! I'm applying next time!’

How does the project relate to the focus of your ongoing exploration of the New Orleans music tradition?

New music feels like a logical next step towards finding a contemporary way to frame the New Orleans clarinet style, but in nearly 25 years of being based here, I've yet to produce a proper recording in New Orleans and only started performing my own music in 2008, when I returned after the 2005 federal levee failures. Also, an award from an organization that champions ‘chamber music’ suits my preference for more intimate, acoustic performances of New Orleans music.

—John Swenson

photo: courtesy of the artist

PHOTO: NOÉ CUGNY

More than a Music Club

www.OFFBEAT.com

It’s All About New Orleans

Germaine Bazzle and Ellis Marsalis to reunite on stage

photoS: courtesy of the artistS

T

he Lula Elzy New Orleans Dance Theatre will have a party that can only happen once every 300 years.

“It’s All About New Orleans” features the pairing of longtime New Orleans collaborators vocalist Germaine Bazzle and pianist/ composer Ellis Marsalis, who will once again perform together.

“I have known Ellis and Germaine for most of my professional career, and they are both a part of my artist family and extended personal family. In the past we have done many concerts together,” Lula Elzy told OffBeat.

“From the early ’60s through the ’80s, Ellis and Germaine Ellis Marsalis Germaine Bazzle had performed together on many occasions and at one time had standing gigs at Lu and Charlie’s, Tyler's, Snug Harbor and many other venues around New Orleans. But during the last 20 years or so they had gone their separate ways as headliners.”

“Since we are celebrating the Tricentennial, I thought it would be wonderful to dedicate this concert to them. Also, it would be legendary to have them appear on stage not only as soloists but performing together again. Many musicians—like our music director Derek Douget— said we would be remiss if we passed up this important moment in New Orleans history so I wholeheartedly agree.”

The second half of the evening’s program will be a performance of Duke Ellington’s “New Orleans Suite.” Derek Douget will direct the evening’s big band, who will be accompanied by the Lula Elzy New Orleans Dance Theatre.

Elzy is a choreographer, director, educator and modern dancer whose namesake Dance Theatre celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016. As one of the Lula Elzy first African American–led contemporary dance companies in the city, the Dance Theatre has fostered a home for local choreographers and musicians. For “It’s All About New Orleans,” she’ll serve as producer, artistic director, choreographer and dancer.

Lula’s work has been featured in the award-winning film Mudbound, and she serves as a dance consultant for the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

It’s All About New Orleans will be held on Friday, December 28, 2018, Jefferson Performing Arts Center, 6400 Airline Dr., Metairie, 8 p.m.

—Amanda Mester www.OFFBEAT.com

DECEMBER 2 018

O

13

IN

ME

MO

RIA

M

Tony Joe White ony Joe White, the singer-songwriter from north Louisiana whose steamy, swampy “Polk Salad Annie” became a top 10 hit, died October 24 at his home in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee.

“He wasn’t ill at all,” White’s son, Jody, told The Tennessean.

“He just had a heart attack— there was no pain or suffering.”

White was 75.

In addition to his 1969 hit, “Polk Salad Annie,” White’s writing credits include “Rainy Night in Georgia.” In 1970, Brook Benton took the sublime ballad to number one and number four respectively on Billboard’s soul and pop charts.

The many other artists who recorded White’s songs include Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Johnny Rivers, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Joe Cocker, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney.

White’s record company, Yep Roc, announced his death.

The label released White’s latest album, Bad Mouthin’, on September 28, the same day he made his Grand Ole Opry debut.

White recorded several more songs just before his death.

“Tony Joe White was a true American original,” Yep Roc cofounder Glenn Dicker said in a statement. “Everything he did, he did it in his own unique voice.”

White’s childhood and youth in north Louisiana served as material for his songs. Raised on a cotton farm in West Carroll Parish, he came from a musical

14

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

family. His parents, brother and five sisters sang and played country and gospel music. But youngest child White, born July 23, 1943, didn’t become interested in performing until his older brother brought an album by Texas blues artist Lightnin’ Hopkins home. “It was the start of Tony Joe White,” he told OffBeat last summer. “I started borrowing my dad’s guitar, learning blues licks and stuff.”

Following high school, White performed songs by his heroes Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Elvis Presley in Texas and Louisiana clubs. He composed his first songs in his mid-twenties, while he and his wife, Leann, were living in Corpus Christi. Mississippi singersongwriter Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 slice of Southern life, “Ode to Billie Joe,” inspired him to pen realistic lyrics.

“If there’s anything like a line connecting everything that I’ve done, I would say it’s realness,” White said. “Even my songs that are sweet little love ballads—those are all real, inspired by real love and real life. Being real, being focused on what’s really going on around you, is something I learned early in my life.”

White’s character songs—“Willie and Laura Mae Jones,” “Roosevelt and Ira Lee,” “Old Man Willis” and “Polk Salad Annie”—are based on real people. “I knew two or three Annies down Boeuf River,” he told OffBeat. “They picked cotton. They were good-looking girls and we all went to school together. I had plenty of characters to draw off of.”

—John Wirt www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTo: courtesy of the artist

T

(1943 – 2018)

DAVE BARTHOLOMEW

I Did Every God Damned Thing Myself

D

ave Bartholomew celebrates his 100th birthday on Christmas Eve, just as New Orleans fetes its own 300th anniversary, a synchronicity that underscores Bartholomew’s indelible imprint on the music and culture of the Crescent City and the world beyond. Over a career that tracks the history of New Orleans music, Bartholomew studied trumpet with Peter Davis, the same teacher who taught his idol Louis Armstrong many years before; played traditional jazz on riverboats with the Walter “Fats” Pichon band; joined the swing era Jimmy Lunceford big band in 1942 until he was drafted; was featured as “America’s Hottest Trumpet Player” at the Dew Drop Inn after leaving the army in 1945; led the city’s hottest band in 1948–49; and became the architect of the “New Orleans Sound” engineered

by Cosimo Matassa at his racially integrated J&M studio on Rampart and Dumaine.

Bartholomew made history when he brought his band into J&M on December 10, 1949 to record the first single for Imperial Records by Antoine “Fats” Domino, “The Fat Man.” Bartholomew was Imperial’s talent scout in New Orleans, and label owner Lew Chudd gave him free reign to record anyone he liked.

Along with Domino, whose career he guided through all its biggest successes, Bartholomew made records for Imperial at J&M with Tommy Ridgley, Joe Turner, Jewel King, Shirley & Lee, T-Bone Walker, Smiley Lewis, Little (James) Booker, Pee Wee Crayton, the Hawks, Bobby Mitchell and the Toppers, James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, Roy Brown, Chris Kenner, Earl King, and Ford “Lil Snooks” Eaglin. Other sessions featured Bartholomew’s

16

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Dave Bartholomew

band but are not credited to him because he was under contract to Chudd.

Bartholomew was more than just a player, singer, bandleader and songwriter. He was a composer and arranger who understood how to craft a song to fit the artist and get the best out of all the players in his band.

He could write out the sheet music but many of the people he worked with didn’t want to read charts so Bartholomew had to compose head arrangements, explaining and sometimes

by John Swenson

singing the parts to them. In Rick Coleman’s excellent biography of Fats Domino, Matassa calls Bartholomew “a stern taskmaster” who challenged his band members to play fresh and unique parts.

At his home in New Orleans, the now-retired Bartholomew looks back on his accomplishments with fondness as the royalties keep rolling in.

Bartholomew has been in semiretirement for nearly 30 years, following the release of his classic album New Orleans Big Beat. I first

met Dave the year that album was released, 1988, when he came to New York with his son Don B. for his induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Dave cut an impressive figure, loquacious and genial, self-reflective and inclined to gloss over unhappy memories.

He completely dismissed welldocumented difficulties with Imperial Records chief Lew Chudd and Fats Domino. The one point of anger surfaced when he mentioned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s ignorant induction as a “non-performing” member. We had a long chat in the hotel coffee shop, but I was only able to use a couple of quotes for the news story I was writing for United Press International. Here are some of the other things Bartholomew had to say that day.

“I started on the boat with Fats Pichon. I played in St. Louis; St. Paul, Minnesota. We came home, working for 25 dollars a week. But this was in 1939, ’40. It was a good living.

Playing with Fats Pichon was an education within itself because he stressed leadership. He stressed musicianship. So when Fats quit the band to go on his own, he turned the band over to me. I said ‘I don’t know if I can lead no band.’ He said ‘You got the leadership.’

I went into the service. We’d go to different camps, play for the troops in Little Rock, Arkansas; Louisville, Kentucky. I survived because I was playing music. I used to sleep with my horn. I was based in Georgia. Buffalo Brigade.

There was a guy, Abraham Malone, he was in the 196 AFG band with me. He said, ‘You’re a hell of a trumpet player. I’m gonna teach you how to write music.’

When I got out of the service I was working in the Dew Drop www.OFFBEAT.com

Photo: ELSA HAHNE

The Dave Bartholomew Century

club, you heard about that. Then come this guy, Sam Cimino, he come in and says ‘I want you to lead a band at my new club.’ I told him I was working for Mr. Charles [Buddy Charles was the Dew Drop bandleader]. He said ‘No! I want you to lead your own band.’ I was making 8 dollars a night at the Dew Drop. Lee Allen was in the band. So Lee and I got talking.

This was 1946. So we rehearsed.

We were playing traditional New Orleans stuff and also swing. So we went over to the new club and we never looked back.

I did so many songs with so many people, all in New Orleans, that I can’t remember them all.

It was a wonderful time. Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, T-Bone Walker, I was running the whole thing. I didn’t have to get an okay from anyone else. I sold millions and millions and millions of records. I wasn’t getting millions, I was getting thousands because I didn’t own any of the publishing back then. I wrote the songs, but I was working for Lew Chudd then.

You’ve got to keep in mind when we first started I didn’t know anything about publishing. I was just looking for a job so I could take care of my family. Down in Louisiana we would make a record so it would get played and we could expose ourselves and make money and people would know us. I was a talent scout for the whole country. I could have recorded anywhere I wanted but I recorded in New Orleans. I made a few records on my own that made a little bit of noise—‘Country Boy,’ ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ and a few little things like that. ‘My Ding-a-Ling,’ I actually wrote that in the ’40s but nothing came of it so I threw it in the trash can. Then along came Chuck Berry in 1972 and he recorded the thing in London. www.OFFBEAT.com

Somebody called me and said ‘You got the number one tune in London.’ I said ‘What is it?’

‘My Ding-a-Ling.’ You got to be kidding. The last time I saw it was in the trash can. But all in all I did all right. My band was very popular. It was a household name for many, many years.

I had a radio show on WJMR comin’ out of Cosimo Matassa’s record store on Rampart Street.

It was a tremendous success.

Everyone wanted to come in and play with Dave Bartholomew.

We had tunes, we were knockin’ them out.”

Tell me how you met Chudd.

“I was working for Don Robey in Houston in 1949. $175 a week, which was good money. My band got 125 dollars and a place to stay and meals. My band would open up with my theme song, then we would play whatever was in the Top Ten because the people were familiar with that. In walks Lew Chudd and he said ‘I like what you’re doing.’ So Lew heard that. He came to see me in New Orleans. We found Fats Domino.

We never looked back with Fats.

We recorded at Cosimo’s because that was the only New Orleans studio you could record in. That was it or nothing at all. Cosimo moved to another place a couple of years later but the sound that he got in the little back room, that was the sound—that was the original.

Cosimo never had a [mixing] board. It was just work and work and work. Sometimes I would go into the studio at 10 o’clock in the morning, then 2 o’clock the next morning we’re still there. My rhythm section was my foundation. If I didn’t have that foundation none of it would stand.

But Cosimo never had a DECEMBER 2 018

O

17

‘Blueberry Hill.’ It took us from about two in the morning to seven that night to make that one cut. I had to put a new bridge in. If I had actually known the right changes I wouldn’t have put that in. I sent it in and said I’m not too sure about it. They had to splice two versions, you can hear it if you listen close. They put it out and it sells like three million in two days. 30 years later and it’s still selling.” board. My son Don in our studio now he got a 64-track board. So I did the work. The guy who put his name on my check was Lew Chudd. If I didn’t produce hits, I knew I would be fired. I would put it together and sometimes Cosimo would get into it. He would place the microphones, he would place the rhythm section. My rhythm section, he called it the foundation. I wasn’t successful 100 percent of the time but I was successful 90 percent of the time. I don’t like no bullshit. They used to call me the Gestapo on the bandstand.

It was all business in the studio.

You know how musicians get to hemmin’ and hawin’. I said there would be no jamming on my sessions. I want you to concentrate on the music. If one thing went wrong we had to do it again. I get tired thinking about it sittin’ here right now.

Sometimes we would do a song 25, 30 times, 40 times.

Sometimes I would get the sweats because I was working so hard. There wasn’t nobody else who would do it but me. One thing they knew about me, they could depend on me.”

Did other labels ask you to cut records for them?

“They sure did. Atlantic approached me. King Records offered me a lot of money to leave Lew. But I’d been with Lew and even though we had our differences I knew where I stood.

Lew was better than the average guy. Lew was set in his ways but if he said he’d do something he would do it. A lot of those other guys weren’t like that.”

18

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

What about the Little Richard sessions?

“My band cut those. I had an exclusive with Lew so I couldn’t do it. That’s my band on there— Frank Fields, Herbert Hardesty, that’s my band. Bumps Blackwell brought him in, Earl Palmer was on drums, that was my band.

A lot of my stuff got covered.

I wrote the whole catalog for the late Smiley Lewis. He was a friend of my father. He was a little older than me. I wrote ‘I Hear You Knocking’ for him.

Gale Storm covered that and was very successful. Elvis Presley recorded another Smiley Lewis song. He called it ‘One Night With You.’ I called it ‘One Night of Sin.’ I was in Mobile, Alabama where I met some schoolteachers. One of them said ‘I’ve always been true to my husband.’ So I thought what would it be like to have one night of sin? That stayed with me so I wrote that.

‘Blue Monday.’ Comin’ out of Kansas City. We didn’t get paid.

Lawd I was crying. So we played on a Saturday night and we took the door. Then on Monday night we were chillin’ on Vine Street and it was jumping. So I said I got an idea for a song. People are having a good time on a Monday evening. They wasn’t caring about nothin’. So what happened, when I got back in my automobile I wrote ‘Blue Monday.’ Cut it with Smiley Lewis. Did 700,000. A few years later I cut it with Fats Domino. It’s still sellin’.

Cosimo was instrumental in doing some things for Warner

Brothers. They wanted something for the movie The Big Beat. They called me on the telephone. I was working in Jackson, Mississippi at a country club and I had a tape recorder in the car. My driver was the disc jockey Dr. Jazz. I wanted to do something jazzy based on the blues. I realized we was dealing with the whites so I had to have something with a sweet beat and a boogie background (he sings the theme) then I would just carry it out like I was doing a blues thing. We slid in on that.

‘Blueberry Hill.’ It took us from about two in the morning to seven that night to make that one cut. I had to put a new bridge in.

If I had actually known the right changes I wouldn’t have put that in. I sent it in and said I’m not too sure about it. They had to splice two versions, you can hear it if you listen close. They put it out and it sells like three million in two days.

30 years later and it’s still selling.”

You are one of the inventors of rock ’n’ roll.

“Rock ’n’ roll, R&B, it’s only a name. We started rock ’n’ roll.

They just changed the name.

Alan Freed was the one who changed the name. We played his shows. From 10 in the morning to midnight every day. Kids would come from all over the world.

And Fats was the headliner for everything. We played for Dick Clark in Philadelphia. Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, all of those shows. Put all that together and it’s a really good life.

The thing that bothers me is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When they finally inducted me they inducted me as a non-performer!

I can laugh about it all because I’ve had a good life. I did what I did and I didn’t throw away everything I got. I’ve got my sons, they making all kinds of music comin’ out of New Orleans. I don’t like that rap music but when I started they didn’t like what I was doing either.

When I left Fats about 12 years ago I just didn’t want to get involved in that road stuff no more. When you’re 25, 30 years old that’s fine. I don’t wanna go through that shit no more.

The world has changed since I started making records in 1949.

You get a big band, you got a good singer up front, you can do your own thing. But let’s do it the way we’re supposed to do it.

Give me some accents! Anybody can play it off the paper. Give me those accents.

I’ve done everything. I have a track record a mile long. I’ve worked for 40 years to get here.

Some guys do it in one year.

Then what? You get Quincy Jones to come in and do your shit for you.

I didn’t need nobody. I did it myself. But I helped everybody.

Nobody come out of New Orleans the last 30 years that I didn’t help.

I brought Allen Toussaint in. It was never released but we cut him.

And Fats Domino. He was one of the greatest artists of all time.

I did every god damn thing!

I wrote the music. I played the music. I put the band together. I recorded the music. I mastered it.

It took me 40 years to get here.

Who knows where I’ll be when I’m 100? It might take me another 100 years to do it again.”

O www.OFFBEAT.com

PROFESSOR LONGHAIR

The Fess Centennial

H

enry Roeland Byrd was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana on December 19, 1918. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, the iconic pianist, vocalist and composer, affectionately called Fess, will be celebrated around the globe.

Nowhere else will his birthday be more feted than in his adoptive hometown of New Orleans.

Tipitina’s, the Uptown club, which was established as a venue in order for him to have a home base and a place where he could regularly play, will appropriately host “The Professor Longhair 100th Birthday Tribute,” on the very date of Fess’ birth.

Bassist George Porter Jr., who first backed Longhair at the 1972 Jazz Fest, will act as the musical director for a band full of New Orleans musicians who have played with or were influenced by Byrd.

Professor Longhair is also being recognized with an impressive exhibit at the Old U.S. Mint through July 2019.

In his honor, some of those who knew Fess well, performed with him or were influenced by his unique style share their memories of the great Professor Longhair.

Quint Davis, Jazz Fest producer One of the more profound things that Davis, who at the urging of festival producer George Wein found and booked Fess at the first Jazz Fest, remembers is Byrd telling him that his signature song, Tipitina, was named for a mountain in Africa. Though that would be tough to verify on a Google search, somehow it remains just wonderful that Fess said it.

“Fess would play in the cracks between the keys to get the sounds he wanted,” Davis relates. “He told me once, ‘I’m not just luckin’ up on this, I’m doing this on purpose.’”

20

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Davis also reminds us that Fess was a tap dancer whose nickname was Whirlaway. “He would run up a wall to the ceiling and somehow get back down.”

“He had a real sense of fashion and he was hip. He wasn’t dressing like the ’50s. Right away he got boots and jeans and he had a jean jacket that he was putting patches on from everywhere we went. He was a rocker at his age.”

Davis says that people thinking Longhair an old guy with glasses didn’t necessarily realize that he was aware—attentive to his surroundings and beyond. “He was very aware of what was going on around him and what people were saying. Fess had a lot of essences. He was very regal in whatever situation he was in. I think his regal bearing was something that was always there.”

“He was a beautiful man.

Once he actually got back to playing music, let alone become a worldwide icon, he was really happy about that.”

Zigaboo Modeliste, drummer Modeliste is, of course, most

by Geraldine Wyckoff

noted as the drummer of the Meters. Earlier on he played “oneoffs” with Fess and was on stage with bassist George Porter Jr. at the first Jazz Fest held out at the Fair Grounds. “We became friends,” says Modeliste. “He was a really, really nice man.”

“He was a funny guy. He was always upbeat, jovial and had a lot to say.” Modeliste vividly remembers his first trip to Europe and being on a plane with Professor Longhair. “He had a gym bag and I asked, ‘What’s in the bag?’ He opened it up and he had maybe 30 or 40 hotdogs in there.

They were already cooked and they were wrapped in cellophane inside buns plus a bottle of hot sauce.

I said, ‘Byrd, what’s all that for?’

‘Man, they don’t have any food over there. You’ll see.’ I’ll never forget that piece of advice. Any man who flies to another country, with a bag of hotdogs, you’ve got to love him for it—he’s authentic with it. He was a really cool dude.”

“Professor had genius in him. He liked all these authentic things like rhumbas and cha-chas and a lot of his percussion values came from those things. He fused that into R&B

as he knew it. Byrd was cut from a different cloth. Allen Toussaint recognized that Byrd had a special sound. And all of the piano players after Toussaint really started putting it out there—the Byrd style.”

Modeliste says he had some basic knowledge of Fess’ style before he performed with him, however, as a young drummer he was very open to his input.

“He gave me instructions on what exactly he had to hear in order to construct his plan. So you had to play around him. It’s a drummer’s delight because you’re in class. You’re learning to play an art form that he created. Nobody had the ideas that Byrd had. He told me one time that his mentor was [pianist] Tuts Washington.”

George Porter Jr., bassist George Porter admits he was “a little star struck” when he was asked by Quint Davis to perform in the band backing Professor Longhair at the 1972 Jazz Fest with Modeliste on board for the show.

“Fess always had a great time on stage from where I was sitting,” Porter says. “I had a job to do and my job was to pay attention to his left hand and stay the hell out of the way of it. I lived on the other side of the fence from him—I stayed on Baronne and he stayed on Terpsichore—and my side door looked into his back door. Every now and then I would open my back door and he was outside smoking a bliff.”

Porter then relates a rather comical story about his initial meeting with Fess. “The first day we met, I was supposed to have a rehearsal with him. I showed up at his house too early. He basically opened the door and said, ‘Who is this?’ I said, ‘I’m George Porter Jr. and I’m supposed to have this rehearsal with you for Jazz Fest.’ www.OFFBEAT.com

Photo: PARKER DINKINS courtesy TULANE HOGAN JAZZ ARCHIVES

Professor Longhair’s 100th birthday

He said, ‘Okay, you’re early,’ and he closed the door. I sat outside and waited for about 10 minutes and by that time Zigaboo showed up and we went in and had the rehearsal.”

Alfred “Uganda” Roberts, percussionist Roberts was interviewed in 2011. Uganda, who is heard on Fess’ 1981 release The London Concert and the Grammywinning House Party New Orleans Style—The Lost Sessions 19711972, remembers that Quint Davis said that he liked the way he played drums and said, “I bet you and Professor Longhair ought to sound pretty good together.”

“That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. We had a lot of the same rhythm structures in our genes. He had a little rhumba, mambo kind of sound with the way he played the piano.

Musically speaking he taught me a lot about being disciplined.”

“I would come up with a certain beat, or most musicians might call it a groove, and I would stick with the groove and that would give him the freedom to do the little riffs that he wanted to do on piano. I would always sit very close to him at the piano.

If there was something extra he would want me to do, then he’d give me a little nod. But other than that, I would stick with him like gravy on rice.”

Jon Cleary, singer-songwriter and pianist “Professor Longhair used the piano as a funk machine,” says the British-born pianist and vocalist, whose first attempts at playing piano at age 11 or 12 were on Fess’ classic hits, “Tipitina” and “Big Chief.” “What he did percussively—the funk aspect of it—really appealed to me. It was the approach to the piano as part of the rhythm section that compelled me to keep going back www.OFFBEAT.com

to it and try to figure what he did, little licks and little riffs—not just any percussion but Afro-Caribbean rhythms like rhumba.”

Cleary remembers one year at Jazz Fest doing a “chat” about Professor Longhair with percussionist Uganda Roberts.

“Uganda said he would go to hang out with Fess and what they would often listen to was [Cuban-born pianist and bandleader] Pérez Prado records. That makes sense to me.”

Sonny Schneidau, guitarist, sound engineer and talent buyer Schneidau first saw Professor Longhair live at an Gator Ball put on by his sister and her friends at the 501 Club, which soon would become Tipitina’s. At 16, he was underage, but she got him in and directed him to “hang out here,” near the stage. “It was one of those life-changing experiences to be in that environment and that close to such an incredible artist such as Fess,” says Schneidau, who had already heard some of Fess’ recordings and recalls thinking, “Wow, this is some wild stuff— some serious piano playing.”

Personally, he says, his most special night was in early 1977 when the sound engineer at Tipitina’s, which opened in January of that year, departed and Sonny was enlisted to take his place. “A few days later I was mixing Fess and his band. I was whooshed to mix one of the greatest artists on the planet at one of the greatest clubs on the planet.

“He was a real gentleman— always kind, funny and respectful.

He just wanted to have a good time and put on a good show,” says Schneidau who, when the club closed in 1984, bought the piano that Fess had played so many times. He put it on the back of a pick-up truck and played it as the truck traveled down the street.

The piano is a centerpiece of the Professor Longhair exhibit presently housed at the Old U.S. Mint. O DECEMBER 2 018

O

21

THE MAMOU PLAYBOYS

Music Is Freedom Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys celebrate 30 years.

22

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Playboys. In early October, Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, the annual Cajun and Creole Woodstock in Lafayette, honored Riley and fellow Grammy winner Chubby Carrier for three decades on stage.

The Mamou Playboys celebrate with “30th Anniversary Live!”, a concert and recording with special guests, set for 8 p.m. December 7 at Vermilionville, a folk life park in Lafayette. The band hosts Cajun

was great. Dewey was my hero. To be able to come up under his wing, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

After graduating from Mamou High School, Riley attended LSU on an academic scholarship. In Baton Rouge, he met kindred spirit David Greely, a fiddler who shared his fascination with Cajun music and culture.

Riley soon grew tired of college and formed the Mamou Playboys

other kinds of music. But he told me, go listen. Don’t just hear, go listen. That helped me to appreciate other types of music, experiment in the studio, songwriting.”

Riley’s talent and experimentation has resulted in 15 CDs and a touring resume that has taken him from Rhode Island to Japan. The current Mamou Playboys lineup includes fiddler Kevin Wimmer, a classically trained violinist from New York; guitarist Sam Broussard, an alumnus of Manchild, a Capitol Records signee in 1971; bass player Brazos Huval, who’s taught more than 1,000 children in 10 years at his Cajun music school in Breaux Bridge; and rock-steady drummer Kevin Dugas.

With a hand in at least five bands, Riley won the Best Regional Roots Album Grammy in 2013 with Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys Courtbouillon, an acoustic trio that includes Wayne with Greely. The young band Toups and Wilson Savoy. With Christmas shows throughout the became an instant hit with a sound the Mamou Playboys, Riley has area later in the month. received numerous Best of the The ruckus for Riley underscores that injected new life into familiar waltzes and two-steps.

Beat awards for Best Cajun Band his status as a game changer in Big crowds and bestselling and Best Cajun Album. Riley Cajun music. In 1988, when few has evolved into a producer of south Louisiana teens were playing CDs followed until the late 1990s, when rock ’n’ roll, zydeco, successful local shows highlighting accordion music, a 19-year-old saxophone and piano began to legendary artists.

Riley broke out with a moving creep into the Playboys’ repertoire.

Riley is enjoying his young elder and intricate style that set new Some hardcore traditionalists status in Cajun music—and looking standards. jumped ship, but a younger forward to more.

He was already a veteran with audience quickly took their place.

“I was talking to [former NFL four years of traveling to folk “Dewey [Balfa] was a hardcore, quarterback] Jake Delhomme at festivals across the country with traditional guy,” said Riley. “But a tennis tournament. He said, ‘I fiddling great Dewey Balfa. one of the first things he told me think for a musician, at the end “I remember going up north is music is freedom. Do whatever of the game, it’s always a win. At with him and it was culture you want with music. Don’t feel the end of the night, everybody shock,” said Riley. “We were you have to fit a certain mold. feels good. At the end of football playing festivals with all these You should always listen to other games, when I’d lose or throw four hippies drinking moonshine, people’s music. interceptions, everybody in the smoking herb and staying up all “We go to these festivals and world hated me.’” For Steve Riley, night. I hadn’t gone very far. he’d see I wasn’t interested in “Every night, we win.”

“It was an experience. But it O

by Herman Fuselier

www.OFFBEAT.com

Photo: courtesy of the artist

T

here was barely room to breathe November 3 at Fred’s Lounge in Mamou, a hole-in-the-wall world-famous for beer drinking and Cajun dancing at 8 a.m. (yes, 8 a.m.), Saturdays.

A few couples tried to two-step in the tight-as-sardines crowd, careful not to bump into others waving handkerchiefs in the air.

Native son and accordion icon Steve Riley, and his Mamou Playboys band, sang the “Mardi Gras Song.” On cue, patrons shouted the lyrics back in Cajun French.

When the song changed key and Riley yelled “somebody scream,” the faithful roared as if LSU had scored a winning touchdown against Alabama. (The Tigers failed to oblige in a 29-0 loss later that day.)

Mardi Gras had come early to Mamou. Riley was being inducted on to the Fred’s Lounge KVPI Wall of Fame, an honor usually reserved for legends in the cemetery or nursing home.

At the ripe young age of 49, Riley is already a legend, an accordion prodigy who turned countless young Cajuns on to their parents’ waltzes and two-steps.

He’s thankful to witness his spot on the wall.

“Being honored by my hometown was very special,” said Riley, especially when the town is Mamou, a mecca for Cajun music and legendary Cajun musicians.

“Being the youngest musician inducted onto the Fred’s Lounge Wall of Fame was a great honor and definitely as fun as any Hall of Fame induction I’ve witnessed.”

The honor is the latest celebrating the 30th anniversary of Steve Riley and the Mamou

Without

the Mask It doesn’t concern Jon Batiste if some people tend to put him in a particular musical box. “That’s okay, I always break ’em,” declares the pianist, vocalist and composer who leads his Stay Human band nightly on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Those who know Batiste solely through his television persona see a gregarious, always smiling, stylishly dressed and extremely talented young man whose job seems to be keeping the music upbeat and in sync with the show’s comedic host. As a bandleader he also does some singing, too, usually in the mix with his group.

Batiste, 32, was purposeful in taking a different direction on his new album release, Hollywood Africans, his first on the prestigious Verve label.

The music—and even the album’s cover, which captures him in a contemplative pose—could best be described as serene. For the most part, Batiste is alone at the piano or backed by minimal instrumentation or other voices.

“I think the people whom I’ve come in contact with over the last couple of years seemed like they needed a bit of a break or a bit more peace of mind,” Batiste explains. “The music is meditative and it gives you space for reflection but it’s also very hopeful. I think there’s a void in music like that, especially in the mainstream. The feedback has been amazing so I think my instinct was fairly accurate.

There is always so much stimulus, especially with the political divisiveness of these times, and things that you just deal with on a daily basis.”

Batiste views his musical life as one of phases that to some extent display a certain pattern. He was eight or nine years old when he sang onstage with the Batiste Brothers Band, stylin’ like the Jackson Five.

24

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Jon Batiste busts out of the proverbial box.

by Geraldine Wyckoff PHOTOS BY RAMBO

CO V

ER S TOR Y

“After a while I got kind of shy and didn’t want to do that as much anymore,” he remembers. “That’s when I started getting into my piano, classical, jazz, young composer/ musician phase.”

It’s somewhat difficult to imagine the now-outgoing Batiste as timid, although those people in touch with him during his teenage years—his NOCCA years—do remember considering Batiste a quiet, serious jazz pianist.

Some of Hollywood African reflects back to that period.

When he went to New York to further his musical education at the Juilliard School and eventually formed his Stay Human band, Batiste found his voice again and started writing tunes with lyrics, not just instrumentals.

“But this time on my own terms,” he’s quick to point out.

“I think you’ve gotta let things develop and grow and evolve in the right time, and then once they’re ready, you can present it to other people.”

Batiste fully exhibits himself as a formidable vocalist and romantic in the quietude of Ray Noble’s classic “The “I wanted to represent that music and pay homage to folks like Very Thought of You” on the new album. It’s rare for most to hear Batiste sing a ballad in a solo setting and Jelly Roll and Gottschalk. Many musicians—and Jelly Roll it stands as a true opportunity to realize his tonal and especially—didn’t necessarily get to have their emotional range as heard on this patiently delivered cloud of a tune. music appreciated as classical music—high art, social music “There’s been a lot of stuff I’ve been doing for years, —until after they were gone.” but just not as publicly as featured predominately on this album,” he says.

Jelly Roll and Gottschalk [New Orleans composer/pianist Louis Moreau In fact, Batiste’s behind-the-scenes activities are as impressive as his Gottschalk]. Many musicians—and Jelly Roll especially—didn’t incredibly full schedule of rehearsing for and taping 220 “Late Show” necessarily get to have their music appreciated as classical music—high episodes plus performing and touring. Presently, he’s writing a musical art, social music—until after they were gone,” says Batiste. He adds that based on the life and work of African-American artist Jean-Michel he enjoys occasionally bringing touches of his musical interpretations of Basquiat, whose painting, Hollywood Africans, was the inspiration Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven—“all my favorite composers”—to for the title of Batiste’s album. Batiste has said that like Basquiat, he’s the “The Late Show.” benefited from the sacrifice of those who came before who were Hollywood Africans has been a long time coming. Batiste began marginalized and oppressed in their musical expressions. “They left working on the album with noted producer T Bone Burnett back in us with superpowers: blues, rock ’n’ roll, boogie woogie, jazz, gospel 2015. The two started talking about doing something together in 2013 and so many more.” The musical has already been green-lit to head to when Batiste met T Bone at Bono’s birthday party in Los Angeles. Two Broadway in the next several years and will be directed by the acclaimed years later, they finally found the time to head into New Orleans’ wellJohn Doyle, who was nominated for a Tony award for The Color Purple. regarded Esplanade Studios. Even then, the session was regarded as a “I’m real excited,” Batiste exclaims. three-day “exploration” with Batiste laying down some 40 solo tracks.

Batiste, who has studied and is proficient in classical piano and “It was stream of consciousness,” the pianist explains, noting that every composition, is also in the process of writing a symphony that’s been tune heard on the album was written for the album. commissioned by investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith. That “It was really to tell this story,” Batiste continues. “These songs were commission was a result of Smith meeting Batiste when he performed the right songs for the time.” at the opening of Washington D.C.’s National Museum of African When Batiste was interviewed in a 2015 OffBeat Backtalk feature, American History and Culture. he commented on how he and fellow NOCCA grad, Troy “Trombone Batiste incorporates his knowledge of classical music in several Shorty” Andrews would spend nights talking about how they could variations on the new album. On the lovely “Chopinesque,” the pianist differentiate themselves while keeping New Orleans in their music. reinterprets a piece by Frederic Chopin by adding his own modern flair.

Batiste responded by saying “I know when I see him perform—and I His original composition “Nocturne No. 1 in D minor” was written in a hope when I perform—that the lineage of the music is represented at classical form that distinctly sways with what Jelly Roll Morton described the highest level. You’re going to feel this amazing sense of humanity. as a Latin tinge, enhanced by the percussion of Bashiri Johnson and We have that in our sound. So whatever style of music we start to bassist Carlos Henriquez. experiment with, we’re always going to have that range of emotions “I wanted to represent that music and pay homage to folks like

26

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

www.OFFBEAT.com

that comes with the New Orleans sound. That’s a special thing—it influenced the world and it’s not going to go anywhere.”

Those who watch “The Late Show” and are hip to his meaning easily catch the little New Orleans nuances that he and his band throw into the musical mix on any given evening. It’s as if he’s giving New Orleans a little knowing wink when he plays a familiar piano triple or phrase. Yeah, we hear ya.

“Almost every day we play some form of second line or bamboula rhythms,” acknowledges Batiste, who often has Stay Human follow him out into the audience in a New Orleans signature second line style.

Hollywood Africans opens with “Kenner Boogie,” Batiste’s own, very New Orleans version of a boogie woogie. His solid left hand keeps the tune grounded in the tradition while his right goes flutteringly wild.

This highly syncopated number displays the characteristic humor in his music. Again, folks tuned into their televisions do get a taste of this style; although here when he’s playing solo, it’s a big, delicious helping dished out by the Kenner, Louisiana native.

Batiste introduces himself as an emotionally dynamic soul singer on two strong cuts, his original, gospel-laden “Is It Over” and the powerful closer, “Don’t Stop,” which was co-written with the prolific composer/ guitarist Steve McEwan.

It’s unusual to find a pianist matched with an organ player as he is on “Is It Over.” Batiste took engineer Harvey Goldberg’s suggestion to invite the frequently called-upon session man Leon Pendarvis to play organ on the tune. His presence and the background vocalists give this rather mournful love song its stylistically churchy sound that marries gospel and soul much in the way Aaron Neville often approached a ballad.

“Harvey thought it would work as we [Batiste and Pendarvis] both have a Southern background and like to blend different styles—classical, R&B, jazz and soul music—so he would understand my aesthetics,” Batiste explains. “In that way we could keep it organic and not have to overdub myself and keep the intimacy of me at the piano. And he was right. We connected in a way that I didn’t have to explain much to him.”

Unlike so many New Orleans and Southern pianists as well as an array of other African-American musicians and vocalists, Batiste didn’t play in church, though he attended services. Pendarvis, who hails from Alabama, grew up in the church. “He’s a veteran,” Batiste says of the 73-year-old musician. “I love having veterans work with me on things. You need to have a veteran in the room—he’s played on so many records.”

Though the lyrics of “Don’t Stop” are hopeful and loving, the mood of the tune also holds a certain mournfulness. “Let’s keep it shakin’ while we can,” Batiste sings over a repeated piano phrase. The passion builds with the entrance of a fervent string sextet and the voice of Janelle Kroll.

“That’s one of the big concepts of the album—one can go through the full range of emotions and it makes people feel like they’re not alone right now,” Batiste offers. “The other is showing how the AfricanAmerican diaspora of music has transformative powers—the blues, folk music, gospel, soul, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll like Fats Domino and Chuck Berry created.”

“Don’t Stop” is the album’s only original song on which Batiste shares composer credits; the other originals were written solo. The album also includes several classics like “St. James Infirmary” and “Smile.”

“Steve [McEwan] is great because our process is very much like therapy,” says Batiste. “We come in, talk for a while and then that www.OFFBEAT.com

DECEMBER 2 018

O

27

CO V

ER S TOR Y

becomes a song. He is someone who wanted to branch out and do different styles of writing music—he had written a lot of country hits and also some hip-hop hits. Of course, he’s open to all of it and I am too. So I thought it would be good to collaborate.”

Echoing the album’s central theme to represent all of the different forms of love and human emotion—friendship, celebration and angst—is Batiste’s “Mr. Buddy.” It’s a sweet, simple song that brings to mind the spirit of the children’s television show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood or the sentimentality of the tune “Old Folks,” as so sincerely delivered by drummer Johnny Vidacovich. It opens with Batiste gently singing, “Mr. Buddy was someone who never steered you wrong. He was always singing a good song.”

The pianist occasionally adds a little whistle to this lullaby of a tune.

“Mr. Buddy” was inspired by a lot of things,” Batiste says.

“I just hope that everybody can have a friend or a mentor or even a pet like what ‘Mr. Buddy’ represents. It is just one of those songs that I hope that people can experience that connection with somebody in these times.”

A similar youthful, innocent flavor can also be heard on the jaunty instrumental “Green Hill Zone,” which was the theme of the video game Sonic the Hedgehog. It becomes more sophisticated, more fully developed when Batiste changes his approach and strings are added.

“That song has a special meaning for me,” Batiste reveals.

“I was an avid gamer when I was growing up. I loved playing games. When we were kids, that’s how the guys in our band first started learning about composition. We would transcribe music from video games and play them on our instruments.”

(That’s probably an ear-opener to most folks—who knew?)

“I love the exploration of that music and I also love writing songs in that style. We arranged stuff from the New Orleans canon like Allen Toussaint’s ‘Yes We Can Can’ and Lee Dorsey, Earl King and Jessie Hill songs.

I fronted the band and wrote songs inspired by the idiom or directly from the idiom."

With the recent death of Henry Butler, the passing of Fats Domino just last year and the loss of Allen Toussaint three years ago, there’s been a lot of concern about continuing New Orleans’ legacy of piano-playing singers and the repertoire of this city’s R&B heyday. Batiste’s name is not often mentioned as a keeper of the flame of that tradition.

“I love the exploration of that music and I also love writing songs in that style,” declares Batiste, who has a yet-to-be released New Orleans rhythm and blues album in the can. He does get a chance to strut his stuff in that direction with the Dap-Kings, as heard at this year’s Jazz Fest. He toured with the band and performed nine gigs with the group last summer. “We arranged stuff from the New Orleans canon like Allen Toussaint’s ‘Yes We Can Can’ and Lee Dorsey, Earl King and Jessie Hill songs. I fronted the band and wrote songs inspired by the idiom or directly from the idiom.”

Batiste feels like the experience of being on Colbert’s show has strengthened him and his band in more ways than he realized. “I’ve learned a lot about just being a band leader and being a performer,” he says. “There’s nothing better than being able to play with a band every day and write music every day.”

“It’s different than any other stage. You’re working with the camera one minute and then the next minute you’re transitioning into playing

28

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

for a live audience, and the next minute you’re transitioning into a comedy bit or you have to improvise banter. It makes it easy now when I’m just performing. [On the show] I feel like I’m running with weights on. When I take the weights off, I feel very, very free.”

“The Late Show” airs 220 shows a year, but because it is taped earlier in the day Batiste and the band can still head out to gig locally in New York later in the evening. The schedule can sound pretty hectic, though it doesn’t seem to faze the energetic band leader. One day in November, the band rehearsed for the television show, taped the show and then went to play two sets at the Village Vanguard.

Stay Human, formed in 2005, includes one original member, cowboyhatted drummer Joe Saylor. It has expanded this season primarily to accommodate the diversity of guest artists who—like cellist Yo-Yo Ma and rapper Nas—have sat in with the band recently.

Batiste was a student at NOCCA when he met Saylor, who was visiting New Orleans for Jazz Fest. “We jammed in a room and it felt good,” Batiste remembers. The two got together when Batiste attended Juilliard—Saylor was at the Manhattan School of Music—and they started gigging together. The pay was, well, pathetic, but they established a residency that tightened up the group and helped to develop a repertoire.

“When you’re a young musician, you don’t worry about the money; www.OFFBEAT.com

it will come,” Batiste advises. “Don’t worry about being known, worry about the music first. Find a place to play regularly in front of people. It’s paid off for me now; it’s paid off tremendously.”

Batiste has also been out nationally and internationally on what he calls a “solo in the round” tour where his concert grand piano is placed in the center of a circular stage in the center of the venue. “Everybody has the best seat in the house,” he declares. Batiste enjoys the intimacy of the dates that are afforded by performing in this setting. It’s an important element for him as an artist.

“People need something real in a time when there’s a lot of superficiality,” he offers. “Intimacy is an act of resistance against that kind of a world. Intimacy is a way to be alone with yourself and your feelings and to access them to see how you actually feel in order to develop a perspective on things so you don’t just feel overwhelmed by the state of affairs.”

Batiste has remained in New York since he left New Orleans to attend Juilliard and the Big Apple has obviously done right by him.

“I live in Brooklyn—it’s great, I love it,” he declares. “It’s a beautiful place to develop as an artist but I love going back home and I visit every chance I get. I do love the balance of going back home and then coming up here. In New York, I like going out to hear people and not telling them I’m coming—I do that all the time. I also just like when I’m in town for a minute getting a chance to just sit back and cook and invite people over to my house. We like playing this game called ‘Mafia’—it’s kind of like an acting game.”

“New York is a global city so I have all these different friends who

www.OFFBEAT.com

have all their own cultural experiences. When you have everybody over and you cook together it kind of becomes a potluck of everybody’s culture and they bring that to the table.” When he’s home, though, he looks forward to Camellia red beans cooked by his mother—that’s his favorite. But during the holidays, gumbo is his go-to dish.

Jon Batiste understands the richness of bringing the world of academia and serious study together with what he calls “social” music. Having grown up in New Orleans in a talented musical family, entertaining an audience is almost instinctual.

“There are many sides of people and one thing about the entertainment business is that there’s often times a level of marginalization,” explains Batiste of some people’s expectations and tendency to put an artist in that dreaded “box.” “With my music—my own personal music that I’m putting out—I don’t have to live up to be the persona that you see on the show. I can be me without the mask.”

“There are a whole lot of people who knew me before the show and a lot of people who were introduced to me through the show,” Batiste continues. “It’s a champagne problem—it’s just a problem I’m fortunate to have. In the end, everybody will get to see all the different sides of me as an artist and that’s a blessing.”

On December 8, Jon Batiste will perform solo at the Patron Party as part of a benefit for the New Orleans Jazz Museum that will be held at the Old U.S. Mint. He’ll also be in town to participate in the New York Times’ Cities of Tomorrow conference where he will be a featured speaker at a session held on Friday, December 7 called Sounds of the City.

O

DECEMBER 2 018

O

29

MEDITERRANEAN Mona’s Café: 504 Frenchmen St., 949-4115

MEXICAN/CARIBBEAN/SPANISH Barú Bistro & Tapas: 3700 Magazine St., 895-2225 El Gato Negro: 81 French Market Place, 525-9846; 300 Harrison Ave., 488-0107; 800 S Peters St., 309-8804 Juan’s Flying Burrito: 2018 Magazine St., 569-0000

MUSIC ON THE MENU

AMERICAN Poppy’s Time Out Sports Bar & Grill: 1 Poydras St., 247-9265 Port of Call: 838 Esplanade Ave., 523-0120

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

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 New Orleans Creole Cookery: 508 Toulouse St., 524-9632

FINE DINING Commander’s Palace: 1403 Washington Ave., 899-8221 Josephine Estelle: Ace Hotel, 600 Carondelet St., 930-3070 Mr. B’s Bistro: 201 Royal St. 523-2078

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

GERMAN Bratz Y'all: 617-B Piety St., 301-3222

Banks Street Bar & Grill: 4401 Banks St., 486-0258 Buffa’s: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038 Chickie Wah Wah: 2828 Canal St., 304-4714 Gattuso’s: 435 Huey P Long Ave., Gretna, 368-1114 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 NOLA Cantina: 437 Esplanade Ave Palm Court: 1204 Decatur St., 525-0200 Rivershack Tavern: 3449 River Rd., 834-4938 Siberia Lounge: 2227 St. Claude Ave., 265-8865 Southport Hall: 200 Monticello Ave., 835-2903 Snug Harbor: 626 Frenchmen St., 949-0696 Three Muses: 536 Frenchmen St., 298-8746

NEIGHBORHOOD JOINTS Cake Café: 2440 Chartres St., 943-0010 Dat Dog: 601 Frenchmen St., 309-3362; 5030 Freret St., 899-6883; 3336 Magazine St., 324-2226 Lucy’s Retired Surfers Bar & Restaurant: 701 Tchoupitoulas St., 523-8995 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 Ye Olde College Inn: 3000 S. Carrollton Ave., 866-3683

PIZZA

Midway Pizza: 4725 Freret St., 322-2815 Pizza Delicious: 617 Piety St., 676-8482 Breaux Mart: 3233 Magazine St., 262-6017; Slice Pizzeria: 1513 St. Charles Ave., 525-7437 2904 Severn Ave. Metarie, 885-5565; Theo’s Pizza: 4218 Magazine St., 894-8554; 9647 Jefferson Hwy. River Ridge, 737-8146; 4024 Canal St., 302-1133; 1212 S Clearview, 315 E Judge Perez, Chalmette, 262-0750; 733-3803 605 Lapalco Blvd., Gretna, 433-0333 Mardi Gras Zone: 2706 Royal St., 947-8787 SEAFOOD Crazy Lobster Bar & Grill: 1 Poydras St. 569-3380 INDIAN Deanie’s Seafood: 841 Iberville St., 581-1316; Nirvana: 4308 Magazine St., 894-9797 1713 Lake Ave. Metairie, 834-1225

GROCERY STORES

JAPANESE/KOREAN/SUSHI/THAI Sukho Thai: 4519 Magazine St., 373-6471; 2200 Royal St., 948-9309 Wasabi: 900 Frenchmen St., 943-9433

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

30

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

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

VIETNAMESE Namese: 4077 Tulane Ave., 483-8899

WEE HOURS Buffa’s Restaurant & Lounge: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038

www.OFFBEAT.com

photo: COURTESY OF JACK ROSE

DINING OUT

Jack Rose Review by Michael Dominici

N

ew Orleanians are super-survivors when it concerns man-made disasters, and it was no different for Emery Whalen and Chef Brian Landry. They ran Our House Hospitality, an arm of the Besh Restaurant Group that managed the Caribbean Room. But Whalen and Landry ultimately broke off to form the QED Hospitality Group when Besh’s company regrouped after sexual harassment allegations.

QED has transformed the toney, rather staid Caribbean Room into Jack Rose, a more contemporary take on a classic New Orleans restaurant, in part inspired by the Tennessee Williams play The Rose Tattoo. Although it still remains upscale and posh, Jack Rose has a more relaxed dress code that does not require jackets—as did the old Caribbean Room.

Trumpeter Wendell Brunious once recalled that the best advice he’d ever been given was “You only have one chance to make a first impression.” By that measure, Jack Rose certainly makes a dramatic, almost over-the-top impression as one arrives via the plush hallway of the stately Pontchartrain Hotel into the luxurious Living Room that’s adorned by a wall of floral still life paintings juxtaposed with Ashley Longshore’s striking portrait of rap superstar Lil Wayne.

The specialized, abbreviated appetizer menu includes smoked pompano terrine, country paté, and ’nduja bruschetta if you’re fancy; cracklins, cocktail meatballs, pimento cheese, and fries with aioli, if that’s how you roll.

The kitchen at Jack Rose is presided over by Chef David Whitmore, a former compatriot of Landry’s at Besh’s Borgne. Here, tried and true classics are given inspired modern flourishes as in the case of Pompano en Papillote (a www.OFFBEAT.com

Roast duck with black kale and Bellegarde grits signature dish of the old Caribbean Room back in the day), now scented with saffron and garnished with sunchokes and bok choy.

Similarly, the blue crab bisque is given a Caribbean kiss of coconut and a sprinkling of charred corn.

A nod to Uglesich’s, Royal Red Shrimp Muddy Waters is served on a bed of squid ink campanelle pasta. Our party was delighted by the opulent presentation and delicious flavors of the octopus carpaccio garnished with fava bean hummus and oregano vinaigrette.

The roasted cauliflower steak was also a big hit.

The Italian classic fennel and orange salad gets a local makeover featuring Plaquemines Parish satsumas. Likewise, the Roman classic veal saltimbocca gets a substantial upgrade here as a bone-in chop flavored with sage and prosciutto. Jack Rose also offers an impressive take

on Chicken Parmesan, as well as a heavenly dish of chanterelle mushrooms tossed with homemade pasta, capers and lots of butter. A perfectly rendered roast duck was complimented by black kale, Bellegarde grits, and a luscious hunter's sauce. Another highlight was the whole fish presentation garnished with fresh asparagus. Many of these dishes are also available at brunch. Some of the highlights from the brunch menu include quail and waffles garnished with figs, shrimp and grits, and duck confit hash served with poached eggs.

The half-dozen dessert menu offerings include knockouts banana cream pie, blueberry bread pudding with Dulcey ice cream and blueberry stew, a killer red velvet sundae, and the signature Caribbean Room invention Mile High Pie that was simply a slice of heaven. My guests were not

familiar with this classic and when it arrived they nearly fainted!

The libations at Jack Rose emanate from a well-stocked bar and a fine selection of classic and exotic spirits as found in the namesake drink the Jack Rose— whiskey, Calvados, pomegranate, rose, citrus and egg white—a real show stopper. Their variation of the Sidecar was sublime, and a spiced sugar rim made it perfect.

Our server, MC (Michael Emmons), who worked also with Chef Landry at Galatoire’s, pampered us with old-school charm, warmth and deeply felt enthusiasm for all the great things New Orleans has worth celebrating.

Jack Rose, 2031 St. Charles Ave. (in the Pontchartrain Hotel), New Orleans, LA 70130. (504) 3231500; Wednesday through Sunday dinner, Friday lunch and Sunday brunch.

DECEMBER 2 018

O

31

DINING OUT

A Dream and Hard Work

A

n unassuming double shotgun sits on a busy stretch of Saint Claude Avenue, between Montegut and Clouet, alongside Red’s Chinese and Quintron and Miss Pussycat’s Spellcaster Lodge. Its last occupant was the Sugar Park Tavern pizza parlor. Before that, it housed Leo’s Bar & Grill, where DJ Soul Sister hosted her first Hustle parties. The building is now home to Saint-Germain, a Parisianinspired bar and bistro that opened this fall, but Sugar Park’s massive neon sign still hangs over the front porch.

“We’re gonna light it up!” says Drew Delaughter, Saint-Germain’s co-owner, general manager and wine director. “It gives us some character.” Delaughter and his two partners, chefs Trey Smith and Blake Aguillard, plan on changing the sign when they have the money to do so, but until then, the Sugar Park logo will remain front and center.

Saint-Germain has been opening piecemeal since mid-October as its moving parts coalesce. The bar section came first, featuring a full complement of natural wines and classic cocktails, as well as a small selection of light French appetizers.

The dining room is currently open to bar patrons, but this month, it will transform into a 16-seat, reservation-only area, operating as a separate entity from the bar.

The large, well-lit backyard is still awaiting its central fountain, but the space is already beginning to fulfill its double function as an herb garden/seating area. “This is a very grassroots business,” says Smith.

“With nothing other than a dream and hard work, we’re making this happen, and we’re hoping that people respond to it.”

32

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

Aside from the plumbing, electricity, bar and glass windows, the three owners renovated the entire building themselves, working all summer to get the restaurant ready for its opening in October. “We did 100 percent of the demolition, the zinc bar top, the light fixtures, the painting, the patio, the backyard area,” says Aguillard. “I’d never built a

and Germany,” Smith explains, “So it’s not really Germany and it’s not really France. It’s just this wooded, Alsatian region. They have their own dishes, their own cuisine.

They deal with a lot of wild game, which Blake and I both developed a passion for.”

In 2013, Smith and Aguillard left August to help Gulotta open Mopho, his southeast Asian

building before, so in my mind, we’d pay the designer to do the design, do the demolition, hand the contractor the plans and, when we came back, there was gonna be a restaurant. Maybe we were gonna paint and do some minor stuff. And all of a sudden, I’m looking around, and I start noticing ‘No one’s coming. This is us doing everything.’”

Smith and Aguillard met at Restaurant August nearly a decade ago, working at the same station under Michael Gulotta, who was executive chef at the time. As part of their training, Guilotta sent them to Germany’s Black Forest.

“The area has been part of France

fusion venture on City Park Ave. Delaughter, a friend of Smith’s from culinary school, joined them as a bartender at Mopho and had worked his way up to general manager before leaving in late 2017. Aguillard left MoPho earlier that year, giving up an executive chef position to work as a cook at Saison, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco.

There, he mastered the dry aging and hearth cooking techniques he’ll employ on a smaller, more intimate scale at Saint-Germain, over Binchōtan coals on a yakitori grill. He moved back to New Orleans this year, joining Smith and Delaughter to conceive Saint-

by Raphael Helfand

Germain.

“The places in Paris that inspired us to do this—places like Septime and Chateaubriand—use less expensive ingredients but a lot of technique to create these amazing restaurants that are accessible to everybody,” says Smith. “We’re gonna feature a lot of freshbaked bread, pastas, meats grilled over the coals—things that are inexpensive but can be done very well with technique.”

Delaughter took a similar tactic when assembling the wine list.

He focused on natural wines, which have low sulfite content and are harvested organically.

“You can get a very interesting bottle for not much money and the soil it comes from is living.

It’s not just overplanted, overharvested crap,” Delaughter says.

Whether they’re finding wines that breathe in the bottle, etching a patina into their hand-hammered zinc bartop, or slowfermenting their sourdough bread for exactly 12 hours to get the perfect bubble on the crust in a deck oven without convection or steam, the founders of SaintGermain are embracing a DIY aesthetic but taking the time to let everything oxidize just right.

The food, drinks and atmosphere are thoughtfully constructed and curated but never stuffy. “We plan on being a comfortable, neighborhood bar,” says Smith, reaffirming the group’s mission to stick to the basics. “Doing the few things we do to the best of our ability,” Aguillard adds. “The more confidence you have, the more you keep it simple.” www.OFFBEAT.com

photo: NOE CUGNy

Saint-Germain gets back to the basics.

REVIEWS

Reviews

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

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

Alive and in Love

The Revivalists Take Good Care (Loma Vista) To get the obvious question out of the way: Does the Revivalists’ fourth album have another “Wish I Knew You” on it? And the answer is, sure: The two advance singles, “All My Friends” and “You and I,” are easily as grabbing as the breakthrough hit; “Friends” in fact may be the catchiest tune the band’s yet written. Neither is a carbon copy of the previous hit, but if you liked the Revivalists’ way around a groove, and David Shaw’s brand of emotive singing, you’ll find the same attractions here. “All My Friends” even has another chorus reference to getting high, if that’s what you dug about “Wish I Knew You.” Albums that follow a breakthrough hit tend to sound like day-of-reckoning albums, but the Revivalists already did that last time around: Men Amongst Mountains was effectively the band dealing with the downside of its road up. Most of the songs were about pushing and persevering and “Wish I Knew

34

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

You” was one of its few purely joyful moments. In contrast, Take Good Care is an album that revels in being alive and in love. After a deceptively subtle opener (the African-influenced “Otherside of Paradise,” on which the band wisely holds back from charging in) the mood of the album takes a sharp curve upward. “Got Love,” “Change” and the two singles are all ebullient songs that get high on soul and swagger. If “Celebration” didn’t already live up to its title, there’s a key change midway through to push it higher. Not until track nine does Shaw voice a darker sentiment—“God damn, I hate to love you”—but even that becomes more a pledge of devotion.

Despite the use of multiple producers and locations (some was recorded in New Orleans and some in Nashville), the album manages a cohesive sound by reining in the jamband tendencies (only two songs top four minutes) and focusing on the guitar/keyboard instrumental core, using the horns more sparingly as a seasoning. They still get plenty of space to be eclectic, most surprisingly on “Oh No” and “Future,” which evince a ’60s garage influence—a pox on the syndicated reviewer who said it sounded like the Strokes. That same reviewer found fault with “Shoot You Down,” the anti– gun violence song (doubling as a gesture of friendship) that closes the album, but to these

ears the song’s chorus (“Can we for once just like without guns/ I’ll tell no lie, we’re not born to just die”) is both plainspoken and meaningful. The closing number’s acoustic setting also works fine; you can’t have a good revival without a little benediction.

—Brett Milano

Various Artists Live at Little Gem Saloon: Basin Street Records Celebrates 20 Years (Basin Street Records) The beauty of this album is that it’s the real deal, which also accurately describes the musicians as well as Basin Street Records, a New Orleans label through and through. What you hear is what you get from these pros, who on most any given night sound just like they did when captured on May 5, 2017 at the Little Gem Saloon, a musically historic building in the city’s Central Business District.

All of the artists bring talent, history and fun to the setting, starting with vibraphonist Jason Marsalis performing a pair of lively originals that offer a taste

of the tradition in a modern jazz setting. Giving the album a “you are there” flavor, Marsalis graciously introduces the members of his band, including standout pianist Oscar Rossignoli.

There are few surprises on the album, produced by Tracey Freeman, though that’s not really the point. The focus is more on showcasing each musician, who they are and what they do. Trumpeter and vocalist Kermit Ruffins is teamed with old friend and fellow trumpeter Irvin Mayfield on “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and “Skokiaan,” the latter of which the spirited Ruffins can be credited for bringing to a new audience.

Percussionist Bill Summers offers the obviously impressed audience a display of his rhythmic mastery and ability to transform the usually dreamy standard “Autumn Leaves.”

Clarinetist Michael White plays an oh-so-slow version of “Summertime” backed by the strum of Seva Venet’s banjo. The mood dramatically changes on White’s original, the uptempo “Give It Up (Gypsy Second Line)” on which his high notes elicit screams from appreciative crowd members.

Davell Crawford closes it out in typical fashion as he tells everyone to put their hands together when he and his band dig into “Big Boss Man.” He’s at the piano alone singing his moving “Don’t Ever Be Blue/ Ode to Louisiana” from his Basin www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS

Street album My Gift to You. Live at Little Gem celebrates 20 impressive years of Basin Street Records while reveling in New Orleans itself.

—Geraldine Wyckoff

Tom Hook 62 (Arbors Records) Tom Hook’s 62 evokes a night in the American Camelot— Kennedy in the White House, Sinatra at the Sands, Joe Turner

www.OFFBEAT.com

in New Orleans, Louis Prima and Keely Smith everywhere—a world where swing music cohabited the zeitgeist along with New Orleans R&B. In a way it’s a bit of a startling vision now—a tribute to Louis Jordan, “Buona Sera,” followed by a tribute to vintage Sinatra, “Come Fly With Me,” followed by the classic Cosimo Matassa sound of Benny Spellman’s “Lipstick Traces.”

Hook, a Kansas City pianist who moved to New Orleans to play on the riverboats, worked with the period singers the Victory Belles at the WWII Museum and acted as musical director for the Petit Theatre’s revival of Jelly’s Last Jam. The music here is letter perfect, glistening with a professional sheen, the jumping dynamics of clever swing arrangements and an overall energy that comes from a labor of love delivered with meticulous care on all levels.

Hook shines on piano and vocals, pushing the tight rhythm section with his precision playing and creating space for rich unison passages from the horn and string sections and terrific solo turns from Wendell Brunious on trumpet and flugelhorn, Rick Trolsen on trombone and Tom Fischer on tenor saxophone.

Highlights include a beautiful reading of Dave Bartholomew’s “Someday,” a great vocal duet between Hook and Cristina Perez on “That Old Black Magic” and an unexpected take on Tom Waits’ “I Never Talk to Strangers.”

—John Swenson

Future Cowboys Going Kamikaze (Pantherburn) Future Cowboys co-stars New Orleans singer-songwriter-actor Jamie Bernstein (Preacher, Scream

Queens) and his New York collaborators Eren Cannata and Miguel Oliveira. The trio recorded the six-song EP, Going Kamikaze, in New Orleans; Sagaponack, New York; and Beverly Hills, California.

Going Kamikaze expands Bernstein’s Americana songwriting through hip-hop and electronic music techniques. The anthemic quality of some songs alludes to such arena-rock acts as U2, but much less bombastic.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the

DECEMBER 2 018

O

35

REVIEWS

Going Kamikaze songs come off as truncated. Four of the EP’s tracks are under four minutes long and two run less than three minutes.

Opening song “This One Time” falls into that nebulous musical realm known as Americana. In conversational style, Bernstein sings the role of sincere protagonist, portraying a man who’s determined, at last, to extract what he wants from life. In “Choose,” echoey production envelopes Bernstein’s brooding lyrics.

Churchy organ, ricocheting percussion and sharply minimal guitar figures accompany Bernstein’s low and gritty vocals. He sings longingly about a brief encounter that may or may not lead to a lasting relationship.

“Work for the Week” is another song of strife. Cannata, who has production and recording credit for the EP, gives the song a spare but burnished sheen—resonating chain-gang rhythms complement the chantlike lyrics. “I gotta make a living so I’m taking what they giving.

Oh, boy, don’t break your back, moving that old railroad track. If you don’t work, you can’t eat.”

“I Fight Alone” also deals in struggle, evoking the haunted ’70s and ’80s goth-rock of Joy Division, Peter Murphy and Bauhaus. Given the acting work that Bernstein and, to a lesser degree, Cannata do, the cinematic production “I Fight Alone” receives fits the scene the lyrics set well.

Clocking in at two-and-a-half minutes, “The Flame” ends the EP in hymn-like Americana style.

A shift in instrumentation to acoustic piano and steel guitar, however, casts “The Flame” incongruously apart from the bigger productions that precede it.

At this point, Future Cowboys is a work in progress, but Bernstein, Cannata and Oliveira demonstrate major potential.

—John Wirt

36

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

“lobotomy.” The album’s one drawback is its brevity, clocking in at less than 30 minutes. Then again, it never hurts to leave the audience wanting more.

—Bill Forman

The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music Jazz Orchestra The Silverbook Project Vol. 1 (Independent)

The Wanting Dark Road (Planetary Magnetics) While Dark Road is their debut release, The Wanting have already garnered considerable attention in their hometown New Orleans with a performance at this year’s Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival. This seven-track collection fits loosely into the Southern Gothic genre, although it’s really more haunting than it is harrowing, more Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris (or at least Will Oldham and Angel Olsen) than it is 16 Horsepower or Gun Club. Singer-songwriters Chris Jacob and Cate Swan’s vocals blend seamlessly, while bandmates Chad Robin’s harmonium and Peter J Bowling’s bowed bass find that droney sweet spot between minimalist chamber-pop and high-lonesome Appalachian folk. Produced by Ben Mumphrey (Dash Rip Rock, Frank Black) at Bogalusa’s Studio in the Country, the album make good use of the facility’s freestanding echo chamber, which has in the past been employed by the legendary Tony Joe White and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.

Jacob’s opening lines on the title track (“Poor boy was a lawyer, from Eastern Tennessee/ And that necktie was a noose, for him and for me”) all but beg to be covered by Nick Cave, while the elegiacally tuneful “My Woes” would have fit nicely into the Fairport Convention songbook.

Meanwhile, Swan’s “Chapels of Dust” somehow manages to retain its aching beauty even as it rhymes “It’s odd to me” with

In many ways, this impeccably performed collection of material stands as a tribute to the late Harold Battiste, a saxophonist, composer and educator and a man with a vision of the

importance of documenting music as a way of keeping it alive for a next generation.

He accomplished that goal in numerous ways, including assembling the compositions that were written and performed by

A Rock ’n’ Country Christmas Christian Serpas & Ghost Town Rockin’ ol’ Christmas (Independent) Christian Serpas has always wanted to record a Christmas collection. The rock-and-country singer-songwriter and his band, Ghost Town, finally make his holiday dream come true with Rockin’ ol’ Christmas. The three-song EP features two Serpas originals and a pumped-up rendition of Elvis Presley’s Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller– penned classic, “Santa Claus Is Back in Town.”

The Santa who Serpas sings about in “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” makes it clear, howling included, that he wants loving for Christmas.

Because the song’s double entendre–mined lyrics are so obvious, maybe it’s a Christmas miracle that Presley got away with “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” back in 1957. It’s the opening song on Elvis’ Christmas Album, the inspired holiday long-player that includes “Blue Christmas.” Serpas’ and Ghost Town’s interpretation turns the juice on high, emphasizing the rock in their country-rock style. George Neyrey’s standout electric guitar riffs throughout. Bassist Don Williams and drummer Jeff Oteri join the high-spirited sleigh ride.

Accompanied by ringing, harmonized twin-guitar leads, Serpas turns earnest in “Last Christmas.” It’s a bittersweet pop-rock original.

“Last Christmas was a bad Christmas, I know,” he sings apologetically.

“With me so far away and us on the phone.” Expressing regret about Christmases past, Serpas promises his lady love that painful separation during holidays won’t happen again. “No more winking on a falling star,” he sings. “I’ll be wherever you are.”

Title song “Rockin’ ol’ Christmas” is the EP’s most country-rocking selection. Besides being good music for a Christmas party, “Rockin’ ol’ Christmas” shows the band’s punk-rock, hard-rock and even British invasion influences. The Ramones, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are all deftly referenced.

—John Wirt www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS

members of the American Jazz Quintet, in what is renowned as “The Silverbook.”

As is fitting, the bulk of the material on The Silverbook Project Vol. 1 comes from Battiste’s pen.

To those familiar with Battiste, the founder of the AFO (All For One) label, they sound like Harold. He was a man of great warmth and serenity, qualities that can be heard in every note and sway of “Beautiful Old Ladies.” Pianist Jesse McBride, who produced the album and is Artist-in-Residence at the Center, brings the gentleness of his mentor to this wonderful song.

The orchestra boasts some 18 members and holds a galaxy of thoughtfully and technically rich musicians. It might be difficult for some people to imagine how totally progressive trumpeter Clyde Kerr, Jr.’s “Leo’s Lady” sounds even though it was written decades ago. It and Ellis Marsalis’ intriguing “Nostalgic Impressions” provide documentation of just how much modern jazz was being investigated by Battiste’s AFO team, which included the great drummer Ed Blackwell, bassist Richard Payne and clarinetist Alvin Batiste and others.

The legendary Jelly Roll Morton coined the term the Latin tinge to describe the rhythmic element that often comes into play in New Orleans music. The last two numbers, both by Battiste, highlight its place and importance in jazz.

Super solos—too numerous to identify individually—and beautifully, unflawed ensemble work make The Silverbook Project Vol. 1 a listening pleasure. Equally important, it would have made Harold Battiste smile.

—Geraldine Wyckoff

The Quickening Begin Again (Independent) The Quickening is another in a long line of stellar funk bands to come out of New Orleans, www.OFFBEAT.com

and while they mine that deep well of classic New Orleans funk, they are neither tethered to nor bound by its tradition. This is an adventurous band that is not afraid to take risks as they fly loose and fast while exploring a myriad of funky realms and rhythms. Of course having a solid in the pocket rhythm section makes it all possible.

Throughout Begin Again, Jeff Lani (drums) and Al Small (bass) provide a consistent rocksteady groove that allows the band to turn on a dime and dive deep into any funky rhythms they feel the need to explore.

Rachel Murray (vocals) shares vocals with Blake Quick (guitar, vocals), and “shares” is really an apropos way to describe it as they often meld into a singular presentation. Quick does a wonderful job juggling classic funky rhythms while exploring more jam-like textures on guitar as Joe Bouché fills in all the right spaces on keyboards and Dave Easley (pedal steel) manages to provide complementary soundscapes while taking the music to places traditional funk bands just cannot envision.

Right out of the gate The Quickening set the stage for what is to come throughout the remainder of Begin Again.

“Funk 2U” provides ample space for Dave Easley to show off his chops and let you know that this isn’t your typical funk outfit while Jani, Small and Blake Quick create danceable grooves.

The band covers a lot of ground on “Joey the Vape” as they twist and turn through various tempos and grooves reminiscent of Yes or Rush before DECEMBER 2 018

O

37

REVIEWS

settling into a beautiful passage highlighting Blake Quick and Dave Easley sounding like the classic twin guitars of Camile Baudoin and Dave Malone. This is heady yet accessible music.

On “Interplanetary Muse,” Quick delivers a rhythm reminiscent of the Grateful Dead’s “Eyes of the World” while Easley explores sonic textures worthy of the song’s title.

Jeff Lani delivers a delicious street beat on “Grapetown Breakdown” as Quick provides a stinging rhythm attack that allows Easley and Joe Bouché to work out some killer funky fun.

With the exception of “Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky” the album is comprised of all original material. The Quickening’s rendition of the Toussaint/Dorsey classic clearly shows that funk is alive and well in New Orleans. Murray delivers an excellent vocal performance while Easley hints at late-era Jerry Garcia on pedal steel as the band effortlessly honors the past while pushing the funk forward.

—Christopher Weddle

Jon Hatchett Band Mother Nature Wins Again (Independent) The Jon Hatchett Band’s second album turns trouble into fun. In many of the more-or-less country songs, life’s a mess and times are tough. But Hatchett chooses to soldier on, come hell, high water or apocalypse.

A native of Massachusetts, Hatchett’s been kicking around New Orleans since 2009. In 2014,

38

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

the Jon Hatchett Band debuted at Rock ’n’ Bowl. Hatchett describes his country-psychobilly sound as “spiderbilly.” That invented term helps explain Hatchett’s frequent walks and romps on the dark side of the country street.

Hatchett brightens the darkness he chronicles, however, with his dryly humorous lyrics, characters and stories.

In “Another Night Gone Wrong,” Hatchett sings of life’s pitfalls with a good-natured wink. “Another night gone wrong, another honky-tonk song. But I feel so alive. I’ll be stepping out every single night.”

And when bullets fly in a tavern by the levee, Hatchett declares, “New Orleans, Louisiana, if we don’t make it out alive, I hope to see you on the other side.”

Hatchett celebrates living on the edge in “All for the Thrill,” a country-rock party song distinguished by the psychobilly, end-of-the-world vibe. In the self-destructive party vein, too, there’s the hillbilly-style “You Can’t Regret What You Don’t Remember.”

While the latter song is unapologetic, the singer expresses bottomless regret in the dirgelike “Was the Feeling Last Night Worth the Feeling Right Now?” Afflicted by the hangover from hell, he sings, “My body and soul feel dried up.”

Hatchett recorded Mother Nature Wins Again at Joel Savoy’s Savoy Faire Studios in Eunice. “I Wanna Be in Love,” a reverbdrenched torch song, is a great example of the album’s big and rich sound.

Hatchett’s songwriting, fun though the songs often are, could use more polish and cultivation. His lyrics, especially, can grow mundane and repetitive. From a writing perspective, “Way Down in the Cut,” written by the Deslondes’ John James Tourville, is the album’s best composition.

Hatchett and the band do a fine rendition of it.

—John Wirt www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS

Where y’at Shorty?

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews Trombone Shorty (Harry N. Abrams)

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews The 5 O’Clock Band (Harry N. Abrams)

bookmark

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews’ love of music, New Orleans and the Treme neighborhood where he was nurtured, plus his sweet nature, sing out in these two books. The vibrant and brilliantly colorful illustrations by award-winning Bryan Collier bring Shorty’s words to life as he tells the story of his childhood as an aspiring musician.

He introduces himself in the autobiographical first book, though he points out early on that “his story is about music.” He soon emphasizes that point by saying, “But before you can understand how much music means to me, you have to know how important it is to my hometown, my greatest inspiration.”

Written in a storytelling, conversational, child-friendly style, Trombone Shorty warmly reads a bit like “Once upon a time…” that often prompts questions from youngsters and offers the opportunity to open up a dialogue between parents and their kids. Perhaps the adult might ask, “What inspires you?”

In the “Author’s Note” section at the back of The Five O’Clock Band, Andrews writes, “Growing up in the Treme, I was encouraged to seek guidance from all of the musicians who lived there. So I did.” As portrayed in the book, he also credits many of the elders in the neighborhood who shouted out with a hearty, supportive “Where y’at Shorty?”

It’s obvious from his many accomplishments, warm demeanor and the establishment of his youth-oriented Trombone Shorty Foundation that Andrews took to heart the lessons he speaks of in both of these books. They stand as a lullaby to dreamland for youngsters who have fantasies and big ideas of their own. As a very young Trombone Shorty said to the towering figure of the great Bo Diddley when the guitarist asked him, “What do you want to play?” “Follow me” was his reply.

—Geraldine Wyckoff www.OFFBEAT.com

DECEMBER 2 018

O

39

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

SATURDAY DECEMBER 1

Buffa’s: Derrick Freeman Band (JV) 6p, No Law (VR) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Contemporary Arts Center: Vijay Iyer Sextet (JV) 7:30p d.b.a.: Frog and Henry (JV) 4p, Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, Alvin Youngblood Hart and Muscle Theory (BL) 11p Gattuso’s: Michael O’Hara, the Sheik (VR) 7p House of Blues: Bustout Burlesque (BQ) 7:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Jerry Garcia Band Cover Band, the Quickening (RK) 10p Jazz and Heritage Center: Courtney Bryan (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Vali Talbot (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Old Point Bar: Dana Abbott (RK) 9:30p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Will Smith and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Portside Lounge: Lynn Drury’s Birthday Bash (RR) 9p Siberia: Maggie Belle Band (FK) 9p SideBar NOLA: Helen Gillet Presents (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Davell Crawford and Company (JV) 8 & 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Asylum Chorus (SO) 9p, DJ Soul Sister (FK) 11:30p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Esther Rose (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Walter “Wolfman” Washington’s 75th Birthday Celebration (BL) 10p

SUNDAY DECEMBER 2

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot (JV) 11a, Pfister Sisters

40

O

DECEMBER 2018

(JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Keith Stone with Red Gravy (BL) 10p Dixon Hall (Tulane University): New Orleans Ballet Association presents The Nutcracker Suite (DN) 3 & 6p House of Blues: Loyola Music Showcase (VR) 12p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8p Orpheum Theater: Damien Rice (VR) 8p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Gerald French and Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 7p Pat O’Brien’s: Pat O’Brien’s 85th Anniversary Party feat. Souled Out (VR) 2p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Will Smith (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Phillip Manuel Christmas Show (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Dile Que NOLA (LT) 7p, Gabrielle Cavassa Jazz Session (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Marc Stone Band (BL) 8p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascal (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p

MONDAY DECEMBER 3

Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Columns Hotel: David Doucet (KJ) 8p d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 7p, Bon Bon Vivant (JV) 10p Dos Jefes: John Fohl (BL) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Instant Opus Series (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Modern Jazz Mondays with Brad Webb (MJ) 6p, Shindig feat. Christopher Hochkeppel, Amanda Walker and Keith Burnstein (SS) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Drinks and Diversions (VR) 7p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p, Washboard Rodeo (JV) 8p

TUESDAY DECEMBER 4

Buffa’s: You Got This Presents Taco Tuesdays with Dave Jordan (VR) 5p, Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Dos Jefes: Tom Hook and Wendell Brunious (JV) 9p Ellis Marsalis Center for Music: EMCM Youth Ensembles (JV) 6:30p Gasa Gasa: Sexy Dex and the Fresh, Midriff, Particle Devotion (RB) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Porch): Samuel J. Comroe (CO) 8p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Jeanne Marie Harris (JV) 7:30p Maison: Jazmarae, Gregory Agid Quartet, Gene’s

Music Machine (VR) 4p Preservation Hall: Preservation All-Stars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Siberia: Piano Night: Andre Bohren (CL) 9p SideBar NOLA: Simon Berz, Cyrus Nabipoor and Dave Easley (VR) 9p Starlight: Tom McDermott (PI) 5p, Asher Danziger (FO) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Crowning Achievement (CO) 9p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 8p

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 5

Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Carousel Bar (Hotel Monteleone): James Martin Band (JV) 8:30p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Davenport Lounge (Ritz-Carlton): Jeremy Davenport (JV) 5:30p Gasa Gasa: Five for Five feat. Alexis Marceaux, Julie Odell, Jack Sledge, Grady Bell and Travers Geoffray (SS) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Jos Vincent and the Vixens (RK) 9p Jazz Playhouse: John “Papa” Gros Band (JV) 8p Joy Theater: John Butler Trio, Dustin Thomas (SS) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Anais St. John (JV) 7:30p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Lars Edegran and Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Tornado Brass Band with Darryl Adams (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Byron Asher, Free Feral and Justin Peake (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Grag Schatz (PI) 5p, Hot Jazz Jam with Nahum Zdybel (JV) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Helen Gillet and Simon Berz (MJ) 9p Three Muses: Dave Hull (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 8p

THURSDAY DECEMBER 6

Buffa’s: Rebecca Leigh, Harry Mayronne and Chris Wecklein (JV) 5p, Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Shamar Allen and the Underdawgs (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Esther Rose (JV) 7p, Ari Teitel (JV) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Joy Theater: Atmosphere, deM atlaS, the Lioness, DJ Keezy (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Odgen Museum of Southern Art: Dayna Kurtz with Robert Mache (SS) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Tim Laughlin and Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 8p Saturn Bar: Alex McMurray and his Band (RK) 8p Smoothie King Center: Elton John (SS) 8p Snug Harbor: Mahmoud Chouki (JV) 8 & 10p

Starlight: Shea Pierre (PI) 5p, La Mancha, Sabertooth Swing (JV) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Roland Guerin Band (JV) 9p Three Muses: Tom McDermott (JV) 5p, Mia Borders (JV) 8p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10p

FRIDAY DECEMBER 7

Buffa’s: Greg Schatz (VR) 6p, Jamie Bernstein and Dave Easley (VR) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Circle Bar: Natalie Mae and friends (CW) 7p, Cosma Dog (ID) 9:30p d.b.a.: Swinging Gypsies (JV) 6p, Brass-A-Holics (BB) 10p Dos Jefes: Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 10p Gattuso’s: Clean Sweep with Danny Hebert and Tracey Ann (VR) 7p House of Blues: Eagles Fest (RK) 8p Jazz Playhouse: Cyril Neville and Swamp Funk (FK) 7:30p, Tease the Season Burlesque Ballroom feat. Trixie Minx with Romy Kaye (BQ) 11p Joy Theater: Napoleon Dynamite Screening with Jon Heder (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 5p, Roux the Day (FO) 9p One Eyed Jacks: Deltaphonic, the Iceman Special (FK) 9p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Kevin Louis and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation AllStars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Lynn Drury (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: DJ Derrick Smoker (JV) 5p, Michael Watson and the Alchemy (JV) 8p, Jack Sledge Band (RK) 11p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Ally BEA (HH) 11p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p Tipitina’s: the Subdudes (VR) 9p

SATURDAY DECEMBER 8

Buffa’s: Freddie Blue and the Friendship Circle’s Underwear and Sock Drive for Homeless Youth (VR) 6p, Asylum Chorus (VR) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Frog and Henry (JV) 4p, Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 11p Davenport Lounge (Ritz-Carlton): Jeremy Davenport (JV) 9p Gattuso’s: Andy Hymel and the All-Stars, Da Rockits (VR) 7p House of Blues: Southern Accents: Tom Petty Tribute (RK) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Danielle Nicole (BL) 9p Jazz and Heritage Center: Davell Crawford (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Paul Tobin (FO) 5p, Patrick Cooper and Shawn Williams (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Zakk Garner album-release party (JV) 7p Mahalia Jackson Theater: Holiday Spectacular feat. the 610 Stompers (VR) 7:30p New Orleans Jazz Museum (Old U.S. Mint): Improvisations Gala feat. Jon Batiste, Trombone Shorty Academy, Evan Christopher (JV) 7p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Will Smith and Palm Court

www.OFFBEAT.com

LIVE LOCAL MUSIC

Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Siberia: Alex McMurray (RK) 6p, WHIV Benefit: People Museum, Tasche and the Angels, Salt Wives (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Weedie Braimah and Hands of Time (JV) 8 & 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): NOJO 7 (JV) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Russell Welch (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Dragon Smoke (VR) 10p

SUNDAY DECEMBER 9

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot (JV) 11a, Nattie Sanchez’s Songwriter Circle (SS) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Columns Hotel: Chip Wilson (TJ) 11a d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, the Fessters (VR) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Champagne Girl (VR) 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: Van Hudson (FO) 8p New Orleans Jazz Museum (Old U.S. Mint): Evan Christopher and Clarinet Road premieres the Faubourg Variations (JV) 2p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Gerald French and Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio with George Porter Jr. and Ivan Neville (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Bobbi Rae (JV) 7p, Gabrielle Cavassa Jazz Session (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): DJ Soul Sister and Tom Vickers Talk (VR) 3p, Marc Stone Band (BL) 8p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascal (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p

MONDAY DECEMBER 10

Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 7p, Bon Bon Vivant (JV) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party feat. Victoria Coy, Matt Slusher and Mark Andrews (BU) 8p, Americana Music Series (FO) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Instant Opus (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Modern Jazz Mondays with Kirk Duplantis (MJ) 6p, Shindig feat. KC O’Rorke, Mario Palmisano, Amanda Walker and Keith Burnstein (SS) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Too Trill Trivia (VR) 6p Three Muses: Monty Banks (JV) 5p, Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 8p

TUESDAY DECEMBER 11

Buffa’s: You Got This Presents Taco Tuesdays (VR) 5p, Joe Krown (VR) 7p Columns Hotel: John Fohl and John Rankin (JV) 8p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Dos Jefes: Tom Hook and Wendell Brunious (JV) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Trapper Keaper with Tim Berne and Aurora Nealand (MJ) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Siberia: Piano Night: Josh Wexler (PI) 9p SideBar NOLA: Mike Dillon and Simon Berz (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore (JV) 8 & 10p

www.OFFBEAT.com

Southport Hall: Convictions, Roseview, Vagrants, Brief History (VR) 7p Starlight: Asher Danziger with Eli Elksus (RK) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Think Less, Hear More: Nightmare Before Christmas (VR) 8p Three Muses: Davis Rogan (VR) 5p, Josh Gouzy (JV) 8p

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 12 Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Davenport Lounge (Ritz-Carlton): Jeremy Davenport (JV) 5:30p Gasa Gasa: Andrew Combs, the Kernal (SS) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: Tank and the Bangas, DJ RQ Away, Kings of Brass, Vegas Cola Band (FK) 8p Jazz Playhouse: John “Papa” Gros Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Kevin Specht and Tom Marron (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Jeanne Marie Harris (JV) 7:30p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Lars Edegran and Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Tim Berne, Aurora Nealand and James Singleton (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Anuraag Pendyal (PI) 5p, Tuba Skinny (TJ) 8p, Hot Jazz Jam with Nahum Zdybel (JV) 11p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Maggie Belle Band (FK) 9p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 8p

THURSDAY DECEMBER 13

Buffa’s: Gumbo Cabaret (JV) 5p, Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Shamar Allen and the Underdawgs (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Civic Theatre: BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon: To Jesus, Thanks for Everything (VR) 9p d.b.a.: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 7p, Billy Iuso and the Restless Natives (RR) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Porch): Emarosa and Hollow City (RK) 7p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (BB) 11p Odgen Museum of Southern Art: Roman Street (JV) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Leroy Jones and Katja Toivola with Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p Saturn Bar: Alex McMurray and his Band (RK) 8p SideBar NOLA: Nolatet Trio feat. Mike Dillon, Brian Haas and James Singleton (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis and 21st Century Trad Band (BL) 8 & 10p Starlight: Shea Pierre (PI) 5p, Lulu and the Broadsides feat. Dayna Kurtz and James Singleton (JV) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Little Cosmicana (ID) 9p Three Muses: Tom McDermott (JV) 5p Tipitina’s: North Mississippi Allstars, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Papa Mali (BL) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10p

FRIDAY DECEMBER 14

Buffa’s: Sherman Bernard and the Old Man River Band (VR) 5p, Davis Rogan (VR) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a DECEMBER 2 018

O

41

LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Central City BBQ: Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes (FK) 8p Champions Square: Cole Swindell and Dustin Lynch with Lauren Alaina (CW) 7p Circle Bar: Natalie Mae and friends (CW) 7p, the Drupes, Soft Animal (ID) 9:30p d.b.a.: Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 6p, Soul Rebels (BB) 10p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band (TJ) 6:30p Gattuso’s: the Old Barstools (VR) 7p Howlin’ Wolf: Humbug Bash feat. the Struts (RK) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Shannon Powell Quartet (JV) 7:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Tim Robertson (FO) 5p, Beth Patterson (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: John Mooney and Marc Stone (BL) 7:30p One Eyed Jacks: DJ Soul Sister presents Soulful Takeover (FK) 10p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Kevin Louis and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation AllStars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Saenger Theatre: Jerry Seinfeld (CO) 7 & 9:30p SideBar NOLA: Sasha Masakowski Presents (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Michael Watson and the Alchemy (JV) 8p, Jack Sledge Band (RK) 11p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): DJ Nice Rack and Unicorn Fukr (VR) 11p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Anders Osborne’s Annual Holiday Spectacular feat Joan Osborne, Theresa Andersson and Gina Forsyth (RR) 10p

SATURDAY DECEMBER 15

Buffa’s: Royal Rounders (VR) 6p, Bywater Skanks (JV) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Civic Theatre: A John Waters Christmas (VR) 8p d.b.a.: Frog and Henry (JV) 4p, Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, Cedric Burnside Project (BL) 11p Gasa Gasa: Valerie Sassyfras’ Intergalactic Holiday Blowout feat. Dirty Bourbon River Show (FK) 10p Gattuso’s: Benny Grunch and the Bunch Xmas (VR) 7p House of Blues: Nirvanna: Nirvana Tribute (ID) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Proper Channels, Tbone, Bon Mot, Tone, ET Deaux (HH) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Celtic Christmas with Betsy McGovern and Beth Patterson (FO) 5p, Lynn Drury (FO) 9p Orpheum Theater: New Orleans Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker (DN) 2 & 7p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Will Smith and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Preservation Brass with Kevin Louis (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Saenger Theatre: Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis (CL) 8p Snug Harbor: Herlin Riley Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Intersection Freedom Talk (VR) 3p, Muevelo and Mambo Orleans (LT) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Anders Osborne’s Annual Holiday Spectacular feat. Vince Herman and others (RR) 10p UNO Lakefront Arena: Harry Connick Jr.: A New Orleans Tricentennial Celebration (VR) 7:30p

SUNDAY DECEMBER 16

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot (TJ) 11a, Tiffany Pollack (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Cafe Istanbul: Oh Crap, It’s Christmas feat. Debbie

42

O

DECEMBER 2018

Davis, Matt Perrine, Johnny Sketch and the Bandicoot 4, Spencer Bohren, Alex McMurray, Ben Perrine, Beth Patterson, Josh Paxton (VR) 7p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Panorama Brass Band (BB) 10p Gasa Gasa: the Great Plains, Champagne Girl, Leafdrinker (RK) 9p 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: Irish Session (FO) 4p, Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Orpheum Theater: New Orleans Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker (DN) 2p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Gerald French and Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 7p Preservation Hall: Creole Christmas Show (TJ) 1p, Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Siberia: Joanna Tomassoni, Lauren Hemard, Bruisey Peets (SS) 9p SideBar NOLA: Brad Walker and Simon Berz (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Nolatet feat. Haas, Vidacovich, Dillon and Singleton (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Dile Que NOLA (LT) 7p, Gabrielle Cavassa Jazz Session (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Marc Stone Band (BL) 8p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascal (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p

MONDAY DECEMBER 17

Buffa’s: Saints Game (VR) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Circle Bar: Dem Roach Boyz (RB) 7p, Gene Black and friends (JV) 9:30p Columns Hotel: David Doucet (KJ) 8p d.b.a.: Bon Bon Vivant (JV) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party feat. Victoria Coy, Matt Slusher and Mark Andrews (BU) 8p, Americana Music Series (FO) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Saints Game (FO) 7p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Brian Haas and Simon Berz (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Modern Jazz Mondays with Brad Webb (MJ) 6p, Shindig feat. Charles Lumar, Amanda Walker and Keith Burnstein (SS) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Movement Mondays (VR) 5p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p, Bill Malchow Duo (JV) 8p

TUESDAY DECEMBER 18

Buffa’s: You Got This Presents Taco Tuesdays (VR) 5p, Zoukeys with Beth Patterson and Josh Paxton (VR) 8p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Dos Jefes: Mark Coleman and Todd Duke (JV) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: CommonTone Music Series (VR) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Jeanne Marie Harris (JV) 7:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation AllStars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Siberia: Piano Night: Greg Schatz (PI) 9p SideBar NOLA: Johnny Vidacovich Mystery Duo (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore (JV) 8 & 10p

Starlight: Asher Danziger and friends (FO) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Night Janitor (VR) 6p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (JV) 5p, Josh Gouzy (JV) 8p

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 19

Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Carousel Bar (Hotel Monteleone): James Martin Band (JV) 8:30p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): the Winks (RK) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Michael Watson (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Anais St. John (JV) 7:30p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Aurora Nealand and Simon Berz (VR) 9p Smoothie King Center: Trans-Siberian Orchestra (CL) 7:30p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: La Mancha (JV) 8p, Hot Jazz Jam with Nahum Zdybel (JV) 11p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Sound Observatory New Orleans (JV) 9p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Schatzy (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Professor Longhair’s 100th Birthday Tribute (RB) 8p

THURSDAY DECEMBER 20

Buffa’s: Darcy Malone (VR) 6p, Tom McDermott and Chloe Feoranzo (JV) 9p Bullet’s: Shamar Allen and the Underdawgs (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Sabertooth Swing (JV) 7p House of Blues: Avery Sunshine (SO) 7p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz and Heritage Center: Tunes for Toys feat. New Breed Brass Band, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, MainLine (JV) 7p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (BB) 11p Odgen Museum of Southern Art: Walter “Wolfman” Washington’s Birthday Celebration (BL) 6p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 8p Roosevelt Hotel (Fountain Lounge): Amanda Ducorbier (JV) 5:30p Saturn Bar: Alex McMurray and his Band (RK) 8p Siberia: Eastern Bloc Party: Klezervation Hall (KZ) 9p SideBar NOLA: Gettin’ Fess-tive with Reggie Scanlan, Tom Worrell and Lionel Batiste Jr. (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Dave Stryker Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Oscar Rossignoli (PI) 5p, Neal Toden Jazz Trio (JV) 8p, Baby Boy Bartels (RK) 9p, Second Hand Street Band (BB) 11p Three Muses: Tom McDermott (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers Present Moby Dickens, the Great White Elephant in the Room, Michot’s Melody Makers (RK) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10p

FRIDAY DECEMBER 21

Buffa’s: Dave Jordan (RR) 5p, Sybil Shanell (VR) 9p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 9p d.b.a.: Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 6p, Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers (ZY) 10p Gattuso’s: Will Iseman (VR) 7p

Hi-Ho Lounge: the River Dragon (RK) 6p, Funky Sole NOLA feat. DJ Shane Love (SO) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Terry McDermott (SS) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Porch): Fred LeBlanc (SS) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Joe Krown (PI) 4p, Cyril Neville and Swamp Funk (JV) 7:30p, Tease the Season Burlesque Ballroom feat. Trixie Minx with Romy Kaye (BQ) 11p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 5p, Paintbox with Dave James and Tim Robertson (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Mo Fess Professor Longhair’s 100th Birthday (VR) 7p New Orleans Jazz Market: Holiday Songbook with Adonis Rose and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (JV) 7:30p Preservation Hall: Nat King Cole Halliday with David L. Harris (TJ) 1p, Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Siberia: Alex McMurray’s 50th Birthday Party feat. Happy Talk Band, Klezmer All-Stars, Alex McMurray Band (RK) 9p SideBar NOLA: Papa Mali (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Michael Watson and the Alchemy (JV) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Big Easy Brawlers (BB) 9p, G-Cue: Prince vs. Michael Jackson (RB) 11p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Flow Tribe’s Christmas Crunktacular (FK) 10p

SATURDAY DECEMBER 22

Buffa’s: Christmas Spirits and Singing with Andre Bohren (VR) 6p, Sansone, Krown and Fohl (VR) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Frog and Henry (JV) 4p, Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, New Breed Brass Band (BB) 11p Gattuso’s: Joey Winters’ School of Music Christmas Recital (VR) 5p, Neaux Dice, 7p Jazz Playhouse: Joe Krown (PI) 4:30p, Chucky C and Clearly Blue (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Mike Kerwin and Geoff Coats (FO) 5p, the One Tailed Three (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p Mahalia Jackson Theater: Delta Festival Ballet present The Nutcracker (DN) 7p Old Point Bar: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 9:30p One Eyed Jacks: Where Yacht: Deck the Hall and Oates (VR) 9p Orpheum Theater: New Orleans Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker (DN) 2 & 7p Preservation Hall: Nat King Cole Halliday with David L. Harris (TJ) 1p, Preservation Brass with Kevin Louis (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Red Gravy Café: Spider Murphy (VR) 8a Snug Harbor: Masakowski Christmas Show (MJ) 8 & 10p Starlight: Flamenco with John Lawrence and Ven Pa’CA (LT) 5p, Shawan Rice (SO) 7p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): the Essentials Holiday Show (SO) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Russell Welch (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Big Sam’s Christmas Jam (FK) 10p

SUNDAY DECEMBER 23

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot (TJ) 11a, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Circle Bar: Dick Deluxe (FO) 5p, Blind Texas Marlin (FO) 7p, Micah McKee and friends Christmas Party (FO) 9p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bug Stompers (JV) 6p, Soul Brass Band (BB) 10p Dragon’s Den: Open Jam Session with Anuraag Pendyal (JV) 7p, Beats Per Minute (VR) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p

www.OFFBEAT.com

LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Christmas Carols with Robert Wagner and Chip Wilson (FO) 8p Mahalia Jackson Theater: Delta Festival Ballet present The Nutcracker (DN) 2p Orpheum Theater: New Orleans Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker (DN) 2p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis and 21st Century Trad Band (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Marc Broussard (VR) 8p Starlight: Dile Que NOLA (LT) 7p, Gabrielle Cavassa Jazz Session (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Marc Stone Band (BL) 8p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascal (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p

MONDAY DECEMBER 24

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p Buffa’s: Holiday Movie Marathon (VR) 11a Circle Bar: Dem Roach Boyz (RB) 7p, Gene Black and friends (JV) 9:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party feat.

Victoria Coy, Matt Slusher and Mark Andrews (BU) 8p, Americana Music Series (FO) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Preservation Hall: Creole Christmas Show (TJ) 1p Starlight: Modern Jazz Mondays with Maude Callait (MJ) 6p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Firebird: A Soulful Christmas with Robin Barnes and friends (SO) 7p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 7p

www.OFFBEAT.com

TUESDAY DECEMBER 25

Circle Bar: Deepakalypse (ID) 7p, A Very Dummy Dumpster Xmas (PK) 9:30p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: CommonTone Music Series (VR) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation AllStars with Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Trinity Episcopal Church: Organ and Labyrinth with Albinas Prizgintas (CL) 6p

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 26 Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Jesse Morrow Trio (JV) 7:30p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Candlelight Lounge: Andrews Brass Band (BB) 8p Carousel Bar (Hotel Monteleone): James Martin Band (JV) 8:30p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Davenport Lounge (Ritz-Carlton): Jeremy Davenport (JV) 5:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Delta Revues (BL) 6p, Soul2Soul (SS) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Alicia “Blue Eyes” Renee (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 8p Saenger Theatre: Moscow Ballet presents Great Russian Nutcracker (DN) 3 & 7p Santos Bar: Swamp Moves with the Russell Welch Quartet (SI) 10p

Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Starlight: Anuraag Pendyal (PI) 5p, Tuba Skinny (TJ) 8p, Hot Jazz Jam with Nahum Zdybel (JV) 11p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (SS) 5p

THURSDAY DECEMBER 27

Buffa’s: Leslie Cooper and Music Street Jazz Band (VR) 5p, Tom McDermott and Marla Dixon (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Shamar Allen and the Underdawgs (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Circle Bar: Dark Lounge feat. Rik Slave (VR) 7p Columns Hotel: Gary Negbaur (JV) 8p d.b.a.: Alexis and the Samurai (ID) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 10p House of Blues: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic (FK) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Jenna McSwain (VR) 5p, Brass-AHolics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (BB) 11p Maison: Tuba Skinny, Good For Nothin’ Band, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Lucien Barbarin (TJ) 8p Siberia: Eastern Bloc Party: Balkanique (KZ) 9p SideBar NOLA: Charles Lumar, Doug Garrison and Anthony Cuccia (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: John Ellis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Traveller: A Concert Tribute to Chris Stapleton feat. Justin Molaison, Chad Schell, Ray Ganucheau, John Herbert (VR) 9p Starlight: Oscar Rossignoli (PI) 5p, Valerie Sassafrass (VR) 8p

Three Muses: Tom McDermott (JV) 5p, Mia Borders (JV) 8p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10p

FRIDAY DECEMBER 28

Buffa’s: Marc Stone (BL) 5p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and Steve DeTroy (VR) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 6p, Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10p Davenport Lounge (Ritz-Carlton): Jeremy Davenport (JV) 9p Gattuso’s: Aaron Foret (VR) 7p House of Blues (the Parish): Gentlemen Commoners: Smiths Tribute (RK) 8p House of Blues: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic (FK) 8p Jazz Playhouse: Joe Krown (PI) 4:30p, Shannon Powell Quartet (JV) 7:30p, Tease the Season Burlesque Ballroom feat. Trixie Minx with Romy Kaye (BQ) 11p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 5p, Kennedy Kuntz and Vincent Marini (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: John Mooney and Marc Stone (BL) 7:30p Old Point Bar: Rick Trolsen (PI) 5p, Marshland (RK) 9:30p Orpheum Theater: NOLA Takeover feat. Gucci Mane, Fetty Wap, Machine Gun Kelly, Desiigner, DJ Mannie Fresh (HH) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Saenger Theatre: Maze feat. Frankie Beverly (RB) 8p SideBar NOLA: Jonathan Freilich Presents (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Wonderwall: New Orleans Oasis

DECEMBER 2 018

O

43

LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Tribute feat. Terry McDermott and Justin Molaison, Me and My Friends (VR) 8p Starlight: Michael Watson and the Alchemy (JV) 8p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Raj Smoove (RB) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: the Devon Allman Project with Duane Betts (VR) 10p

SATURDAY DECEMBER 29

Bacchanal: the Tangiers Combo (JV) 12p, Red Organ Trio (JV) 4:30p, Jasen Weaver Band (JV) 7:30p Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 7p Buffa’s: Marla Dixon Blues Project (BL) 6p, Molly Reeves and Nahum Zdybel (JV) 9p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a d.b.a.: Frog and Henry (JV) 4p, Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, Dirty Dozen Brass Band (BB) 11p Davenport Lounge (Ritz-Carlton): Jeremy Davenport (JV) 9p Gattuso’s: the Strays (VR) 7p House of Blues: Bustout Burlesque (BQ) 7:30p Jazz Playhouse: Joe Krown (PI) 4:30p, Nayo Jones Experience (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 5p, Van Hudson and Will Dickerson (FO) 9p Old Point Bar: Maid of Orleans (RK) 9:30p One Eyed Jacks: Allman Brothers Tribute (VR) 9p Polo Club Lounge: John Royen (JV) 6p, Robin Barnes (JV) 9p Portside Lounge: NOLA New Wave Punk Reunion feat. Sex Dog (PK) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Brass with Mark Braud (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat.

Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Saenger Theatre: Maze feat. Frankie Beverly (RB) 8p

44

O

DECEMBER 2018

Siberia: Loose Cattle (CW) 9p SideBar NOLA: Jimmy Robinson and Michael Skinkus (VR) 9p Starlight: Keith Burnstein (SS) 2p, Flamenco with John Lawrence and Ven Pa’CA (LT) 5p, Shawan Rice (SO) 7p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Arsene DeLay (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: the Main Squeeze, Khris Royal and Dark Matter (RK) 10p

SUNDAY DECEMBER 30

AllWays Lounge: Swamp Donkeys Traditional Jass Band (TJ) 9p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot (TJ) 11a, Fr. Ron and friends (VR) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Circle Bar: Dick Deluxe (FO) 5p, Micah McKee, Blind Texas Marlin (FO) 7p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bug Stompers (SI) 7p, Lightnin’ Malcolm, Deltaphonic (VR) 10p Dos Jefes: Rick Trolsen and the Po’boys (VR) 9p 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: Lynn Drury (FO) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Starlight: Tango hosted by Valerie Hart (LT) 7p, Gabrielle Cavassa and friends (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Marc Stone Band (BL) 8p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascal (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers (JV) 9p

MONDAY DECEMBER 31

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Dayna Kurtz and Robert Mache (VR) 8p, Candace Mache (VR) 11p Café Beignet (Musical Legends Park): Steamboat Willie Jazz Band (TJ) 10a Civic Theatre: DJ Soul Sister’s New Year’s Eve Soul Train (FK) 10p d.b.a.: Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Dos Jefes: Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots (ZY) 9p House of Blues: Zebra (RK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: Rebirth Brass Band (BB) 10p Jazz Playhouse: New Year’s Eve Special with Michael Watson feat. Nayo Jones (JV) 9:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 5p, Van Hudson and Will Dickerson (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 10p Mardi Gras World: NYE with the Revivalists, Tank and the Bangas (VR) 9p One Eyed Jacks: Boyfriend (VR) 9p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: New Year’s Eve Gala Special (TJ) 8:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 4p, Hall Lang Syne Foundation Benefit Show (TJ) 9p Siberia: United Bakery Records Ball feat.

People Museum, Julie Odell, Tasche and the Psychedelic Roses, DJ Heelturn (ID) 10p Snug Harbor: Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony (JV) 8 & 10:30p Starlight: Modern Jazz Mondays with Maude Callait (MJ) 6p, Hot Jazz New Year’s Eve Ball (JV) 9p Three Muses: Monty Banks (JV) 5p, Salvatore Geloso (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Galactic New Year’s Eve (FK) 10p

SPECIAL EVENTS

Throughout December French Quarter Festivals presents Christmas New Orleans Style, a month of reveillon dinners, holiday home tours, family fun and other holiday events. FQFI.org Through January 1 Visit the holiday lights during Celebration in the Oaks at City Park. NewOrleansCityPark.com/ Celebration-In-The-Oaks Ongoing The “Drumsville!: Evolution of the New Orleans Beat” exhibit is on display at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. NolaJazzMuseum.org December 8 The French Market presents its annual St. Nick Celebration in Dutch Alley featuring live music, kids’ activities, food and drinks.

FrenchMarket.org December 16 Patio Planters presents its annual caroling in Jackson Square at 7 p.m. PatioPlanters.net/ Caroling-Jackson-Square/ December 20-31 NOLA Christmas Fest at the New Orleans Convention Center includes family-friendly activities, an indoor ice skating rink, ice slides, a carousel, carnival rides, inflatables, Santa and friends, gingerbread houses, decorated trees and more. NolaChristmasFest.com December 31 The annual New Year’s Eve celebration with live music in Jackson Square and fireworks along the riverfront. NewOrleans.com

www.OFFBEAT.com

BACKTALK

John Waters

talks back

PHOTO: courtesy of the artist

P

ink Flamingos, Hairspray, Female Trouble, Polyester, Pecker, Cry-Baby and a dozen more movies, most of which are guaranteed to shock and amuse.

They’re all products of the feverishly obsessive mind of John Waters, provocateur-auteur.

Waters sets his self-described “celluloid atrocities” in his native Baltimore, the city he affectionately named “Hairdo Capitol of the World.” His no-budget, conventionsplattering early works, such as Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs, star the writerdirector’s Baltimore friends—Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary, Edith Massey and, most notorious of all, Divine.

The crossdressing Harris Glenn Milstead, a.k.a. Divine, starred in nine Waters movies, including 1988’s Hairspray. An uncharacteristically family-friendly project from Waters, the successful Hairspray became a Tonywinning Broadway musical in 2003. In July, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored the film with a 30th anniversary screening and cast and crew reunion.

Although Waters hasn’t made a feature film since 2004’s A Dirty Shame, he’s busied himself with acting, photography, sculpture and writing best-selling books. He tours annually with two one-man shows, This Filthy World and A John Waters Christmas.

Just before his breakthrough with 1972’s Pink Flamingos, the filmmaker briefly lived in New Orleans. He returns to the city often, appearing at the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival and exhibits of his photos at the Arthur Roger Gallery. New Orleans is a frequent stop for his one-man shows, too. A John Waters Christmas comes to the Civic Theatre on December 15.

Did the “Why I Love Christmas” chapter in your book Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters, inspire your Christmas show?

Yes, it did. Well, it inspired the promoter (Marcus Hu) to ask me to do a show about it.

And I always had a Christmas party every year, so that stuff was always in my mind. That’s

how it ended up in a book.

You performed your first Christmas show at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco.

Did it catch on quickly?

It always had good business, yeah. So, every year I’ve got to rewrite it and do new material. It’s my annual search for Christmas jokes. But that’s alright. The jokes keep coming. You can turn a lot of human behavior into Christmas material.

Do you still throw a big Christmas party every year in Baltimore?

I do. It’s not especially a movie star party.

Sometimes movie stars come, but the party is more based on all the people I know in my real life. But in Baltimore, of course, a lot of those people are in my show business life, too.

They work with me in movies and artwork and everything I’ve done for many, many years.

www.OFFBEAT.com

By John Wirt

You’ve brought your one-man shows to New Orleans many times through the years.

It’s always been a really good city for me.

And you lived in New Orleans before the success of Pink Flamingos?

When I was very young. Right before Pink Flamingos opened. It was the poorest I ever was in my life. I used to go to Buster Holmes [restaurant]. Rice and beans was thirty cents. I lived in a shotgun apartment across from Schwegmann’s, below the Quarter.

It was open 24 hours a day. So, all night I heard, ‘Mrs. So-and-So, your groceries are ready!’ And I found out way later that John Kennedy O’Toole lived right down the street, with his mother, when he was writing The Confederacy of Dunces. But I was there [in New Orleans] before that, because Mary DECEMBER 2 018

O

45

B AC

KTA

LK

They [nativity scenes] scare me! I feel like Diane Arbus every time I look at them. And people allow their children to be in there with mules that are forced to pray. We know animals can’t pray. And candles and straw? Your child’s going to end up like that burning video log. You shouldn’t let your kids be Baby Jesus. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Vivian Pearce and Danny Mills, who played Cotton and Crackers in Pink Flamingos, lived there a lot.

Do you have a preferred restaurant or bar in New Orleans?

The Corner Pocket is still my favorite place.

I took the entire Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts board of directors there after Hurricane Katrina. We came down to give grants and stuff. But I’ve always had a good time in New Orleans. Who doesn’t like New Orleans? I just hate the weather. I hate hot weather. I’m like a fat person.

Isn’t Clarence “Frogman” Henry, a singer from New Orleans (“Ain’t Got No Home,” “I Don’t Know Why But I Do”), one of your favorites?

I have his autographed picture right on my desk in my office. I called him in New Orleans.

He answered the phone once.

Several years ago, you planned to make a Christmas movie called Fruitcake. Will that come to fruition?

I doubt it. We had a big interest to do it in animation, but that never happened either.

So, who knows? I’m not saying ‘never.’ I never thought Hairspray would end up as a Broadway musical.

Your hometown, Baltimore, and the state of Maryland have a Catholic heritage. Did you grow up Catholic?

Half Catholic. My mother was and my father wasn’t. I didn’t go to Catholic school until high school. But by then, at that period of my life, it wouldn’t have mattered what school I went to, really.

Christmas is a big deal in the Catholic Church. Even though you were only half Catholic, did you go to Christmas Mass?

I had to go to Midnight Mass. I hated it.

But we didn’t go much. Later, in the ’60s, my friends and I all went to Midnight Mass with Divine, who was dressed in drag. But not like the Divine you know from the movies. More like Elizabeth Taylor. Calmed down. And he passed completely. And Divine was not a trans in any way. He didn’t want to be a woman.

He never wore those clothes later, except when he was making a movie or doing a show.

But at Midnight Mass with Divine, it was

46

O

D E C EM B ER 2 0 1 8

odd because the parents there, all the adults, didn’t blink. They totally thought Divine was real. But for some reason the children all knew. They were laughing and giving Divine dirty looks.

What was the Christmas season like for you when you were growing up in Baltimore?

It was wonderful. I had a good time with my family and everything—nothing traumatic about it. But the Christmas tree did fall on my grandmother once. I put that incident in my movie, Female Trouble. But nobody knocked the tree over on my grandmother on purpose.

Relatives were yelling and stuff, but she wasn’t taken to the hospital or anything. It wasn’t that dramatic.

How about when you first realized Santa Claus wasn’t real?

Well, I knew there wasn’t a Santa Claus.

When we all went down to the little square in our community, I could see that Santa was the man who lived up the street. They should have gotten somebody from another neighborhood. So, I kind of pretended that I believed in Santa, for my parents’ sake.

But I balked at all of it. Too many things you were supposed to believe in seemed false. And I always rooted for the Tooth Fairy. I still think we should have a Tooth Fairy—but he should be a big queen sitting there with a scepter and a day-old beard and a beer in his hand, scaring children when their teeth fall out.

In addition to your annual Christmas party, what holiday traditions do you observe?

I still have my family to dinner in Baltimore.

I send Christmas cards that I design and make. But I certainly take all the traditions and twist them. That’s what’s fun about it.

And are you a big gift-giver?

Oh, I have to buy so many Christmas presents. I just realized it’s almost November.

Oh, my God. When I’m on tour I can’t go shopping. What am I gonna do? Lug all that stuff around with me?

Why don’t you like the tradition of nativity scenes that feature real people and animals?

They scare me! I feel like Diane Arbus every time I look at them. And people allow their children to be in there with mules that are

forced to pray. We know animals can’t pray.

And candles and straw? Your child’s going to end up like that burning video log. You shouldn’t let your kids be Baby Jesus. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

In general, though, you still enjoy Christmas?

I do—but I understand why people hate it. And this year it’s going to be tough to not have fights about politics when people go home. Families are divided, just like the country. So, I’m telling everybody to get a whistle and blow it every time someone mentions politics. And then maybe people will just start laughing and not discuss it. Because nobody’s going to change their mind. That’s the problem.

You have apartments in New York City and San Francisco, but your primary home is still Baltimore. Why did stay loyal to your hometown?

A lot of people from here do stay here.

There’s a big music scene with Beach House and Future Islands and a lot of successful groups. And they all bought houses here.

That’s great. That’s happening way more in America now. When I do my Christmas tour, everywhere is cool. It looks the same in Paris as it does in, I don’t know, Idaho.

Well, at least the people who come to see me are cool. The rest might be different.

But everybody stays where they are now and makes it better. Which is going to make America even cooler. Maybe there’ll be a bohemia in every city but the expensive cities. You can’t afford to be a bohemian in Manhattan anymore.

When you come to New Orleans for your Christmas show, do you notice anything distinctive about the holiday season in the Crescent City?

To be honest, when I’m on tour in 17 cities in 22 days, I don’t go out. I get there. I do the show. I meet the people. I get up the next morning, go to an airport and fly somewhere else. So, I don’t have time on the Christmas tour. I have more time when I come there for This Filthy World or something else. I get to stay a day or two. But I’d like to see the Christmas decorations in Chalmette. That would be a good tour. www.OFFBEAT.com