OffBeat Magazine June 2016

Jazz Fest Redux Sean Ardoin Allen Toussaint Chris Robinson Oyster Festival Eagle Saloon Khris Royal Rising Appalachia Branford Marsalis ...and more

Darcy Malone AND THE Tangle Wound up in New Orleans music, not bound by genre.

LOUISIANA MUSIC, FOOD & C U LT U R E — J U N E 2 0 1 6 Free In Metro New Orleans US $5.99 CAN $6.99 £UK 3.50

ANNUAL CHEF & RESTAURANT ISSUE Chef Kristen Essig, Black Swan and the Oretha Castle Haley Renaissance

Tangled Up

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Born of New Orleans music royalty, Darcy Malone mixes up her music and blurs genres with her band, The Tangle.

"The Radiators: Rock Solid for 20 Years"

By Scott Jordan, August 1997

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LETTERS

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IN THE SPIRIT

MOJO MOUTH

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Isaiah Estell mixes up the Royal Garden Sour for Aurora Nealand at Cavan.

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Five Questions with Kevin Lyman, producer and creator, Vans Warped Tour; Creole Tomato Festival and new recipe book; My Music with Khris Royal; New Orleans Oyster Festival; 10 remarkable songs played at Jazz Fest 2016; The Pontchartrain Hotel re-opens and more.

THE EVOLUTION OF ZYDECO

EAT STREET

QUEEN OF HER CASTLE

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MARRIAGE AND A FOOD TRUCK

Michael Girardot (of the Revivalists) is In the Spot at Tan Dinh and Peter Thriffiley reviews Shaya.

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The partners behind Black Swan Food Experience are getting hitched.

REVIEWS 20

With Jazz Fest 2016 now firmly in the rear view mirror, we’re sharing a few thoughts on this year’s best (and occasionally worst) moments.

Rising Appalachia is captivating audiences.

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How chef Kristen Essig walked away from New Orleans’ latest great restaurant and found herself at home.

OFFBEAT EATS

A SOUTHERN TRINITY

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The resurgence of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard as a prime food hub.

Sean Ardoin Is Back Back.

JAZZ FEST REDUX

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Allen Toussaint, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Brass Bed, Miss Sophie Lee and the Parish Suites, Michael Doucet and Tom Rigney, Sheriff Bud Torres and more.

LISTINGS

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BACKTALK

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Chris Robinson

“We went and played [New York City’s] The Lone Star, and there were all these Tulane kids going ape-shit.

In fact, a kid who graduated brought us up there. He said, ‘We’ve got to bring these guys up here and let New York see what we’ve been doing for the last four years.’” Dave Malone [Darcy’s father] credits the Tulane connection with landing them their record deal with Epic in 1985.

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Letters YouTube and Louis Armstrong These letters are in response to Sam D’Arcangelo’s web post, “Crystal Clear Louis Armstrong Recordings Surface,” reporting on the YouTube posts from the metal or mother record of Louis Armstrong’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Knee Drops.”

Remarkable! How did they do it?! No multitrack, no overdubs, no “fix it in the mix.” Just that elusive “talent!”

—Jim Charne, Santa Monica, California This is actually pretty typical for the way late 1920s recordings sound. At that time the labels were introducing electrical recordings and designing high-end acoustic phonographs to play them. When the depression hit, record sales fell like a rock, and sound quality took a hit. But most Victor Orthophonic, Columbia Viva-Tonal or Brunswick Electrical Recordings from the late 1920s sound this good. They sound even better on a contemporary acoustic phonograph that was designed to play them.

—Stephen Worth, North Hollywood, California Most recording engineers today aren’t musicians—they use their eyes to watch the meters instead of using their (albeit rock-bashed) ears to listen to the music—and that’s assuming they are recording real instruments in the first place.

—Andrew Homzy, Vancouver Island, Canada

Eagle Saloon The following letter is in response to Noe Cugny’s news post regarding the benefit to raise money to restore the Eagle Saloon.

I saw your article on Eagle Saloon. What you may not know is that the reason the Eagle Saloon is falling down is because its owners, the Meraux Foundation, have let it. Here’s the part I assume you do not know. The New Orleans Music Hall of Fame LLC which now

“There are numerous people in New Orleans including myself who have fought these people for years to try and save these buildings.”

—John McCusker, New Orleans, Louisiana

“owns” the building is run by the same two people who owned it all those years. This crowdsourcing thing is a ruse to make it look like they are finally doing something. There are numerous people in New Orleans including myself who have fought these people for years to try and save these buildings. That these folks made a point of not contacting any of us tells me they didn’t want anyone around who knew what they were up to.

This is a hustle. A scam meant to both fleece well-meaning music and history lovers and at the same time give cover to the absentee owners.

—John McCusker, New Orleans, Louisiana

Musical Diversity I just want to thank you [Jan Ramsey] and the OffBeat team for your Fest issues. I just finished a close read of the French Quarter Fest issue, and I’ll crack the Jazz Fest issue this evening. I save them on my bookshelf. I love the in-depth artist profiles, and I’ve created a listening queue of artists I’ve never heard of, who I want to check out the next time I’m in town. Your team does such a good job of forcing me out of my comfort zone to listen to new things, and appreciate all of the musical diversity that is New Orleans.

—Rich Grogan, West Chesterfield, New Hampshire

Corrections Brett Milano’s cover story on Aurora Nealand [May 2016] contained a few inaccuracies.

When asked about her vocal abilities, Nealand’s response was “I’m not Erica Falls or someone like Debbie Davis.”

Milano heard Betty Davis. Also, the Monocle has existed for nearly two years and therefore didn’t debut at Chaz Fest last month. Further, the Naked Orchestra performed their own material, not songs from Canadian songwriter Zoe Boekbinder. We regret the errors.

—Ed.

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

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Louisiana Music, Food & Culture

June 2016 Volume 29, Number 7 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jan V. Ramsey, janramsey@offbeat.com Managing Editor Joseph L. Irrera, josephirrera@offbeat.com Consulting Editor John Swenson Food Editor Elsa Hahne, elsahahne@offbeat.com Listings Editor Katie Walenter, listings@offbeat.com Contributors Rory Callais, Sam D’Arcangelo, Laura DeFazio, Frank Etheridge, Robert Fontenot, Elsa Hahne, Tom McDermott, Brett Milano, Jennifer Odell, Nick Pittman, Clea Simon, John Swenson, Peter Thriffley, Dan Willging, John Wirt, Geraldine Wyckoff Cover Elsa Hahne Art Director/Food Editor Elsa Hahne, elsahahne@offbeat.com Web Editor Sam D'Arcangelo, sam@offbeat.com Videographer/Web Specialist Noé Cugny, noecugny@offbeat.com Copy Editor Theo Schell-Lambert, theo@offbeat.com Advertising Sales Moneca M. Macaluso, moneca@offbeat.com Camille A. Ramsey, camille@offbeat.com Advertising Design PressWorks, 504-944-4300 Business Manager Joseph L. Irrera Interns Loren Cecil, Laura Kokernot, Jacqueline Kulla, Phil Rached, Clare Welsh Distribution Patti Carrigan, Doug Jackson OffBeat (ISSN# 1090-0810) is published monthly in New Orleans by OffBeat, Inc., 421 Frenchmen St., Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116 (504) 944-4300 • fax (504) 944-4306 e-mail: offbeat@offbeat.com, web site: www.offbeat.com facebook.com/offbeatmagazine twitter.com/offbeatmagazine Copyright © 2016, 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

Skeptics Abound—Will The Eagle

By Jan Ramsey Saloon Rebound?

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n January 2015, OffBeat published a story by David Kunian about how many of the landmarks that mark this city as the birthplace of jazz have either been destroyed or are languishing in disrepair.

He mentioned the Eagle Saloon (401 S. Rampart); the Iroquois Theatre (413-15 S. Rampart); and the old Karnofsky store at 427 S. Rampart (the Karnofskys took care of Louis Armstrong as a child and teenager).

Kunian quoted a May 2011 Times-Picayune article quoting John Haase, curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution: “There is probably no other block in America with buildings bearing so much significance to the history of our country’s great art form, jazz.”

The properties are sited on a city block that’s owned by the Meraux Foundation, a family foundation set up to benefit activities in St. Bernard Parish.

Preservationists have been talking about saving these buildings for years, but nothing has happened. In fact, the three

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historic properties have almost fallen into ruins.

The properties were supposed to have been rebuilt and preserved years ago when Arlene Meraux entrusted their care to Jerome “PopaGee” Johnson via the nonprofit New Orleans Music Hall of Fame (NOMHF); he received substantial dollars in block grants to restore the properties. But Johnson died without ever having accomplished any preservation or development efforts. On his deathbed, he appointed Arlene Meraux’s niece, Rita Gue, and her husband Floyd to the board of NOMHF to keep the project alive.

But the restoration money was gone (where?). The buildings were designated as historic landmarks in 2009, and the Historic District Landmarks Commission cited them for “demolition by neglect” in 2010. The Meraux Foundation claimed that they were going to sell the buildings, but nothing happened. And so this South Rampart historic “jazz block” has sat for years, letting our jazz heritage slowly be erased.

But recently, impediments— including title issues, and finding a developer and contractor for the properties—have been remedied; there is an active effort to restore the properties, with the Eagle Saloon being the major focus, according to Mike Sherman, an attorney who serves on the board of NOMHF. Remedying crucial construction elements, like a bad roof and other stabilization work, has been started with monies from the Gues, and with the assistance of BringBackEagleSaloon. com, a crowd-funding effort that highlights why the Saloon should be restored, and to also establish music programming in the property.

Jazz historian, writer and photographer John McCusker perceives the current renovation effort as too little, too late, and believes that the Meraux Foundation and city should be held accountable for the deterioration of the historic buildings. He recently wrote an opinion piece for the investigative website, The Lens, and is convinced that the current activity is nothing but a stall tactic so that

the properties can be demolished, giving the Meraux Foundation a reason to redevelop the block without having to be responsible for restoring the properties. McCusker asserts the dollars needed to renovate the Saloon are not likely to come from crowd-funding, leaving the renovation in limbo once again.

A cynical opinion, yes, but the neglect of South Rampart might elicit that reaction from anyone who’s been concerned about preserving our musical culture, especially as it relates to jazz. That it hasn’t happened over decades of announcements and hope that never came to fruition would certainly lead to skepticism.

But I would have to support any effort that demonstrates a real action to preserve and restore South Rampart. Just getting the concept out to the general public—rather than just to preservationists and music people—and convincing the general public that it is their civic duty to support our heritage is a great way to actually make it happen. How can you help but applaud that idea?

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OffBeat.com

Photo: chad sengstock

Five Questions with Kevin Lyman, Producer and Creator, Vans Warped Tour

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hat is the history behind the Vans Warped Tour?

It started out as an offshoot of the skater and punk rock lifestyle in Southern California. I had done Lollapalooza [in 1992], which helped launch the Red Hot Chili Peppers off the top of the ramp. That was when X Games was coming forth, and I realized that soon that whole lifestyle would be shown to the whole country. I thought, ‘Maybe I can get some friends together and do it myself.’ I had been doing many shows and from that scene recruited Sublime, No Doubt, L7, and we went out on the road and tried it out: the Warped Tour. That was in 1995 and the next year, in 1996, it became the Vans Warped Tour.

It’s now the longest-running touring music festival in North America. How has the concept evolved?

When we started out, it was about equal parts sports and music and then it became more about the music. Now, we take a three-pronged approach: music, philanthropy and education. There are a lot of nonprofits present at our shows, and they can do their own thing. Even though it’s now a large touring event, there’s still a DIY attitude. Kids are coming out, getting inspired, and starting their own bands, record labels, non-profits, going on tour to make it happen.

What can attendees at the New Orleans tour stop expect?

My understanding is the dynamics in New Orleans have changed and might be more open-minded about us than 13 years ago, the last time we were in town and sweating out in the sun in the parking lot at UNO. Which was a lot of fun. We make it feel like a big backyard party. We’ve stripped back to our roots.

No more EDM. Some punk. Some heavier music. Some pop might sneak in.

What bands have you seen rise through the ranks?

Pennywise and NOFX have talked about how they came out to the tour and saw Sum 41 and how it inspired them to pick up instruments and become bands. I met the guys in Mayday last summer and they told me how they back in the day snuck in to sell their CDs at Warped.

How connected are the skater/punk scenes to the tour vibe today?

Not as much as it used to be. Skaters used to struggle for a paycheck when we started and now they can make a living doing their thing. And the definition of punk is pretty broad. Punk is in your heart, not in what you wear. It’s not safety pins and mohawks—it’s, ‘Maybe I can start my own t-shirt company.’

I wish the music was still all punk rock, but we’re not booking bands for a 55-year-old man. You can accept change, work with it, or sit around and be a bitter old punk.

—Frank Etheridge Vans Warped Tour: Monday, June 27, 11a, Mardi Gras World. All ages. Tickets $49-59.

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SWEET TWEETS @miaborders I don’t understand parents who don’t drink coffee. I’m only an aunt and I’m up to three cups of cold brew a day. And a nap. #itsonly11 @AlisonF_NOLA (Alison Fensterstock) George Porter Jr. discussing funk with Gwen Thompkins on @ MusicInsideOut @WWNO: “You got to not play some of the notes.” @cerveris (Michael Cerveris) And then there are days when the President of Tabasco sends you a personal blend to be your private stock of hot sauce cause he heard you like things spicy. @GalacticFunk Oyster and shrimp @domilese @mpatrickwelch (Michael Patrick Welch) One of my students made up this joke.

Q: Why did Adele cross the street?

A: So she could say “hello” from the other side. @IanMcNultyNOLA Pho Tau Bay returns on Tulane Avenue, stirring more than just appetites.

www.OFFBEAT.com

Photo: KIM WELSH

Tank & the Bangas at Wednesdays at the Square

SOUNDCHECK

FRESH

THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL RISES ONCE AGAIN

Old Glory

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ven in a city filled with lore and legend, the Pontchartrain Hotel still stands tall.

Rising high in the sky at its Garden District–adjacent address of 2031 St. Charles Avenue, the hotel has hosted—especially during its salad days from the 1940s to 1980s—an impressive, extensive list of luminaries, including Frank Sinatra, the Doors, and multiple U.S. presidents. In 1940, Tennessee Williams took up residence in the hotel to write “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

The late, great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson preferred the Pontchartrain during his many trips to New Orleans. He typed out his brutal 1994 obituary for Richard Nixon, “Notes on the Passing of an American Monster,” late in the night at the hotel upon hearing of the president’s death. Years later, in town for Jazz Fest with plans to catch Jimmy Buffett’s show, Thompson fell asleep with his tub running, unconscious

to many, many knocks on his door, finally awakened to four inches of water filling his suite and flooding his entire floor. Naturally, hotel staff found Thompson the next best available suite on a dry floor and only asked questions along the lines of, “Are you okay, Dr. Thompson?”

The legendary Caribbean Room, the hotel’s landmark restaurant and creator of fabled culinary creations such as the Mile High Pie and Crabmeat Remick, elevated to celebrity status its black chefs Nathaniel Burton and Louis Evans decades before the end of Jim Crow.

Constructed in 1927 on a site about four feet above sea level, the hotel was not heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters, but did sustain wounds from looting and vandalism. Struggling to recover from Katrina, the Pontchartrain closed for several years for extensive renovations before re-opening as a residential hotel in 2008. It languished in that role until the fall 2014 acquisition by Chicago-based AJ Capital Partners, a hospitality real-estate development firm, now seeking to restore the Pontchartrain to its old glory in creating it anew as a 108-room hotel.

As part of that effort, AJ Capital late in 2015 announced a partnership with Besh Restaurant Group to oversee the hotel’s food-and-beverage operations and re-invent its classic venues: the Caribbean Room, Bayou Bar and Silver Whistle coffee shop. The Caribbean Room will still boast the original murals but with a fresh infusion of décor that honors its past with a tropical motif.

The crown jewel of this renovation will be a rooftop bar offering a 270-degree view of the skyline and river. The hotel is expected to re-open this month.

—Frank Etheridge www.OFFBEAT.com

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CREOLE TOMATO FESTIVAL

New Cookbook

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ohn “Spud” McConnell offers up some y’at-tacular wisdom when declaring his preferred way to enjoy South Louisiana’s most celebrated indigenous fruit: “Take the Creole tomato, cut off the stem, sprinkle salt, eat like an apple.”

The local actor, TV/radio personality and cherished bon vivant’s simple, sage instructions come served up as lagniappe as the thirty-first recipe in a just-published recipe book produced by the Creole Tomato Festival on occasion of its 30th anniversary, to be held Saturday and Sunday, June 1112, at its French Market home.

“It’s a food-focused festival, so it just seemed like a good idea,” Amy Kirk Duvoisin, marketing director for the French Market Corporation, explains on the inspiration for the recipe book, work on which “began with high ambitions and started taking shape a year ago.”

“We took a grass-roots, Junior League and church approach,” she continues, mentioning the two institutions largely viewed as the best producers of recipe books of Deep South culinary classics and the intimate, down-home lore surrounding them. “It ended up being like a course in cultural anthropology. So many people seemed to have a Creole tomato recipe in their pocket and they gave us so many great stories.”

“In the heat of June, July and August, its cool taste is exactly what you want,” Kirk Duvoisin explains of the Creole tomato’s palate-pleasing quality.

“A huge part of the appeal is the nostalgia people have—memories of family members who grew them, picking them growing up, or going to the market to buy them. And chefs love it because they know that’s what they’ll have to cook up something fresh all season. They can pull something special out of their hat using a Creole tomato.”

Contributions come from a fertile bed of local sources. Chef Leah Chase shares her tomatoes stuffed with shrimp recipe. How to broil them comes courtesy the Becnel family, generations-deep citrus farmers in Plaquemines Parish, where eons of rich soil deposits are often cited for giving the Creole tomato its robust flavor and texture. Louisiana State Museum Director Mark Tullos unearthed a stunning black-and-white photo and anecdote of his grandfather in Port Barre in St. Landry Parish to illustrate his tomato gravy and biscuits recipe, which calls for “old-school bacon drippings.”

Family legend and a dash of laughs inform the Meet the In-Laws Salad.

Culled from a memory of the home-cook contributor’s parents’ courtship, the salad specifically states sliced tomatoes, as the groom-to-be cut into his Creole tomato and sprayed juice all over the faces of his future bride’s parents.

“This 30th anniversary installment is just the beginning,” Kirk Duvoisin says of the Creole Tomato Festival’s first-ever recipe book. “We’re excited to start this tradition—it’s a natural fit.”

—Frank Etheridge

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10 REMARKABLE SONGS PLAYED AT JAZZ FEST 2016

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his month we look back at the 2016 Jazz Fest and revisit ten of the songs that stood out for us. Keep in mind that your own list will depend on what you’re able to catch (or track down on tape afterwards), but these personal highlights should be a good place to start.

Gov’t Mule, “When Doves Cry”: Even if you promised yourself you wouldn’t tear up during any Prince tributes, this one probably got you, as Warren Haynes slowed the funky tune down to a funeral dirge and sang it with loss and regret. Note, however, that the band’s been doing the song this way for a good ten years now.

Stevie Wonder, “Purple Rain”: If you got rained on at the Acura Stage Saturday, you at least saw this, as Wonder appeared with a megaphone to lead the faithful in tribute. Mind you, I only said you saw it: Megaphones don’t carry very far on the Fair Grounds. So if you were there, you had to go home and hear what it sounded like.

Ingrid Lucia, “Stormy Weather”: It was about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon when Lucia broke from her planned set and cued this song, noting only that she hoped like everyone else that she’d get to see Stevie Wonder. That should have been the cue to head home; the day wasn’t going to get any better.

Neil Young & Promise of the Real, “Love & Only Love”: At 32 minutes—yes, we timed it—this may have been the longest song ever performed at Jazz Fest, at least by a rock band; and it was full of cathartic feedback wails. Plus, you got Young’s classic comment when people started yelling for more familiar numbers.

Spencer Bohren, “The Long Black Line”: Though I managed to miss it first time around, this is possibly the most powerful Katrina song I’ve heard; its “long black line” refers both to the rain and to a line of humanity waiting for help. Bohren did the song for the 10-year anniversary of the first postKatrina Fest, and it made poetic sense that an extra-large crowd heard the song when a rainstorm drove them into the Blues Tent.

Wayne Toups, “Two-Step Mamou”: One of the things that makes the Fest go ’round is the regional South Louisiana hits that you never seem to hear anywhere else. Toups uncorked this song around noon on Friday, though we assume he usually saves it for when the all-night sets get rolling.

Big Freedia, “Gin in My System”: In a Fest that seemed particularly full of tributes and loss, Freedia’s brand of socially responsible hedonism qualified as a public service. Always a kick to see the church and neighborhood crowds at Freedia’s Congo Square sets.

Aaron Neville, “Hercules”: Hard to pick a highlight of Sunday’s Allen Toussaint tribute set, especially since Toussaint tributes occurred in many other sets as well. But this Toussaint-written single is one of the high water marks of New Orleans R&B, and a song whose street-tough feel plays against Neville’s romantic image. It’s always a kick to hear him reprise it.

Raw Oyster Cult, “16 Monkeys”: The band’s set at the Fest was rightly noted for including a Radiators reunion, but nobody should miss this brandnew Dave Malone song from earlier in the set. Set to a trademark funky groove, the lyric asks what we’re going to do about a pack of monkeys on a seesaw who keep sliding to the left and right and won’t settle down. Sounded like the best comment on the current election that we’re ever going to get.

Rhiannon Giddens, “Waterboy”: By general consensus Giddens’ set was one of the first weekend’s musical highlights. The vocals were hair-raising and the band had everything from gospel inflections to Cajun fiddle. And incidentally, far livelier than her solo debut CD would suggest.

—Brett Milano www.OFFBEAT.com

FRESH

SHELL GAME

Oyster Festival Provides for Consumption and Conservation

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ven more earth-shattering news for Louisiana’s fragile ecology hit home last month. Shell Oil Company discharged nearly 90,000 gallons of its sludge into the Gulf of Mexico after a pipe busted roughly 100 miles south of New Orleans, resulting in greasy surface-water slick measuring 2 by 13 miles.

That same week, a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research confirmed what scientists have long known: New Orleans is sinking, a subsidence caused by both natural and man-made forces.

What’s alarming, however, is that the Crescent City is sinking much faster than previously projected, based on maps generated by NASA radar surveillance captured from 2012 to 2015.

It seems a date with the destiny of full submersion in the Gulf of Mexico draws closer.

One possible solution? The oyster, and the free local festival celebrating the beloved bivalve.

Now in its sixth year, the New Orleans Oyster Festival was founded with the dual mission to celebrate fabled French Quarter restaurants as a collective “Oyster Capital of America” as well as raise funds for coastal restoration. The 2016 edition will celebrate consumption of the slurpy protein with an eating contest, a shucking contest and cooking

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demonstrations, and big-name restaurants and caterers will be on site to offer such dishes as Oyster Rockefeller po-boys and oyster ceviche shooters.

Even the crafts vendors focus on the oyster, producing artisanal ware such as jewelry, shucking boards and oyster socks. Naturally, live local music fits into the equation. This year’s Saturday lineup includes Tank and the Bangas, Mia Borders, the Mulligan Brothers, Colin Lake and headliners Honey Island Swamp Band. On Sunday, find One-A-Chord Gospel Choir, Stooges Brass Band, Bucktown All-Stars and Bag of Donuts.

Each year the festival selects organizations as beneficiaries of its proceeds to support its eco-minded mission, and one of this year’s recipients makes it impossible to separate the cause from the celebration. Local startup ORA Estuaries won the 2014 New Orleans Water Challenge and 2015 Big Idea based on its business plan to “grow oyster reefs into living coastal protection infrastructure.”

—Frank Etheridge The New Orleans Oyster Festival runs from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, June 4-5, in Woldenberg Park along the Mississippi River. Music schedule and more at nolaoysterfest.org.

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MY MUSIC Photo: noe cugny

Khris Royal

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started playing keyboards first because my cousin used to play keys in church. I would sit behind him and play keys and then I started playing drums a little bit.

I graduated high school in 2004, the year before Katrina, then I went up to Boston to go to Berklee College of Music.

I moved to L.A. for a little while [after graduating from Berklee], doing mostly session work, studio work, for pop and R&B singers. I came home for Jazz Fest one year and had so much fun that I was like, ‘I got to move home.’ I literally moved back three or four days later.

I went to NOCCA after McDonogh 15; I was in kindergarten with Trombone Shorty. A lot of kids came out of that school. Nicholas Payton—and his father was a teacher there back in the day.

[Royal’s effects/pedal set up for his saxophone] is constantly evolving.

I’ve been using effects since I was in high school. I wanted to do more with the saxophone, and I felt like the instrument could do a lot more than what people were used to hearing from it. At that time, Joshua Redman’s Elastic (2002) had just come out and I was listening to a lot of Russell Gunn—he was probably a bigger influence with the pedals—and Roy Hargrove with the [hard-groove, neo-soul/jazz fusion ensemble] Factor.

I have this multi-pedal that can be any pedal that’s ever been made, so there’s like 500 stomp boxes within that one pedal. I use that one for mostly choruses and phasers—making it sound a little different, you know? Then I have a whammy, which you see a lot of guitar players use, as an octave thing.

With Rebelution, I’m mostly playing parts. It’s not so much improvised.

So I know what I’m going to do every time—unless something goes wrong. There was a night on the last gig when Eric [Rachmany], the guitarist and lead singer, his guitar went down when he was about to take the longest solo he has. I think it was on the song ‘Bump.’ Everybody was freaking out, like, ‘What are we going to do?’ And I just stepped in and took the solo. That was probably my fondest moment on stage with Rebelution, because it was not regimented like what we always do. For the most part, I’m playing the horn line. I play a lot of keyboards and I sing background, also. That’s parts and I love playing parts.

With Gravity A, it’s different every time I play with them. Their music, it’s all about the build-ups and the drops. So it’s fun to come up with ways to push these songs into climaxes.

With Dark Matter, it’s kind of a mix of both, actually, because everything is locked in—you know where the songs, the parts, are going to go. But within that, there’s space to improvise or do whatever you want.”

—Frank Etheridge

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SEAN ARDOIN

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The Evolution of Zydeco

LOUISIANA CAJUN ZYDECO FESTIVAL Sunday, June 19, 12:45 p.m.

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fter 35 years of playing zydeco with his father (Lawrence Ardoin and His French Zydeco Band), leading Double Clutchin’ (featuring younger brother Chris on accordion) and fronting his own aggregation, Zydekool, in 2006 Sean Ardoin decided it was time for a break. The hiatus from zydeco turned out to be seven years. During that time, he earned a theology degree and released a groundbreaking zydeco Christian CD. In 2013, Ardoin returned to zydeco with a bang. In the same month, he released two CDs, Return of the Kool, and Non Jamais Fait, with his collaborative collective Creole United that featured such luminaries as his father Lawrence, his cousin Andre Thierry, Ed Poullard, Jeffery Broussard and Rusty Metoyer.

These days Ardoin couldn’t be feeling better about life. He’s “back back,” as he uniquely puts it in Seanspeak, having recently quit his job of a decade selling cars to do music fulltime. “It was time,” Ardoin explains.

“You can’t do the music business halfway and you certainly can’t do a job halfway either. You end up being mediocre at both and that has never been my thing.”

And now that he’s “back back,” the opportunities are flooding in. In late June, Ardoin will record a live album at Baton Rouge’s PreSonus Studios, where he is an endorsed artist of their sound products.

Hopefully this will buck a trend where the recordings haven’t been feeling as alive as they used to.

“The energy hasn’t necessarily been there and it’s because we have gotten so good at recording, myself included,” Ardoin says, alluding to how he also plays drums on his CDs, in addition to accordion. Since many zydeco CDs are recorded primarily by the artist who plays the majority of instruments, fewer other musicians are enlisted, thus losing

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the feeling of human interaction and the ability to capture a vibe.

An hour of Ardoin’s session will be streamed live, which he’s excited about since it should expose him to a new audience.

Recently Ardoin was elected to the governing board of his local chapter of NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences), the institution responsible for the Grammy Awards. Being on the board is something that Ardoin has pursued for years. Now that he’s in, he plans to expand membership since the benefits are plentiful.

Additionally, Ardoin recently rebranded his style of zydeco as Alternative Creole to distinguish his music from the other flavors that the genre has to offer. It should also avoid any potential misunderstandings out-of-state.

“So if we say Alternative Creole, not only does that allow us to have a

By Dan Willging

conversation about what we do but when I show up with my high energy blend of zydeco, funk, rock and reggae, they are not expecting me to sound like Buckwheat or Dopsie and we get to be artists again.”

Ardoin goes on to say that some out-of-staters wish zydeco would still sound the same as it did when they first discovered it. “When you are green, you are growing,” Ardoin says. “If you really love it like you say you do, let it grow. They are really passionate about it but we need to be able to keep growing.”

“The thing is we’ve always grown,” he says, citing how his esteemed grandfather “Bois Sec” Ardoin infused blues into his Creole music, as did his grandfather’s older famed cousin, Amédé Ardoin.

Ardoin and Thierry are currently in the throes of a second Creole United record. “Creole United is Andre and I. Everyone else is a guest,” Ardoin

explains about United’s unusual collaborative nature as a band of bandleaders. “It’s a movement and a band. [We] established it to create new Creole standards, feature old and new instrumentation and styles and include the Creole language.”

The Creole French language is essential to the concept. Every vocal track is in Creole French or is at least bilingual.

Tracks have been laid down and ideas are still germinating, but Ardoin describes their current status as being more of a body than a skeleton. “We just got to give it a face and some clothes.” The guest list of this edition of Creole United includes Lawrence, Metoyer, Poullard, Chubby Carrier, Step Rideau, Sunpie Barnes and Ardoin’s younger cousin Kaleb LeDay, whom he describes as a future bandleader.

While he’s passionate about all of the aforementioned, the project that trumps all is the establishment of the Creole Hall of Fame as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. “We all have a legacy that we as Creoles don’t even promote, control or proliferate,” says Ardoin.

Originally, it was intended to solely be a Creole Music Hall of Fame, but Ardoin quickly realized that contributions in film, culinary arts, education, literature and preservation were also essential in the continuation of the culture.

If that’s not enough, Ardoin is currently writing a book titled The History of Modern Zydeco: A Firsthand Perspective. “We just need to have some accurate representation coming from firsthand. I saw it firsthand.”

It’s certainly a lot to take on, but Ardoin is up for the challenge. “I’ve always been that guy who wanted to carry and represent the Creole culture but now I’m here. I’m doing it. When you pass a certain age, you start thinking about legacy. I’m there and I’ve been there for a few years.” O www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTO: zack smith

Sean Ardoin is Back Back.

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Marriage and a Food Truck The partners behind Black Swan Food Experience are getting hitched.

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PHOTOS: elsa hahne (top), justine diamond (lower left)

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hen Shana Turner met Shawneki “Nikki” Wright eight years ago in a karaoke bar, she had an actual written list of everything she was looking for in a partner. Wright turned out to be a perfect fit in all ways except one—Wright was not a non-smoker, but quit that same day. Ever since, the couple has built a lasting romantic relationship as well as a food business. Together they run Black Swan Food Experience, doing Creole-Thai-Caribbean catering and pop-ups since September 2014. This October, Turner and Wright plan to get married, and as an early businesscum-pleasure wedding present to themselves, they’ll also be investing in a food truck that will take them all over town, but especially into the neighborhoods around Broad Street and Gentilly. It’s a baby step towards a brick and mortar restaurant, and a leap from renting out commercial kitchens by the hour and schlepping groceries and cooked food back and forth in their blue pickup truck.

Black Swan started with modest means. Turner had been working at Houston’s on St. Charles Avenue and Mona’s on Banks Street while Wright had taken a short break from the “chaos” of cooking (for Amtrak, Rambla, Mondo, among others) by working a retail job in an herb and T-shirt shop. Wright realized she wanted to get back to cooking, gave notice and ended up with two weeks’ pay (only $300, mind you) without having to go into work. That money went towards ingredients, plates, $10 worth of Facebook ads (at $2 per day) and the $15 fee they had to pay in order to do their first pop-up.

“We made that money stretch,” says Wright. “Now we’re at a point where we’re working around the clock and there’s just not enough

No Um Bow, pictured, references the saying “Won’t bow down, don’t know how.”

hours in the day. We’re the most we can be as a two-person operation renting a kitchen by the hour. We need a secure establishment, like a food truck. This way, we can do more and hire staff and be in more than one place at one time.”

Black Swan has reached a level of economic sustainability thanks to regular catering clients like Tulane Medical Center and the Contemporary Arts Center.

Catering, where they prepare and serve food to a set number of people, comes with marginal risk compared to pop-ups where the investment is the same but they

By Elsa Hahne

might end up serving anywhere from 3 to 300 people.

In late April, Turner and Wright launched a GoFundMe campaign, asking friends and customers to help them secure a permanent kitchen, which will be a food truck.

The couple raised two-thirds of their goal in a matter of days.

“It’s going to be nice to have a location where our customers can come and find us every day,” Turner says. “We constantly get calls, ‘Where can I find you next?’

And if it doesn’t line up with their schedule, they’re disappointed.”

Black Swan has also been offered opportunities they’ve said no to.

“There’s this gorgeous place Uptown with a built-out kitchen and they wanted us to function from it for a very reasonable amount of money,” Turner says.

“However, we knew that because of their clientele that our customer base—racially mixed and parts of the LGBT community—would not feel welcome there. They said, ‘That Thai and Caribbean thing is a bit weird. Our people like traditional New Orleans food. Can you do that?’ But that’s not who we are.

We would have had to redefine ourselves. When I say racially mixed I include white people who want to be around their friends who might www.OFFBEAT.com

Black Swan is bringing soul food back to its roots.

not be white, and straight people who are totally cool with being in spaces where there are queer people. ‘Please God, we’re walking away from this gorgeous kitchen that we can actually afford!’ But we have to preserve the integrity of the welcoming aspect of what we do, because that’s why people are supporting us in the first place.”

“If it takes longer to get to where we’re going, at least it will be right,” Wright adds.

The core of Black Swan’s cooking is Louisiana soul food with Caribbean and Thai influences.

They offer avocado fries, braised collard greens, jerk chicken with coconut-jasmine rice as well as a succotash taco.

“What I try to do is show the connections between those foods, which there are tons,” Wright explains. “I try to highlight the African and Native American influences in our food. French and Spanish gets a lot of attention, but I want to bring in the African, which also brings in the Caribbean.

Thai shares a lot of the techniques and ingredients and the street food aspect.”

During her 12–15 years as a restaurant cook, Wright learned valuable lessons.

“I figured out how I’d do things different,” she says. “I saw a lot of things done wrong. Sometimes customers are done a disservice with shortcuts, bad ingredients and not good value. We only use fresh ingredients, a lot of vegetables, and it’s not expensive. If you bought pizza for your last meeting, you can afford what we’re bringing.”

In some ways, Black Swan is bringing soul food back to its roots.

“Traditional soul food is farm to table, before that was a trend,” Turner explains. “But in the past two generations, the canned goods with the preservatives and www.OFFBEAT.com

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the processed foods have become cultural, and without knowledge of the history of how it came to be that way, you could associate soul food with unhealthy. Soul food was always about taking scraps and making them delicious, entwined with slavery and poverty, but also fresh farmed foods like collard greens that’s now more typically bought in a can. The canned foods are more about people adjusting to what’s been made available to them, not the legacy of soul food.”

While Wright does most of the shopping and cooking, Turner takes care of paperwork and community outreach. They make all decisions as a team.

“Shana’s like the front of the house and I’m like the back of the house,” Wright simplifies the situation.

“Sometimes we have to call a friend to act as arbiter when we can’t agree on something,” Turner adds.

As partners in every sense of the word, there’s no such thing as clocking out.

“Sometimes I actually do the gesture, like I’m clocking out with the old paper clock-out,” Wright says with a smothered laugh. “We take turns clocking out and then we’ll be watching Netflix and one of us will say ‘Hey, what about...’

So we go back and forth.”

O Black Swan is popping up in June, with a range of events: Dinner on Saturday, June 4, 5–9p at 323 (323 Verret Street in Algiers); garden brunch at Hollygrove Market (8301 Olive Street in Mid-City) on Sunday, June 12, 11a–3p; group show and pop-up with SYNERGETIC at The Building (1427 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. in Central City) on Saturday, June 18, 6–10p, to name a few. More info at BlackSwanFoodExperience.com.

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PHOTO: erika goldring

JAZZ FEST WRAP-UP

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Jazz Fest Redux 2016

By Rory Callais (RC); Sam D’Arcangelo (SD); Laura DeFazio (LD); Frank Etheridge (FE); Brett Milano (BM); Jennifer Odell (JO); Clea Simon (CS); John Swenson (JS): Geraldine Wyckoff (GW)

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he New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival returned to the Fair Grounds for another delicious display of musical gumbo. That is, until an epic deluge slowed things down for the final two days. With Jazz Fest 2016 now firmly in the rear view mirror, we’re sharing a few thoughts on this year’s best (and occasionally worst) moments.

Dancin’ Policeman Most of us have seen police officers at Jazz Fest nodding their heads in time to the music or maybe even doing a few dance steps as they survey the audience. The uniformed officer at the Belize Pavilion, however, got all the way into the brukdown music of guitarist/vocalist bredda “DAVID,” stepping forward to dance like crazy and encouraging everyone to do likewise. A circle soon formed and folks— young and old, women and men—took turns dancing with the smiling cop, who, we imagine, was a native Belizean.

The similarities in attitude and spirit between Belize and New Orleans were made obvious in the Pavilion on both weekends. Take, for instance, that bredda “DAVID” was totally prepared when a strap of small shells on his knees began to slip down his leg. He quickly grabbed the nearby duct tape and made a quick repair. Sound familiar?

Over at the Congo Square Stage, Belizean vocalist Chico Ramos, announced as the godfather of punta rock, made the crowd smile with animated humor. It was fun and educational to move from there to the Pavilion to observe the different styles that come from the Caribbean nation. (GW)

Steely Dan With Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker describing them as “the best band we’ve ever worked with,” a massive backing band took to the Acura Stage minutes before Becker and singer/pianist Donald Fagen. The horn section welcomed the two legends with a long, jazzy introduction before starting the set with “Black Cow,” a gem from the www.OFFBEAT.com

Aja album (1977) and ushering in an unabashed greatesthits parade that found all players in full command of Steely Dan’s considerable canon. (FE)

Awesome Blowin’ Nicholas Payton wowed during both his own set and performing with the Trumpet Mafia that featured a dozen, mostly New Orleans trumpeters. The ensemble, organized by trumpeter Ashlin Parker and including guest artist Maurice Brown, Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown and his talented young son, John Michael Bradford and more, played tight arrangements of jazz standards with soloists and duos stepping out from the pack. When Payton blew a solo, many of his fellow trumpeters stood with their mouths agape, in awe of his abilities. Payton, a modernist with an old soul, likes to quote and put grins on many faces when he threw in samplings of “Jock-A-Mo” and “Little Liza Jane” during a tune. A highlight of the exciting set was when an equal number of trumpeters faced off from opposite sides of the stage, gradually moving closer and closer for the showdown. (GW)

Tripped Up Did the Po-Boy-Citos not get a soundcheck? Raced over to Acura Sunday morning—only time I’d brave that stage— to catch their great boogaloo-plus tunes and found their usually tight vocal harmonies mangled, the big horn sound surprisingly thin, even on the crowd pleasing “Jala Jala.” By the time John Gros joined the group, the sound had startled to settle. And by “Mary Wants to Boogaloo,” the harmonies were back in place. But it hurt to hear a band so good be tripped up, apparently by forces beyond their control. (CS)

Gospel Tent The Electrifying Crown Seekers must have been doing something right. Despite the perpetually boom-y sound of the Gospel Tent, the truly electrifying group (still JUN E 2016

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Even Kristin Diable, who makes it a point of pride that she’s never performed a cover song, broke her own rule to do “Yes We Can Can.”

The Gospel Tent first thing on a Sunday morning always feels just right. The back-to-back performances by local legends the Rocks of Harmony, now celebrating 66 years, and the Electrifying Crown Seekers, together for 51 years, represented some of this area’s finest, old-school gospel praising, singing, testifying and dancing to be found. “Praise the Lord I’m still here,” sang one of two strong lead vocalists from the Rocks, who, like the Crown Seekers, carry their own musicians. James Williams, Sr.—the leader of the Crown Seekers and a superb guitarist—surprised and pleased the crowd when, at the end of the set, he played a bit of “Purple Rain” that was soon picked up by the organist. (GW)

Time Is on My Side On Saturday at Fais Do-Do, D.L. Menard two-stepped through the back door one more time with his trademark humor before Gal Holiday’s Vanessa Niemann channeled both Patsy Cline and Wanda Jackson, notably on “That’s Alright With Me.” Not long after, even without singing, Irma Thomas filled the grandstand at the Alison Miner stage, talking about Allen Toussaint and her long and varied (and still ongoing) career, including the brouhaha with the Rolling Stones over “Time Is On My Side,” which the band heard on what should have been Thomas’s triumphal UK tour, when she was charting with the song. (“I wasn’t angry at them for covering it. I was angry at the audience for not knowing I did it

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PHOTO: RYAN HODGSON-RIGSBEE

fronted by remaining original member James Williams) rocked and rolled and, just maybe, saved, too. One elderly believer was dancing in the aisle, swinging high the cane he’d been leaning on only moments before. (CS)

first.”) And, of course, all those labels—like Minit—she was signed to for “one hot minute.” (CS)

I Cried My Last Tear Allen Toussaint was deservedly everywhere at Fest this year, and the sets I saw with a Toussaint song easily outnumbered the sets without one. Even Kristin Diable, who makes it a point of pride that she’s never performed a cover song, broke her own rule to do “Yes We Can Can.” Irma Thomas did a stack of the songs that Toussaint either wrote or arranged for her in the ’60s. Elvis Costello devoted half his set to reprising songs from his and Toussaint’s collaborative album The River in Reverse—and for pubrock era fans he brought out exRumour keyboardist Bob Andrews (now a New Orleans resident) for “I Cried My Last Tear,” a song Andrews first did as a member of Brinsley Schwarz. The most poignant moment, however, was

unexpected: The official tribute set opened with “There’s a Party Going On,” the song Toussaint wrote specifically for Jazz Fest. That’s when you realized that the host of this party was missing. (BM) He could have stayed in his trailer backstage at Gentilly, but Elvis Costello had clearly come to this year’s Jazz Fest on a mission of honoring his late friend and collaborator, Allen Toussaint. And Toussaint was a guy whose ability to inspire awed stares and teary-eyed handshake introductions never kept him from passing out warm “hellos” by the food stands or by his Rolls after it pulled up on the track.

Shortly after the brown fedora– clad Costello arrived backstage for his set, he exited the Imposters’ trailer, tiny silver teacup in hand, and chatted with whomever passed by, smiling for pictures with giddy fans and looking content as he watched other artists load in under

darkening skies. As his set time approached, Costello retreated into his trailer again, then returned, this time wearing a Toussaint button– adorned raspberry beret.

The set began with a massive burst of energy. What initially sounded like Kraftwerk blared through the speakers, the words “rise, robots, rise” audible through the ’60s sci-fi sound blur. A trip to the end of the Internet indicates it’s a tune from the 1965 flick Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon that sets the stage for what multiple bloggers say is some kind of intelligent robot takeover. That sounds about right given Costello’s use of radio and old-school TV imagery on his last tour. Whatever it was, it lasted less than a minute—long enough for Costello to give himself and a guitar a “ready, set, go” before running, full-speed, to center stage and slicing his hand into the first chord of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” www.OFFBEAT.com

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The amped-up energy continued, courtesy of the megaphone siren Costello turned on the audience with a snicker after the line, “it only took my little fingers to blow you away” in “Watching the Detectives”; the sheer speed and intensity of “Radio, Radio,” and some guitar work as internally complex as Costello’s image-stuffed lyrics.

A Steve Nieve–centric piano ballad and a billowy version of “Beyond Belief” reined things in before Costello switched gears for the inevitable—and lovely— Toussaint dedication portion of his set, featuring the Crescent City Horns, a great story about Toussaint’s unwaveringly polite studio demeanor and an arms-inthe-sky singalong to “I Cried My Last Tear” with Bob Andrews on keys. (JO)

Back to the Future It’s safe to say that very few people expected to see Buffy Sainte-Marie leading a loud electric band and doing brittle, punkish rock. Her set at Fais Do-Do was a real shocker for anyone who remembered her only as the wispy protest singer who wrote “Universal Soldier” in the ’60s; instead she seemed more like a riot-girl godmother—indeed, when she did her trademark vocal ululations, I thought of SleaterKinney more than once (she also danced through much of her set, and the woman is 75). Her songs remain fiercely political— there were a couple about the environment and corporate greed—and she wears her hippie past proudly without being defined by it. She even mentioned an earlier run-in with the “folk police” over “Until It’s Time for You to Go,” a pop standard she wrote in the late ’60s. (BM) www.OFFBEAT.com

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Buffy Sainte-Marie stood as a figure from the past whose message of social justice continues to be relevant today. She boasts an unusual voice that gets its edge from her unique vibrato. Playing both keyboards and guitar, SainteMarie could be viewed as a folk artist with a touch of punk in her bones. She ain’t easy on the world.

She softened, though, when singing her romantic hit, “Until It’s Time for You to Go.” (GW)

Howl for Survival Neil Young’s set was edgy, daring and controversial—everything a Fest set by a veteran headliner never is—and it probably pissed a few people off. Working with the young band Promise of the Real, he took Crazy Horse’s feedback-jam leanings to new extremes: In more than two hours onstage he played eight songs, including two (“Love and Only Love” and “Cortez the Killer”) that stretched to a half-hour.

The groove was mighty and the noise was liberating, but the subtext shouldn’t be missed: Some of the songs were environmentally themed (or in the case of “Rockin’ in the Free World,” rewritten as such), and some of the feedback was surely meant to be the earth’s howl for survival. I’ve heard a few attacks on Young’s apparent preachiness on songs like “The Monsanto Years,” (which was played mid-set), but the song made sense to me—if you’re going to write about the environment, a safe enough topic for protest songs by now, why not call out one of the main culprits?

(BM)

La Bamba La Pistola y EL Corazón is the oddball album in Los Lobos’ catalogue, both because it’s all traditional Mexican music and because it was the unlikely followJUN E 2016

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up to “La Bamba,” their fluke-hit Ritchie Valens cover (which was also based on traditional Mexican music, but more liberally). They chose to revisit that album this year, in a rare acoustic that included almost no English vocals and no drums; David Hidalgo’s largely trading in guitar for violin and accordion made for a much different sound. Yet the album had a lot to offer to their rock-eared fans; since it favors frantic tempos and impassioned vocals, you can get the emotional gist if you don’t speak Spanish. Getting the last laugh, Lobos followed the full album with “La Bamba,” a song they largely dropped from their set after it hit, but did it in its original folk guise. “That was called ‘La Bamba,’” guitarist Cesar Rosas deadpanned. “It could be a hit. You never know.” (BM)

rock guitarist Elvin Bishop for “Woke Up This Morning (My Baby’s Gone)” followed by Buddy Guy joining in the fun for a spirited rendition of “Sweet Little Angel.” (FE)

B.B. King Tribute

Pearl Jam

With the day’s earlier Jelly Roll Morton tribute appropriately saluting the jazz pioneer’s oft-quoted “Spanish tinge” in describing New Orleans and its musical/cultural persuasion, bad-ass blues goddess Bonnie Raitt, a Los Angeles native of well-earned local pedigree, placed plenty of Afro-Caribbean rhythms in her funky set. As she did at this year’s Grammy Awards, Raitt helped pay tribute to lost legend B.B. King to close the Gentilly Stage following her own set. “We’re here with heavy hearts,” Raitt said as she hit the stage at 6:43 p.m., “but I’m really proud to be a part of this”—before lending her slide-guitar prowess and voice to “Never Make Your Move Too Soon.” Also having performed the King tribute at the Grammys, Gary Clark Jr.—still in town from a glistening Thursday afternoon set at Acura—joined in the parade of star players, coming out to sing and bang his tambourine on “Let the Good Times Roll.” The set reached a climax with Dr. John teaming up with blues/

Broadcast on Acura Stage’s video screens in black-and-white, with filming flourishes including upward angles of the band spun in a fisheye lens perspective, the band didn’t reach for one of the anthems from Ten until halfway into the set, with “Even Flow.” A mammoth take on the tune, for sure, not surprising after Vedder introduced the song by saying, “We’re going to try and play the shit out of it.” Capable of delicate moments amidst all the rock swagger, Pearl Jam soon switched gears into “Daughter,” mellow in tone but furious in message, marked by McCarthy’s acoustic strumming and ushered to a closing whisper by guitarist Stone Gossard’s masterful solo finish. (FE)

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Give It Away “We are their students!” exclaimed Flea, the inimitable bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as his band invited Meters legends George Porter Jr. and Zigaboo Modeliste to join them for a funkified finale.

Nearly 10 years after the Chili Peppers made Voodoo Fest history by teaming up with the full Meters lineup for a phenomenal, “Hand Clapping Song”–centered jam session, the rockers returned to the Crescent City for a closer of similarly epic proportions. However this time the collaboration was based around a Chili Peppers original, the Blood Sugar Sex Magik anthem “Give It Away.” Drummer Chad Smith spent most of the jam in visible awe of Modeliste’s prowess behind the kit, while Flea and Porter built up a double-bass crescendo that culminated in a rousing solo from Porter. Ivan Neville also took part in the number, occasionally adding a welcome layer of keys that proved he’s as much a student of the Meters (and of his uncle Art Neville) as the guys in RHCP. (SD)

Golden Crown Before a Fais Do-Do audience baring mud-sloppy conditions only very close to the stage, the folkish funky Creole String Beans shared the stage with T.K. Hulin. The oldschool South Louisiana blue-eyed swamp soul guitarist and singer declared early in the set, “That was the funnest three minutes of my life,” before launching into a rousing

rendition of “Down Home Girl,” a festive field holler to the arousal of Deep South ladies stomping through cotton fields and smelling of pork and beans, first recorded by Alvin Robinson in 1964 and since covered by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Old Crow Medicine Show. Brian Rini’s slick organ groove here lifted the cover to huge heights before the Creole String Beans sailed into a jamming, up-tempo “Let the Money Drop” from brand-new album Golden Crown. (FE)

Radiators and More Radiators spin-off Raw Oyster Cult at Gentilly flexed its billing of “with Fishy Friends” in fine fashion: a quick cover of “Get Off of My Cloud” drifted into the Rads’ festive “Long Hard Journey Home” with its “keep on playing, children” refrain, a classic propelled here by set guitarist Camile Baudoin’s trademark hot licks. (FE) Jazz Fest wrapped up its final weekend with great music and a large but manageable crowd that fit the contours of the race track comfortably. The New Orleans Suspects bid farewell to Reggie Scanlan, the great local bassist who founded the group and played www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTO: willow haley

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JAZZ FEST WRAP-UP his last gig with the band Sunday.

Scanlan, also a charter member of the legendary Radiators, decided to stop touring for health reasons but will continue to play locally. His interplay with drummer “Mean” Willie Green is something truly special and will be missed.

Two of Scanlan’s partners in the Rads played in another group, Ed Volker’s Quintet Narcosis, later in the day. Volker founded the Rads and called on his childhood friend and Radiators partner, guitarist Camile Baudoin, for his latest project. The band also includes Iguanas bassist René Coman and saxophonist Joe Cabral as well as master percussionist Michael Skinkus. Volker led the group through a repertoire of intriguing covers, using the blues technique of grafting lines from different songs together to make new constructions. Towards the end of the set he played one of his newer songs, “Go Down Swinging,” then a slow, ethereal version of his classic “Lost Radio.” He appended an as-yet-unreleased song to the latter, “Gone World,” which had his fans dancing ecstatically in front of the stage. Joe Cabral played several outstanding baritone sax solos. He and Coman then finished out the day with the Iguanas at the Fais Do-Do stage.

As Quintet Narcosis soundchecked, Volker played snippets from Allen Toussaint tunes. The announcer introduced them as “Quintet Narcissus” and was quickly corrected. Fans gathered in front of the stage and danced to the sultry rhythms of Volker’s “Let the Good Times Roll” mashup.

Cabral’s baritone and Baudoin’s guitar weaved back and forth across the dense polyrhythms laid down by Volker, Skinkus and

Coman. Volker slowed it down with the ballad “I Got a Thing For You,” with an absolutely beautiful solo from Baudoin. Volker and Skinkus rolled into a spooky voodoo vibe for “You Ain’t Hittin’ On Nothin’ Unless You’ve Got Something for Me.” After a new song about dancing on the grave of a son of a bitch, Volker introduced “In Harmony” by saying, “This goes back to 1976 with the Rhapsodizers.” A funky “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” / ”Satisfaction” medley

powered by an otherworldly Cabral solo finished things off. (JS)

Honey Island Slaying psychedelic swamp boogie like no other as usual, Honey Island Swamp Band celebrated release day of their major-label (Ruf Records) debut in stellar style.

Aaron Wilkinson’s depth of lyricism shined on the cutthroat optimism of “Head High Water Blues,” a track included on Demolition Day,

The biggest surprise wasn’t even on the menu. The set listed as Raw Oyster Cult and Fishy Friends did include a heaping helping of the Oystermen—guitarists Dave Malone and Camile Baudoin and drummer Frank Bua from the Radiators, John Papa Gros on keyboards and vocals and Dave Pomerleau on bass. They played a series of originals with Malone and Gros trading off on lead vocals, highlighted by Malone’s new tune “16 Monkeys on a Seesaw.”

Suddenly, keyboardist Ed Volker and bassist Reggie Scanlan appeared onstage and the crowd witnessed a full scale Radiators reunion. At the end of their mini-set Gros and Pomerleau returned to the stage and the full lineup played “Papaya” and “You Can’t Take It With You When You Go,” the theme song for all things Radiator. www.OFFBEAT.com

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No one within earshot wants to hear about the tech conference you’re actually in town for.

produced in low-fi splendor by Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All-Stars) at Parlor Studio in the Irish Channel. Trevor Brooks’ keys swirled an outro highlighted by the pulsing horn trio of trombone, trumpet and the saxophone of ascendant local jazzman extraordinaire Brad Walker (he of last week’s Sturgill Simpson “Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert” fame). (FE)

Cary Hudson South Mississippi/New Orleans troubadour Cary Hudson delighted in the family-like vibe permeating the shade of the Lagniappe Stage.

Choice selections from his Blue Mountain days—the seminal altcountry outfit he founded with New Orleans–area native siblings Laurie and John Stirratt (Wilco bassist)—“Blue Canoe” and “Soul Sister” set up an uplifting, lifeaffirming good-time full of backwoods hippie praise and prayer. (FE)

Paul Simon Poor Paul Simon picked a rough spot to kick off his new tour, the Acura Stage at Jazz Fest. Simon’s set was so lackluster than the crowd was seen leaving the field in droves shortly after the start of his set. The lucky ones might have landed at the Blues Tent, where Elvin Bishop really tore the roof off the place with his day-closing set. “Where y’at?... Gotta be New Orleans!” Bishop understands the spirit of Jazz Fest as well as anyone.

At the start of the 101 Runners set at the Jazz & Heritage stage, sousaphonist Kirk Joseph told the crowd: “You’re in the right spot, people! The shit over there (gesturing in the general direction of Paul Simon), you’re gonna hear that on the radio. The shit over there (gesturing in the other direction), you’re gonna hear that

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on the radio. But the shit y’all are gonna hear right here—this is the real shit and this is the only place you’re gonna hear it!”

Joseph was not overstating the case. The Runners powered through an incredible set of Mardi Gras Indian music with Joseph, drummer Raymond Weber and a three-piece percussion section led by Chris Jones on congas powering the beat and June Yamagishi and Billy Iuso playing fiery guitar exchanges behind Big Chief Juan Pardo and four other brightly clad Indian singers. Indians got the Fiyo! (JS) Paul Simon could have been better in a lot of ways, but his set was still a delightful way to spend an evening at the Acura Stage. Sure, he left a few big hits on the table, and that new song about wristbands should have been replaced with literally anything else. But the good stuff was still quite good, and that backing band is as tight as any in the business. If I have qualms with anything, it wasn’t Simon but the people in my immediate vicinity that had no respect for the man on stage or anyone in the audience. No one within earshot wants to hear about the tech conference you’re actually in town for. No, Paul Simon probably won’t “play something dancier.”

And yes, we’re all aware the volume isn’t loud enough, but it might not be a problem if you didn’t feel the need to talk about it incessantly.

Note to readers: This should go without saying, but holding a full conversation in the middle of a concert crowd is immoral. Please do not do it. (SD) “You got to have a wristband, my man, you don’t get through the door.” That line off Paul Simon’s new album cracked me up the first time I heard it, as did the tune’s narrative of a guy whose band is www.OFFBEAT.com

Sometimes the best things come to those who get soaked.

about to perform when he steps out for some air and suddenly finds he doesn’t have the credentials to get back in the venue.

There was something both magical and hilarious about seeing one of the great American music icons of our time holding up his hands above the Acura Stage repeating the mantra “wristband … wristband” eight days into our most wristband/pass/list/laminate–required time of year.

Yes, Simon’s set was plagued by technical problems to which he could have responded with a bit more grace but the highlights stood out to me more than the minor flubs. He’d hit his stride by “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” and his deep affection for the use of unexpected rhythms made tunes like that even more compelling in the midst of a festival that highlights the blended rhythms of different cultures like Jazz Fest does.

That said, I’m still irritated with the cameraman whose obsession with keeping the lens focused on Simon left most of the audience unable to see what was making all those glorious sounds in the breakdown on “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” among other things. Luckily (for me, anyway), so many folks had split before the encore that it was easy to move way up through soupy mainstage muck for the evocative familial love song, “Father and Daughter,” and a rendition of “The Boxer” so alternately soft and peaceful then dark and stormy that the music felt like an aural expression of New Orleans springtime. (JO)

P -U RAP W T FES ZZ JA

Haynes masterfully wove the cover choice around his tender tune “Beautifully Broken” for a thrilling, chilling effect before closing down the Gentilly Stage with his never-gets-old, feel-good anthem “Soulshine.” (FE) Where were we going to hear the first Prince tribute of Jazz Fest ’16? Turns out it was at the most unlikely of places, the Fais Do-Do stage, where the brilliant Sam Doores, co-frontman of the Deslondes, said “We’re going to play a gospel song, ‘What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?’

It goes out to anyone who’s lost somebody. Today it goes out to Prince.” (JS)

Prince Tributes

It was still pouring. It was still gross. My ankles and calves were starting to blister and bleed from all the water in my rainboots. But when I stopped to slurp down some spinach, zucchini and crawfish bisque near Fais Do-Do, I heard the strains of “Purple Rain.”

Unlike the other zillion times it was played on the Fair Grounds, this version was coming from Rockin’ Dopsie. And he was wearing a calflength purple robe that glistened like wet Saran Wrap. After hyping the crowd to sing the chorus with him (“we doin’ it in the rain, y’all!”), he tore off the robe, James Brown–style, spun around, waited a few beats, then busted out some high-to-low, second line–ready spin-dance moves that would have worked equally well during a TBCfronted parade or a New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars performance.

Sometimes the best things come to those who get soaked. (JO)

They didn’t just work the tune up this week in the wake of Prince’s death; “When Doves Cry” has long been a part of Gov’t Mule’s always-interesting set lists. Warren

While Jazz Fest began as a destination for jazz, blues, gospel and general roots music, it is hardly a revelation to acknowledge

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[Monáe] had been on stage for an hour at that point, moving nonstop, sweating and crying, not stopping for even a drop of water, and she collapsed right there on the stage.

PHOTO: kate gegenheimer (left), RYAN HODGSON-RIGSBEE (right)

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those bread and butter sounds have been relegated to the tents in recent years. But a rainy Jazz Fest Sunday seemed as good a time as any for a tent-based festival day.

The New Leviathan Oriental Fox-Trot Orchestra played its brand of vintage pre–big band hits during the worst of the second Sunday’s storms.

The “Leviathan” of their name is borrowed from the S.S. Leviathan transatlantic ocean liner from the 1920s, and the torrential backdrop was akin to the band playing on as the ship sank. The Gospel Tent featured one of many Prince tributes throughout the weekend, repurposing “Purple Rain” into “Jesus Saves,” bringing forth the gospel undertones that helped make the ’80s power ballad timeless. The stained glass artwork and constant turnover of gospel choirs provided a religious framework to a day where the Almighty’s presence was felt in and outside the tent. (RC)

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The real Prince tribute took place in dramatic fashion at the Congo Square Stage at the end of the day. Janelle Monáe, the outrageously talented R&B and jazz vocalist who worked closely with Prince, hit the stage like she was shot out of a cannon. “This show is going to be a tribute to the great Prince,” she said. “This is a song we wrote together, ‘Givin’ Em What They Love’.” For the next hour Monáe delivered the most emotionally powerful R&B performance I’ve seen since… the last time I saw Prince a couple of years ago. “He was rock ‘n’ roll… he was R&B,” she said, “if you know what I mean.” She then tore into “New Dance Apocalyptic,” “Electric Lady,” James Brown’s “I Feel Good,” the Jackson 5’s “One More Time,” and an incredible ballad rendition of “Smile.” Monáe finished with Prince’s “Take Me With You” and “Let’s Go Crazy.”

She had been on stage for an hour at that point, moving nonstop, sweating and crying, not stopping for even a drop of water, and she collapsed right there on the stage.

Her MC came out, lifted her up on his shoulder and carried her off.

That was some wake. (JS)

delicately on the high-hats before launching into an epic set-closing “One Big Holiday”—one of many monsters in the band’s considerable canon and one ripped up by James’ soaring vocals and shredding Gibson Flying V. (FE)

My Morning Jacket

There are those musicians whose joy of performing can’t—and shouldn’t, of course—be contained.

Two such examples—drummers Shannon Powell and Herlin Riley—come from right here in New Orleans. Their excellent sets in the Blues and Jazz Tents, respectively, were very different.

Powell and his crack band paid a funky and fun tribute to another great—and yes, happy—drummer, Smokey Johnson, by playing the hits he performed on, such as Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” and Jessie Hill’s “Ooh Poo Pah Doo.” Meanwhile, Riley offered

Dressed in a vibrantly-patterned black silk kimono, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James showed why he’s among the best in the business as a frontman. Leading the band to wailing walls of crescendos, accented by sinister step-out leads from guitarist Carl Broemel, James delivered on MMJ staples such as “Believe” before welcoming frequent collaborator Ben Jaffe on tuba plus other Preservation Hall players to crush two consecutive Prince covers: “Sign o’ the Times” then a deep groove “Purple Rain,” which their purple shirt–clad drummer closed

Happy Drummers

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Tab Benoit played a great set at the Gentilly Stage before the chair wars took place during the pointless and distorted set by roots posers Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, who seem to think nobody has heard “Mama Told Me Not to Come” before.

up mostly original material from his excellent recently released disc New Direction. Riley was literally bouncing on his drum stool as his band, heard on the album and filled with New York musicians, helped take the music around the world.

Veteran drummer Al Foster, with the all-star group the Heads of State, is a lowrider behind the drum set. He too was all smiles as the band took off with the great saxophonist Gary Bartz as the engine.

Drummer Jack DeJohnette, the core of the trio that included saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and bassist Matthew Garrison, presented the stature of a serene giant while pushing the group with his insistent drums. His happiness at playing with these guys, the sons of John Coltrane and Jimmy Garrison, respectively, wasn’t revealed on his face but in the foward-moving music.

Saxophonist Joe Lovano didn’t mess around, carrying two young drummers in his band. He’s such a physical player, prowling the edge of the stage, that the pair in the muscular drum section fit the bill.

(GW)

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Stuck in a huge crowd and with no view of the stage is not the best way to enjoy live music, but Van Morrison was still a little more low-energy than I’d hoped. On the other hand, I wandered into Johnny Sansone’s set by accident on the way somewhere else, and I couldn’t leave. (LD)

Tab

Pure Class Henry Gray presented an image of pure class as he sat at the keyboards decked out as usual in a suit, tie and hat. The 91-year-old Louisiana pianist and vocalist knows how to take his time with a song, and credit to his band, which didn’t rush the tempo on some slow blues. He picked up the beat on a boogie-woogie that he kept short and sweet as was heard back in the days of the three-minute 45-RPMs. Gray’s voice was strong on “Stagger Lee,” a number one hit in 1959 for fellow Louisianan Lloyd Price. (GW)

Van Morrison The chair people fought a pitched battle with security at the Gentilly

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Stage, eventually winning the war by the end of the day as Van Morrison drew a beyond-capacity crowd that spilled entirely onto the race track. If you weren’t already there before he started—and he started before his allotted time without introduction, like a racehorse beating the gate— you had zero chance of checking him out. (JS)

Trombone Shorty Tedeschi-Trucks Band with special guests

Tab Benoit played a great set at the Gentilly Stage before the chair wars took place during the pointless and distorted set by roots posers Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, who seem to think nobody has heard “Mama Told Me Not to Come” before. My biggest disappointment (aside from the OPP-approved crawfish bread) was missing Glen David Andrews at the Gospel Tent, which was impossible to get to at that moment. But Jazz Fest always offers solace. Dr. Michael White’s Jelly Roll Morton tribute at Economy Hall was a grand slam, highlighted by an astonishing four-handed piano turn from Henry Butler and Butch Thompson. (JS)

Monk Big Chief Monk Boudreaux also did double duty, joining the Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars in full Indian regalia for their set on the Acura Stage, then closing out the day at the Jazz & Heritage Stage with his gang, the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians. The Indians, resplendent in their blue feathered www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTO: willow haley (top), nunu zomot (center), Kim welsh (bottom)

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JAZZ FEST WRAP-UP and beaded suits, paraded onto the stage to the funk theme of “They Don’t Know,” with Monk telling his story. Then, after singing the invocation to the sacred Mardi Gras Indian theme “Indian Red,” Monk spoke to the audience.

“Sometimes people ask me, ‘What are the Indians saying?’ Well, it’s passed down to us. It’s who we are.

‘Almighty… I got the fire!’ Because we Indians. Indians of the nation.”

“We all family,” added Monk, gesturing to the ten costumed Indians flanking him on the stage. “This is my family, the next generation. I still teach what I was taught and I keep the tradition going. Every Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest we have a family reunion.

They taught me well. Just check out the Black Indians. We come in all colors. It’s an honor to be up here and have so many of y’all out there. What are they saying? We been coming up! Now I’m gonna let my grandson sing one.”

Monk’s grandson began singing “Little Liza Jane” and the Mardi Gras Indian tradition took its next step into the future. (JS)

Lynn Drury Lynn Drury followed Helen with a supercharged set of saucy rockers, the kind of performance that had WWOZ’s Missy Bowen declaring on the air that it was “Dominatrix Thursday” at Jazz Fest.

Drury’s excellent recent albums Sugar On the Floor and Come to My House offer great examples of her powerful singing and songwriting, but you really have to experience her live to understand

the sheer emotional power she brings to her performances. She delivered a high-intensity set that had the crowd on its feet. (JS)

Classical Music Jazz Fest really does have everything—even classical music.

The wildly eclectic Tom McDermott, joined by “friends” including Aurora Nealand on soprano saxophone and Michael Skinkus on percussion, played a set that ranged from “I’m

So Lonesome I Could Cry” to a medley of tricky classical piano and percussion pieces. Earlier in the Fest, trombonist Craig Klein dedicated the New Orleans Nightcrawlers wonderful version of the march from Verdi’s “Aida” (and we’re not talking Verti Marte here) to “the secret society of St. Anne’s.” (JS)

Pulling the Plug The great Paul Sanchez rocked out with an all-star Rolling Road

Helen Gillet Some Fest goers sought shelter under the tents or other covered areas in the grandstand. Meschiya Lake & the Little Big Horns held court under the Blues Tent. Lake was fabulous leading her old timey band through classics like Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” as ten silver-clad dancers cavorted on stage left. At the Lagniappe Stage, which offered cover from the rain, Helen Gillet mesmerized the crowd with her one-woman show only a day after she bravely fought off the rain at the final edition of Chaz Fest.

Armed only with her cello and the electronic loops she manipulates so skillfully, Gillet, dressed in shorts and a Chaz Fest T-shirt, turned in a magnificent set. She layered loops of cello lines and rhythm patterns to the point where she sounded like a full orchestra, dancing in her seat as she sang wordless vocals. She finished the set singing a song from her Belgian childhood in French. The guy sitting next to me was spellbound.

“I’ve never heard anything like that,” he said in wonder. (JS) www.OFFBEAT.com

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PHOTO: RYAN HODGSON-RIGSBEE

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Show including Alex McMurray, Lynn Drury, Susan Cowsill, Debbie Davis, Kimberley Kaye, Craig Klein et al. Sweet Crude followed with a strong, well-received set in reasonable weather, but by the time Alynda Lee Segarra and Hurray for the Riff Raff hit the stage the lightning was really getting frightening. Time to batten down.

Dr. John made it through a halfdozen songs back at Acura before they pulled the plug. (JS)

Stormy Weather Ingrid Lucia called it right when she broke from her planned set on Saturday morning and cued her band to play “Stormy Weather.”

That was some of the last music to get played that day, and I was one of the diehards who got soaked up front waiting for Stevie Wonder.

The man of course did appear, but rest assured that his megaphone snippet of “Purple Rain” was completely inaudible if you were there. (BM)

Hard Rain Jazz Fest week two opened with hard rain, cooler weather and a stiff breeze. Some Festers are born mudders who love these conditions, and no stage suits them better than Fais Do-Do, where the party never stops and dancing in the mud is a time-honored tradition. The Dog Hill Stompers brought the fire in memory of the King of Dog Hill, Boozoo Chavis, whom they most resemble. It takes three accordions to make that sound resonate, and they do not disappoint. Later on the day it was the intriguing zydeco/hiphop synthesis of Lil’ Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers, then the great Bruce Daigrepont on accordion, with his virtuoso sidekick Gina Forsyth on fiddle making those dancers twostep with muddy abandon at the floating Fais Do-Do. (JS)

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The rain was pounding, the earth was liquefying, the winds were chilling, and bluegrass indie act Punch Brothers were starting. With the miserable weather threatening to stop the festival at any minute, Punch Brothers were understandably less than enthusiastic to begin their Sunday afternoon set.

But then something interesting happened. Typically, a performer or musician is responsible for establishing a mood and elevating an audience. Here, the audience was undeterred by the rain, screaming and yelling in the rain and dancing despite being ankle-deep in mud. And with a mix of joy and bewilderment, Punch Brothers reciprocated, playing harder and faster, with greater exuberance. What could have easily become a rain-soaked dirge became a celebration of embracing life’s unscripted moments, no matter how soggy they may be. (RC) Big Freedia rocked the house at Congo Square. What rain?

Roy Rogers stoked his own fire at the Blues Tent. Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. and the Wild Magnolias played through the deluge at the Heritage Stage. Then all hell broke loose and it started raining

frogs. Stevie Wonder was so ready to play he got a bullhorn and sang “Purple Rain” to those who still hadn’t left. But Jazz Fest was closed and people scattered.

The broadening waters flowed through. (JS)

Dancing Across the Water You couldn’t Big Chief Experience your way out of this one. If you wanted to see Neil Young you had to wade in the water. Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” became more than a magnificent piece of sound sculpture, more than the fantastic/ironic story of the greatest and most brutal of the Conquistadores. “Dancing across the water” was a fair description of the hardy souls who attended the event, standing in the muck and mire and horseshit and sewage and God knows what else was making up the landscape at the Fair Grounds. The sounds system and its electronic agony contributed to the parts and sounded more like Young’s live albums Arc and Weld.

The track hasn’t looked like this since Lake Pontchartrain decided to move south 11 years ago. At least the water won’t sit there for weeks. Back then it took tons of

gypsum to restore the infield and race track before the next racing season. The groundskeepers have their work cut out for them.

Amazingly, people complained when they shut it down Saturday afternoon, so no one should have been surprised that the Fest opened up for business again Sunday. But a lot of people found it astonishing based on the social network buzz about where all those bands were going to play.

I have never been more impressed by the Jazz Fest staff.

Putting on the Sunday shows in the middle of an often-driving, day-long rainstorm was an amazing feat. The potential for catastrophe loomed large and even with the heroic job of making it all happen you have to say there was some degree of luck involved that nothing went horribly wrong. Aside from Stevie Wonder’s $800,000 piano, that is.

Here’s to all the musicians who played for the determined fans who made it out there. Rock festival culture has its built-in rites of passage, making the difficulty of attending the event part of its stoic enjoyment. Tales will be told for a long time of the obstacles overcome to see Jazz Fest ’16. (JS) O www.OFFBEAT.com

RISING APPALACHIA

A Southern Trinity Rising Appalachia is captivating audiences.

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eah Song and Chloe Smith, the effortlessly harmonizing sisters in the folk-jazz-world music group Rising Appalachia, learned how to hold an audience’s attention on the streets of New Orleans. After moving to the city in 2006, the siblings busked in the Royal Street area five and six days a week.

“We took it as our day job, nine to five,” older sister Song explained. “We’d throw our instruments on our backs and bike to the Quarter. There’s nothing better than busking to hone the craft. Nobody has to stop and listen. They only stop if they’re captivated.”

“Young musicians ask us how we started,” younger sister Smith said. “Busking was an amazing way to start. It’s street music school for people of all ages and levels.”

Rising Appalachia parlayed two years of busking into international touring. Song, Smith and band members Biko Casini (percussion) and David Brown (upright bass and baritone guitar) travel nine months a year, playing 150 shows. The sisters, who lived in New Orleans from 2006 to 2013, return May 1 for a show at House of Blues.

Song and Smith had some performing experience before they settled in New Orleans. Growing up in Atlanta, they’d also gained a deep musical foundation through weekends at old-time mountain music camps and visits to various religious denominations’ services.

And Monday through Friday, the girls experienced the city’s urban hip-hop while attending Atlanta’s public schools. They later discovered world music.

Bathed in music though they were, Song and Smith didn’t sing together until they’d left www.OFFBEAT.com

their parents’ house and seen the world. Post–high school, Song pursued political theater and traveled and studied in Latin America. Smith worked in environmental justice and education in California.

Reunited in Atlanta in 2005, the sisters recorded an album in a single weekend. They intended it to be a holiday gift for friends and family. Song and Smith were surprised when, following a Rising Appalachia appearance at an Atlanta festival featuring international folk musicians, concertgoers bought every copy of their album.

New Orleans and, most of all, those intense years of busking, to set them on a solid path.

Of course, good placement is essential for successful busking.

Rising Appalachia opted to play near rather than on Royal Street, a crowded portion of which is blocked from traffic to allow street performances space to work.

“Royal Street seemed better for five-, six-, seven-piece ensembles,” Song said. “Because we were just two people, we could fit in small nooks.”

During their first few years in New Orleans, the sisters also worked with multidisciplinary arts

“We thought we would have those albums in the basement for 25 years,” Song said.

The popularity of Rising Appalachia’s album debut brought more questions than answers.

“We didn’t quite know what we were doing,” Song recalled.

“Or even what our musical voice was.”

Some tentative touring followed while Song and Smith continued their other projects.

It took the sisters’ relocation to

organizations Mondo Bizarro and ArtSpot Productions and various advocacy groups.

“Full-on immersion in every possible direction in the arts and justice community,” Song said.

Song and Smith originally came to New Orleans to support the city’s post–Hurricane Katrina and flood rebuilding. The city, even in its ravaged state, charmed them into staying.

“We fell deeply in love with the community,” Song said.

By John Wirt

“And the culture and the amazing appreciation for musicians that New Orleans boasts, more than almost anywhere in the world. And we felt very at home. So, yeah, we planted ourselves there. We hope to have that relationship strong forever. We didn’t mean to leave.”

In 2013, Song and Smith were on tour when the house they’d been renting was sold. Because they were traveling and unable to return for their belongings, friends put the stuff in storage.

Song and Smith, always lovers of folk and mountain music, now base themselves in the Great Smoky Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina.

“We claim a Southern trinity,” Song said. “We were born and raised in the big city of Atlanta, but we still associate with New Orleans, our soul home. I spend a good amount of time down in New Orleans. And then we’ve got our headquarters up in the mountains in southern Appalachia, where we get our rest. But we try to keep roots in all three of those places and keep all of our Southern family intact.”

Asheville offers the sisters an artistic, quiet spot surrounded by wild forests.

“It’s where we go to hide out in the woods,” Song said. “But we also absolutely are city girls who thrive in the creative throes of urban America.

So, we really need a balance between the woods and the urban jungle.”

Song believes that Rising Appalachia’s gradual ascent worked to the group’s advantage.

“It’s taken shape very slowly,” she said. “I think that has something to do with our longevity. We haven’t had a mold to break. We’ve been slowly sculpting as we go.”

O Rising Appalachia, Lost Bayou Ramblers and Arouna Diarra will perform May 1 at House of Blues.

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COVER STORY

Tangled Up Born of New Orleans music royalty, Darcy Malone mixes up her music and blurs genres with her band, The Tangle.

By Brett Milano // Photography by Elsa Hahne

Y

ou know the T-shirt that says “I may be older than you, but I saw all the good bands”? Well, Darcy Malone saw most of the good bands—was even babysat by a couple of them—and she probably isn’t older than you. As the daughter of local music royalty, Malone grew up immersed in sounds from New Orleans and elsewhere. And as the frontwoman of the Tangle, she’s poised to add to the tradition.

The Tangle’s recent album, Still Life, marks the official rollout of a project that’s been in the works for more than a decade now. And though the band is now formally called “Darcy Malone and the Tangle,” she stresses that it’s not one of those star-frontwoman-andthe-guys situations. “I was the only one who voted against altering the name,” she says. Malone and guitarist/songwriter Chris Boye have been inseparable—as friends, collaborators and now as a married couple—since meeting at a gig in 2004, and all six current members of the Tangle insist that they’re serious about taking this nationwide.

“Our ultimate goal is to be successful,” says drummer Billy Schell, who came close to a national breakthrough with the Boondoggles ten years ago. “If it was as easy as getting five smoking hot players together and writing some good songs—that should be the formula for success, right? But we all know it isn’t; you need to have that ‘it’ factor. And I think we’ve got it.”

“We want to appeal to a lot of people,” Malone says. “It can be hard to be a rock musician in New Orleans, and we knew we needed elements to make it a little different. What we’re trying to achieve is rock/soul, with elements of something catchy—something like Ike & Tina Turner meets XTC. Now, that idea may make someone else go ‘what!?’, but to me it sounds wonderful. Every member of the band might say something different, but in the end it’s rock ’n’ roll—with a lot of other things.”

Darcy Malone was born in 1978, the same year her father Dave cofounded the Radiators. Her mother Suzy was then one of the Pfister Sisters, and her uncle Tommy was in the original Continental Drifters (later to spawn the subdudes). “I don’t ever recall a moment in my childhood when music wasn’t there,” she says. “When I was home alone my favorite thing to do was press record on the cassette player, find every instrument in the house and put on a performance. And holidays were always wonderful, singing with the whole family at my grandparents’ house in Edgard. There were so many people that I got to meet, because Dad’s such a likeable person—there was Dr. John, www.OFFBEAT.com

John Lee Hooker. “Gatemouth” Brown, just so many. I was just talking to Dad recently and I said, ‘Hey, remember that British guy who gave me my first piano lesson?’ And he said ‘Darcy, that was Jon Cleary.’

Most of her real training was less formal, though. “My dad would sit me down to learn different eras of music—he’d say, ‘Here’s the Beatles, you need to know all of this. And here’s Motown, learn all of that.’ I was the only eight-year-old girl who was super into Elvis Costello. I never had voice lessons, just sang along to records. People tell me I have a combination of my dad and mom’s voice, and I can hear that when I hear them singing together. Being raised by musicians certainly had its ups and downs—you had parents who were away a lot. But it had its rewards, too. My dad will always be my hero, and I hope someday to be a portion of the musician he is.”

No surprise that the Radiators played a large role in her formative years—and she has an affinity for diehard Rads fans, being one herself. “I’m the same age as the band and I never knew my father as anything but one of the Radiators—they were always there, so it was bizarre and emotional for me when the band ended. I knew when I was young that he was always going on the road to be a rock star— but my grandmother would put on Radiators records so I’d feel like I was there.” When the band played locally, she really was there. “That probably started when I was an infant—I was always at the shows they did on the Tulane quad, and I’ve never missed a year of Jazz Fest in my life. Far as bar shows go, I started going to those when I was around five. There was always a space in the back I could get into.”

Her first vocal inspirations were the locals she met growing up—most notably Leigh (Little Queenie) Harris and the late Becky Kury, singer/bassist of the pre-Rads band the Rhapsodizers. “I know that Becky Kury held me once, but she died so soon after I was born that I never knew her as a person. I did see Little Queenie and the Percolators though, and she amazed me—the way she could belt it out and sound nasty and gritty, then do something really soft and beautiful. I was always drawn to singers like Dusty Springfield, Tina Turner—the ones that don’t worry about sounding perfect but you could just feel everything they were putting out there.”

But it was her mother who first got a pre-teen Darcy onstage with the Pfister Sisters. “She used to do Sundays at the Gazebo, and she’d bring me up to do ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ It seemed completely normal to me to be onstage, and so I wouldn’t leave. They tell me that after doing my song I broke into ‘The Greatest Love of All’ a JUN E 2016

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“It seems natural to have a different kind of song every time—otherwise, why bother writing a new one?”

capella, and they had to let me finish it because I wouldn’t get off the stage.” Musical theater became her passion when she went on to high school (Ecole Classique in Metairie) and then college at Northwestern. “There was a stage at school and I wanted to be on it, and the way to do that was to be part of the theater group. It really helped me with coming out of my comfort zone onstage—even now I think I can be somebody else and feel completely comfortable—like I can be lead singer Darcy, instead of everyday mom Darcy.”

She made the big decision after college to return home and launch a band, instead of pursuing theater in New York. For a while she sat in with the formative version of Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes, until the fateful meet-up with Chris Boye. “People would always whisper when she was around: ‘Hey, that’s Dave Malone’s daughter, so don’t be an asshole,’” he recalls. Adds Malone, “We actually met through my sister Adele—Chris was a skateboarder and she was very into the New Orleans skateboard people. He had an instrumental band and wanted to do something different with a singer.”

Adds Boye, “She and I became rock solid as far as being musical intermediaries. We always saw eye to eye on what we thought was good. A random song would come on the radio and we could always tell whether the other liked it or not.” And Malone continues, “We became friends over writing songs together. And the friendship lasted about a year before we looked at each other and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I love you.’ So I moved in and that was it.”

10 years later, neither sees any downside to being in a band with their romantic partner. “It’s actually really great,” Boye says.

“Because I get to be quiet and Darcy knows me well enough to know what I’m thinking. And she’s outspoken enough to never have a problem being misunderstood. I think we believe in each other well enough to know that we can grow. And if we ever had to really work at it, if there was ever going to be a kink, it would have shown itself by now.” Adds Malone, “A lot of people think this [collaboration] would be hard, but Chris and I have always had a very respectful, honest-with-one-another relationship. Plus, I get to play music with my soulmate every day. What could be better than that?”

The Tangle From the start, the couple knew what their dream band would be.

They wanted a band that could go all over the map, not being tied to the traditional New Orleans sound. Thus they had the name and idea for the Tangle before there was a band in place—and no, the name didn’t come from the Rads song “Love is a Tangle,” though Malone realized the connection soon enough. “That is one of my favorite songs, but it really came from the whole tangle of genres idea,” she says. “We knew that was what we wanted, and we wanted people to help make that a success.” Adds Boye, “Darcy’s voice doesn’t need a small band, it needs a big arrangement—an orchestra of electric guitars and keyboard and sax, and everything else we can put in to complement her voice. We try not to stick to one sound because it gets boring when you do that. It seems natural to have a different kind of song every time—otherwise, why bother writing a new one?”

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“It was a lot harder to build relationships there [...].

In Austin they look at you like you’re nuts.”

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Still, it took a couple false starts before they had the band they wanted. Soon after Malone and Boye began laying out plans, Katrina struck, prompting a temporary move to Austin. “People were good to us there, but the problem is that every single person in Austin is trying to be a rock musician,” she says. “It was a lot harder to build relationships there, not like in New Orleans where you go shopping and talk to the register lady about what she did on Sunday. In Austin they look at you like you’re nuts.” Back in New Orleans they formed the first version of the Tangle, which lasted a few years and released the Mark Bingham-produced Now We’re Awake in 2012. At that time the lineup was just the couple with a rhythm section (Chris Johnson and Mark Davis), aided by family friends like Spencer Bohren and Dave Malone. “Working with Bingham was an amazing thing in itself,” Malone says. “But in doing that record, we came to realize it would be so much better if we had people who were willing to put in as much heart as we were.”

Those ideal people came from a few different sources. Saxophonist Jagon Eldridge had been on the punk/ska circuit, both here and in New York (where he’d been in a band with ex-Cramps bassist Candy Del Mar). Malone also remembers seeing his old band, Dang Bruh-Y at the Abstract Café, the Magazine Street punk spot (when that street was far less upscale), where Green Day made their local debut.

Drummer Billy Schell was also from the alt-rock world; he’d been looking for the right band to commit to in the years since the Boondoggles split. Guitarist Glenn Newbauer’s reference points were more in the jam-band world, notably the Grateful Dead and yes, the Radiators. And bassist Craig Toomey was found, appropriately enough, on Craig’s List; he’s played jazz on the East Coast and studied at Berklee. What they have in common is the determination to put this band across nationally. And never mind that six-piece bands can be tough to hold together; this one swears it’s going to be an exception.

“This for me is not one of those ‘Come to see us Saturday night at Tipitina’s’ situations,” Schell says. “The record is getting played on 38 stations across the country. We have a publicist, we have a socialmedia director, we have people out there to help promote us and get us to the next level. It’s not enough to have great music when you can walk down Frenchmen Street and get blown away any night.

But you don’t have the nucleus of what it takes to expand your business—the Boondoggles got close but there was a series of events that prevented us from getting in the van and touring the world.

With this band, everyone is committed. Believe it or not, what did it for me was hearing the song ‘Be a Man’—that was on the tape they gave me to practice for the first gig. I felt that could be a really big song, and I still think it could be one down the road.”

If they wanted to blur genres, they couldn’t have asked for a better lineup, given the mix of jazz, punk and jam-rock leanings. Malone isn’t even up front all the time, as Boye sings a couple of leads on the disc and onstage. “I’m sort of the Kim Deal in the band,” he says, invoking the Pixies’ former bassist and occasional singer. “Or I’m the ketchup for the French fries—once in a while you want to get a different flavor. Singing is Darcy’s strong suit and songwriting is mine, www.OFFBEAT.com

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The CD winds up crediting the songwriting to the full band, which is both a smart way of preventing in-fights down the road, and an acknowledgment of the other members’ input on arrangements.

so there’s no reason to ever change that. Not that she isn’t a great writer, but I tend to do it more often. She’ll come up with one every six months and it’s good every time; that’s the sort of dynamic we’ve gone with.”

The CD winds up crediting the songwriting to the full band, which is both a smart way of preventing in-fights down the road, and an acknowledgment of the other members’ input on arrangements. “Everybody’s name is listed because that’s the truth, these are the songs we all worked on together,” Malone says. A good example of the collective approach is “Belly of the Sea,” which is instrumentally stretched to a priggish miniepic. “I wrote something based on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, and I wanted to do it in a Tom Waits style,” Boys says. “So I brought it into rehearsal and Jagon says, ‘Let’s speed that up,’ so it ended up having this Caribbean funkiness.

It still has that Tom Waits rhythm but in a faster, groovier way.” But it’s notable that the album’s longest track comes in at five minutes; this really isn’t a band for endless jamming. “That will come through every now and then, but not on every song,” says Newbauer. “I got to play a solo on ‘Half Moon’ that’s closer to the jam-band side of things. We did a lot of editing for the songs on the album, and they can be longer when we play them live. But that depends on the gig itself—when we sense that people want to hear what was on the album, we’ll stick closer to that. We want things to be listener-friendly by modern standards.”

While the band’s had a good year so far—getting the CD released and playing a well-received set at Jazz Fest—everyone involved feels

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they’ve just got their long-term marching orders. “Remember that the album’s called Still Life,” Malone says, “and to us that means something important, it means breaking out of what people expect you to be—not living a still life but living with no regrets. We feel passionately about what we’re doing, and whatever happens happens, but we know this band is something we really believe in."

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photos: Elsa Hahne

Isaiah Estell/Cavan

“I

was going for something almost cartoonishly French. Calling it Cartoonishly French also crossed my mind, but I think the Royal Garden Sour fits better. Sidney Bechet’s ‘Royal Garden Blues’ was my sonic inspiration, so vivacious and upbeat.

In the experimental phase of this I got pretty lit up on Pernod. It just feels wrong to throw away those rinses. Like most drinks, it’s kind of an intuitive or spontaneous process.

You think about something for a long time and then [snaps fingers] let it do its thing. I thought of squeezing some Lillet into this, too, but that’s possibly overkill.

I love cassis. A kir is the most under-rated two-ingredient drink.

People—especially maybe men— are afraid to drink it. But if you go to Burgundy, there are all these old guys sitting around crushing cigarettes and drinking kir...

[I tell him the story of why I don’t much care for anise-based drinks

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such as Pernod, because of an experience I had a long time ago when I mistook a glass of ouzo for water.] I had a similar experience with hydrogen peroxide, which I chugged as a child, thinking it was water. My mom had inexplicably put it into an unmarked glass jar and I came home and chugged the whole thing. Things got weird. I became a human fire hose. I might have had drinking experiences that bad since, but I literally can’t remember. I’ve gotten pretty good at drinking over the years. It’s funny, I lived in Chicago before this and I probably drink less here than I did in Chicago.

I first came down in 2010. I took the train. Only vaguely considered the possibility of moving to New Orleans, but definitely looking to leave the big city. Aurora was maybe the first musician I saw. It was completely incidental. I was wandering down Frenchmen, a Wednesday or Thursday evening in April. Went into Three Muses, sitting at the bar, back turned to the stage,

By Elsa Hahne

but as soon as she ripped into that clarinet it was like a palpable physical reaction. Sidney Bechet is my favorite musician and he might possibly [obvious understatement] be a significant influence for her as well. To hear someone remotely capturing that powerful piercing vibrato still is to me a drug-like sensation. And the hangover isn’t nearly as bad. Music remains the single biggest inebriant I know of.

As far as ingredients, I went with overtly classical ’20s ingredients that would have been widely consumed at that point in this town as well as in France. Oldschool, but fresh. A lot of time you see drinks with these ingredients that don’t have any citrus element and they might sound good on paper but when you drink them they’re heavy-handed and really kind of gross. This is my attempt to approach those ingredients like Aurora might the music: keeping it alive and up to date, while still being classical in origin.”

Royal Garden Sour 1/2 ounce Green Chartreuse 1/2 ounce Yellow Chartreuse 1/2 ounce lemon juice 1/4 ounce Crème de Cassis Sparkling wine Pernod (for rinse) Lemon peel (for garnish) Shake violently with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass rinsed with Pernod. Top with sparkling wine, and garnish with expressed lemon peel (twist peel over drink to release oils). www.OFFBEAT.com

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Eat Street The resurgence of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard as a prime food hub.

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hen the St. Roch Market opened in 2015, Councilmember-at-Large Jason Williams heralded the Landrieu administration capital project for “providing a necessary service to the surrounding neighborhoods,” and called it “an example of how community input can enhance public projects.” Though the market has become a great destination for locals and visiting foodies, it would be a stretch to say it’s filling the neighborhood’s “food desert” void with affordable groceries.

A year later in Central City, however, the Dryades Public Market is doing what many hoped would happen in St. Roch—and it’s not

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alone. The food and beverage boom that’s cropped up on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard now features a diverse array of concepts, menus and price points, giving it a unique profile at an explosive time for restaurants in New Orleans. And while redeveloped corridors like Freret Street are starting to welcome newconstruction residences that boast all the trappings of gentrification, Oretha Castle Haley has managed to balance community-focused food and beverage options with higherend fare. The combination means more foot traffic for what was once a busy, commerce-heavy main street and more awareness, city-wide, about a historic neighborhood.

Located in the former Myrtle Banks Elementary School building at 1307 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, Dryades Public Market celebrated its grand opening in April after a slow ramp-up during which its name changed from Jack & Jake’s and its leadership shifted from original CEO John Burns to Chef Daniel Esses, one of the owners of Three Muses on Frenchmen Street. Buzz around the market has proliferated for more than a year, in part because of the cost and initial scope of the project, which Esses reined in when he took over at the end of August. Rather than withhold the space from public use any longer, he opened the doors in September, launching individual

By Jennifer Odell, Photography by Renee Bienvenu

components like the coffee bar and sandwich counter as they became ready for business. Now, the market is starting to come to life.

“We brought in Associated Grocers to help us give it the look of a grocery store, including products at an affordable price. Then we also brought in people who specialize in what they do, such as bakers and butchers,” said Esses, who’s been vocal about his commitment to keeping reasonably priced fresh foods available for the community.

Its namesake is the Dryades Street Market, which opened across the street in 1894, long before the street was renamed in honor of civil rights worker Oretha Castle Haley. www.OFFBEAT.com

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Above: If you haven't checked out Primitivo yet, you should at least stop by for a cocktail.

Below: Dryades Public Market offers both gourmet options and affordable goods.

Above: Church Alley Coffee Bar, sharing space with Zeitgeist, is one of the best coffee shops in the city.

Below: Roux CarrĂŠ offers several dining options in a relaxed, communal setting.

Left: Once you're done browsing the Southern Food and Beverage Museum's exhibits, you can grab a bite at the attached restaurant, Purloo.

Right: Casa Borrega was one of the first restaurants to take a chance on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard as a dining destination.

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(A 1960 boycott of Dryades Street merchants who refused to hire black employees is considered a keystone of the city’s early freedom struggle and an important aspect of the neighborhood’s rich history.)

Today’s Dryades Public Market offers fresh and mostly local produce, meat, seafood, canned goods and dairy products, mostly at Rouses-level prices.

Prepared sandwiches, salads and a coffee bar; Esses’ fresh pasta shop; seafood courtesy of Curious Oyster (which relocated from the St. Roch Market) and a full wine and booze bar are also available inside the spacious and sunny three-floor building. Outside by the parking lot, peas, squash, herbs and fig trees make up a young, “edible landscaping” garden.

The market’s top floors are currently a mix of offices and open space that has been used for events like a recent juried art exhibit. On June 1, Cochon Butcher alum Leighann Smith, who runs the market’s meat program, is offering a $5 class on sausage making featuring Mississippi-raised pork.

“It’s a balance between giving people the yin and the yang,” said Esses. “We sell artisanal bread and cake but then you also have something way less hardcore. If they want that and they can afford it it’s available. If [customers] want something with ten ingredients instead of 100, we have that too.”

During a visit after Jazz Fest in May, the market’s first floor was peppered with a handful of shoppers perusing massive $3 bags of locally grown kale and equally enormous local cauliflower priced at $4 apiece. There were also folks working on laptops or trickling in from offices on the boulevard to enjoy a $5 glass of happy hour wine at Bar 38, which is situated in the center of the market next to the

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Chef Daniel Esses

raw and coffee bars. Small plates like seared yellowfin tuna marinated in a spicy soy vinaigrette with olives and oranges ran for $8 on the bar side, while diners slurped a mix of local and imported oysters ($1 to $2 during happy hour), crab claws, hush puppies and tangy pickled shrimp on the Curious Oyster side.

In May, Esses was in the process of hiring a community outreach liaison whose role would be to ensure the market was meeting the needs of the neighborhood.

The Dryades group also seems to have both the mayor’s office and City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell on its side (Esses cited Cantrell’s efforts to help bring a local farmer’s market to the store on Saturdays as an example of her advocacy there).

Asked if he sees Oretha Castle Haley as a foodie destination, Esses was optimistic.

“I always believe the more restaurants on one street, the better,” he said.

“Competition is good for the restaurant business, not bad. I want us to help bring business to the other businesses. Oretha Castle Haley still needs more foot traffic and more attention.”

Efforts are underway to make that happen. On May 6, the Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard Merchants & Business Association launched its inaugural First Fridays event, featuring happy hours, live music and extended gallery hours at participating venues. Although the event got off to a slow start, spots like the patio at Roux Carré were

bustling by sunset as diners sampled ceviche and pupusas from the Pupusa Lady, po-boys and gumbo from Estralita’s Express, jerk and curry chicken from Johnny’s Jamaican Grill, cochon de lait po-boys from the Splendid Pig and fresh-squeezed juices from the Youth Empowerment Project’s Juice Box stall.

Roux Carré also recently opened a bar booth that features daily half-price happy hour specials. This summer, the space plans to feature live music two to three days a week.

Like the market, Roux Carré was created with an eye to serving the community in a unique way. Phyllis Cassidy’s non-profit group the Good Work Network opened Roux Carré in November as an incubator for local restaurant entrepreneurs.

Its current vendors all took classes in restaurant management and financial planning through the Good Work Network, which also provided them with business mentors.

“I first found out about Roux Carré from an article in the TimesPic about two and a half years ago and we pretty much applied right away,” recalls Jennifer SherrodBlackwell, who runs the Splendid Pig with her husband, Brandon Blackwell.

After the Blackwells were accepted into the program, construction delays prevented Roux Carré from opening as scheduled.

During that time, the couple took over Curious Oyster’s former space at St. Roch Market with their other business, Elysian Seafood.

“I love being in both spaces, but they are completely different,” Sherrod-Blackwell said. “The Roux Carré is sort of a warmer, inviting and relaxed atmosphere. What’s happening with live music makes it more of an experience rather than just dining. Also, Roux Carré is drawing people in from the www.OFFBEAT.com

PHOTO: jeff pounds

In May, Esses was in the process of hiring a community outreach liaison whose role would be to ensure the market was meeting the needs of the neighborhood.

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neighborhood and the community as the solid base of our customers.

St. Roch draws people not only from all over the city but from all over the country.”

In addition to the cochon de lait po-boy, Splendid Pig offers a blue crab cake and “pork-a-mein,” a lemongrass-braised pork over rice noodles with cilantro and pickled vegetables. The menu features a salad of fresh Louisiana strawberries and goat cheese with a pepper jelly vinaigrette and crispy bacon, plus homemade pork jerky and three different kinds of dark chocolate brownies.

“We source a good bit of our produce from the Dryades Market up the street and from Hollygrove [Market] and we use local rice,” Sherrod-Blackwell said. “Anything that we can reasonably source locally we do.”

Vendors sign a one-year lease that’s then made available for renewal, Sherrod-Blackwell said.

“They don’t want to force anyone to leave,” she added, “but they also want to let people leave if they’re not being profitable and growing their business.”

There are no formal mandates regarding menu prices, but the Good Work Network encourages vendors to keep prices at a level Central City residents are likely to find reasonable, she added.

Linda Pompa, the Executive Director of the Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard Merchants & Business Association, says her organization encourages similar thinking when new businesses move into the neighborhood.

“Private property is private property, but we have the intelligence about what people want in the neighborhood,” Pompa explained, noting the importance of encouraging more foot traffic.

The push to redevelop the neighborhood began in the ’90s, but www.OFFBEAT.com

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it didn’t start gaining real steam until after Hurricane Katrina. The strip was designated as a Louisiana Main Street in 2006 and a Cultural Products District in 2008, both of which helped revitalize the region.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority has also pitched in with funding pegged to construction and building facades up and down the street.

In sum, Pompa said, “a combination of non-profit, public, philanthropic and private investment, especially post-Katrina, along with specific planning since around 2000 has helped push the neighborhood forward.”

In May, the street was notified that it will receive a state-wide Main Street Award from the Louisiana Culture Awards.

Uptown-based realtor JeanPaul Villere says the corridor was long seen as an inner-city stretch that was “harder to put on the public radar,” making it slower to revitalize than Freret Street, which he says had the advantages of being closer to Tulane and Loyola and mostly shuttered after the storm. The liquor license moratorium along the boulevard was another factor.

“O.C.H., while dry, had a decent population, but in non-profits,” Villere said in an email. “Whereas Freret was basically a blank canvas, O.C.H.’s occupancy and distance from the newer blood revitalizing the city placed its resurgence to the last little while. Prices are of course relative but they’re higher than they’ve ever been—not Magazine [Street]-high, of course.”

Pompa points out that the proliferation of non-profits along the boulevard has helped keep new businesses coming in to remain focused on the community. Organizations like the Good Work Network or JUN E 2016

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Café Reconcile, which since 2000 has offered weekday New Orleans–style lunches prepared and served by job training program participants from at-risk communities, have invested in the neighborhood and won’t be forced out by rising rents.

“What has kept it from turning into Freret Street is that so many buildings here are owned by nonprofits,” Pompa said.

While Café Reconcile was the first restaurant to open along the boulevard long after its heyday, Pompa says Casa Borrega was a catalyst of sorts for the eventual proliferation of food-focused venues in the corridor.

Hugo Montero and his wife Linda Stone opened their Mexico City street food–inspired eatery and live music venue in 2013 as a Benefit Corporation—a for-profit business whose goals include creating what Wikipedia describes as “a positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment.”

Decked out with a vast array of artwork and knickknacks, Casa Borrega hosts Latin cultural events and features jazz, Latin and funk bands, plus singer-songwriters, both inside by the main bar and outside on the patio. There’s also a steady stream of movie and event-goers from the Zeitgeist theater across the street, as well as the coffee bar, Church Alley, which occupies the Zeitgeist’s front space.

Dishes at Casa Borrega range from traditional central Mexican options to creative spins on apps like a deep-fried cauliflower. This summer, they’re working towards the launch of a Cuban food truck program called La Cubana.

“When we moved in we used to walk our dog where the NORA building is now and it was like the

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“When we moved in we used to walk our dog where the NORA building is now and it was like the wilderness,” Stone recalled. “It was kind of fun—we were like in this outpost.” wilderness,” Stone recalled. “It was kind of fun—we were like in this outpost.”

That’s obviously no longer the case. Shortly after Casa Borrega opened, chef Adolfo Garcia and his partners Ron Copeland and Jared Ralls opened Primitivo at 1800 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. The building was previously a daycare center downstairs and apartments upstairs. According to Copeland it was “gutted down to the studs” and completely renovated to make room for the meat-heavy, open hearth–focused restaurant, which offers happy hours, but generally has a higher price point than other dining options in the area. Drink prices, however, remain relatively low for a restaurant of Primitivo’s caliber.

“For the cocktail program, I have a two rules: Drinks should take 45 seconds or less to make and we have to be able to charge $9 or less with named liquor,” Copeland said in an email.

“It really upsets me when I see a cocktail menu with well liquor as the main ingredient and it’s $10–$12. It’s stealing from the customer, plain and simple.”

Chef Ryan Hughes’ contemporary Southern–inspired Purloo, which opened down the street in January 2015, also features higher prices. But the open kitchen and the restaurant’s location inside the Southern Food and Beverage Museum give it an interesting twist.

Liz Williams founded the museum as a way to combine her interest in historical food culture with her experience launching institutions like the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the World War II Museum. She says she moved “SoFAB” to Central City from its initial location on the Riverwalk for a number of reasons, but the food history aspect of where they ended up now plays a key role in the museum’s identity.

“We went into that neighborhood because it was affordable and because it was accessible by bus and streetcar.

Once we were there, though, we selected the building that was the Dryades Market,” she explained.

“So then that building becomes our largest artifact because we’ve saved this building that really does represent something about the food and culture of New Orleans.”

SoFAB’s tenant Purloo was selected with an eye to Hughes’ plan to showcase cuisine that highlights “regional foodways,” complimenting SoFAB’s exhibitions.

In addition to gallery displays, the museum offers interactive cooking demos and a summer camp for kids. It also operates the John & Bonnie Boyd Hospitality & Culinary Library at 1609 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, which features more than 11,000 volumes of archival information about food history and culture.

Looking ahead, Pompa says she’s unaware of any new food projects opening on the boulevard in the next four to six months. She points out, though, that the general public is still in the process of discovering some of the neighborhood newcomers, like Filipino chef and Paul Prudhomme protégé Crispin Pascia’s CK’s Hot Shoppe at the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Baronne Street, or Brady’s Wine Warehouse on the strip’s downtown end.

In the meantime, the new burst of food-related activity on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard continues to draw a healthy mix of members of the Central City community and curious diners from the surrounding city and further away.

Villere, who’s been watching Central City spring back to life since the storm, muses, “OCH’s golden years are still ahead of it.”

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Queen of Her Castle How chef Kristen Essig walked away from New Orleans’ latest great restaurant and found herself at home.

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hef Kristen Essig was ready, no doubt. This was her moment, and no one doubted that either. Having worked at Emeril’s for a brief period in the ’90s, and then with Anne Kearney at Peristyle and Susan Spicer at Bayona before launching a lucrative career as a private chef and later being picked as executive chef by Robert LeBlanc of LeBlanc + Smith restaurant group: first at Sainte Marie on Poydras Street in the CBD, then at Meauxbar on N. Rampart Street in the French Quarter, and finally at the brand-new, coastal-themed restaurant Cavan in a grand, renovated townhouse on Magazine Street—Essig had arrived. The opening of Cavan in March was her big breakthrough.

“Sure was!” Essig says, emphasizing past tense.

Then jaws dropped, as she politely walked away...

What happened? Was her breakthrough really more of a breakdown?

Had she been tricked somehow? Her quick exit puzzled many, and LeBlanc and Essig’s assurances of mutual respect and well wishes for the future somehow didn’t straighten out the question marks.

“I got two reactions when I quit: One, ‘Are you ok?’ And two, ‘Congratulations!’” Essig says. “The truth is that I was ready, and

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since I knew I was ready, I had to do something. I knew this next thing would be something I’d do for the rest of my life, so I had to make sure it was for me.

“Robert will forever be a friend and confidante, but I really wanted to do something for myself. If I’m making money for a restaurant, why am I not making money for myself? I was very well compensated, no question about it, but I wanted ownership. Robert gave me this amazing platform, but it made me hungry for my own thing, and I knew I couldn’t start planning until I was no longer at the restaurants [while busy with Cavan, Essig also remained at the helm at Meauxbar].”

At Cavan, former chef de cuisine Ben Thibodeaux has taken over as executive chef, and at Meauxbar, sous chef John Bel shouldered Essig’s mantle. She’s certain both restaurants will do great without her.

“Both restaurants were prepared for me to leave,” she says. “We had all the people in place, menus and recipes were standardized, things were costed out. I could literally have walked out in the street and got hit by a bus and both restaurants would have been able to continue to operate.

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“I want to get back to why people sit around a table.

It’s about the people around you, not just what’s on your plate.”

“It might not have been the best time for me to leave, but it was best for everyone else involved. I had to make my decision while both restaurants were in a good place and my name wasn’t super-attached to Cavan.”

On top of wanting her own place, Essig also wanted something else—she wanted to get back to cooking.

“Between Cavan and Meauxbar, as much as I loved my role and was having a great time doing it, it was very overwhelming,” she says.

“I don’t want to be the pretend person where I’m not really doing anything. At least, that’s how I feel. If I’m not putting food on a plate, I don’t feel like I’m working in a kitchen anymore. I could write 40 recipes or respond to emails all day, so I was technically working, but what I love about food is how tangible it is.

“With Meauxbar, there was a lot of ‘hands on hips, smile at the camera,’ and although I really would do anything to get more people to come to any of the restaurants—and it’s part of being a chef—there’s a certain amount of partnership you need to have with the real world. I started cooking because I could hide in the back and didn’t have to look a certain way. You can sort of hide and make people happy without them necessarily knowing who you were, and I liked that.”

Essig takes care to point out that no one person makes a restaurant.

And that she’s going to miss working with both of her well-oiled teams.

“Honestly, I don’t want to be the face of a restaurant,” she says. “I want to be one of the people in there, getting it done. Cavan was going to be sustainable for me, but I’m not someone who’s going to want two, three, four restaurants—a restaurant in Vegas! Florida!—and two was a lot. I was proud of it and fed off of it, for sure, that chef mentality, just pushing, pushing, pushing. It feels great; you’re so tired, you get great sleep.”

May 2 was Essig’s first day without a job. She stayed home, cooked tortilla soup for lunch, eyed the shiny green KitchenAid she’s never used (“not once, I think”) and tried to make a plan.

“Michael [Stoltzfus, Chef at Coquette and Essig’s partner] was making fun of me because I was making a schedule,” she says. “I felt like I needed an idea of what I was going to do every day because I don’t want to just lay here and watch episodes of Girls. But maybe I do need to just lay on my ass a little bit?

“It won’t last long. I’ve got stuff I should do; do my taxes, get some plants, do some gardening, clean out stuff I have in storage... That sounds like a lot of work! [laughs] Try to stay off of Facebook and Instagram, because I love those things... I’ll play with stuff; make pasta. Probably make a lot of food we won’t eat. Probably have people over. One of the things I put down on my list is that I really want to organize my silverware drawer.

It’s been driving me crazy! My mother would be so upset if she opened this drawer. I have my wedding silver in there and all this shitty other stuff, and I love to polish silver. I also want to organize the closet in our dining room, where all the stuff goes. I just need to clean, reorganize.”

Essig says the hardest time of day is around 7 p.m. when Michael is busy at Coquette and most of her friends are working.

“What am I supposed to be doing?” she asks. “I’m so used to working.

I guess I’ll go to bed early and hopefully go for a run in the morning?

“I really want to start running again. At Meauxbar we had these supersteep stairs that we used to go up to the offices. They’re scary, French Quarter-steep, really small. Completely safe! We have the handrails! But www.OFFBEAT.com

we were getting ready for New Years Eve and I was carrying 20 pounds of chestnuts down the stairs and fell. I slipped down the stairs and my left leg went underneath me, so I had this huge shin bruise and couldn’t run and it really set me back and then we were so busy I just couldn’t get back into it.”

The first thing Essig is going to do is go home and see her family in Seminole, Florida. She’s not sure when she last saw them, but it was probably two years ago.

“I’m going with my sister and her sons to Disney World,” she says.

“And then I’m going to spend some time with Graison [Gill] over at Bellegarde [Bakery] who’s going to teach me more about bread making, and then my friend Maureen [Kennedy, of Bern Ceramics] is going to teach me how to make plates. I’m going to a dairy farm out in Covington to learn how to make goat’s milk cheese.

“As a chef, you do so much every day you get caught up in the dayto-day grind, and that’s part of the reward for a lot of people, I think, but I want more. I want to reconnect with all the parts of running a restaurant on a personal level. Maybe I’m the most amazing potter that’s ever been and I’ve never put my hands on a piece of clay. Who knows? I like the idea of trying things I haven’t done before, as if I’m living my life and not just getting through it.”

Stoltzfus and Essig will continue to run their pop-up restaurant Little Bird at the whiskey bar Barrel Proof (another LeBlanc + Smith property). They’ve also talked about expanding Little Bird, or doing something else altogether.

“By the end of June, I want to have a plan for what I’m going to do, and then I’ll probably have six to eight months to execute,” Essig predicts. “I might need to renovate a building, figure out parking for my imaginary place that doesn’t have a name, but all I know is that I want to be prepared. I’m definitely not leaving New Orleans.”

Essig realizes that she probably will make less money opening her own restaurant than she did before. But since giving anything less than 110 percent isn’t an option and giving 110 percent doesn’t make sense if you don’t ultimately get what you want, she’s both excited and scared.

“I might have committed professional suicide,” she says. “But the main reason I could afford to quit my job is that I don’t spend money.

I’m a frugal person by nature. We eat soup a lot. Right now, I really want soup. Probably will move on to beans next...”

In many ways, the departure from Cavan has been bittersweet.

“Now that I have nights off, which is the craziest thing ever, I drive

by Cavan and am just so excited that people are eating there,” she says. “It feels like someone’s home, you can just let yourself in. I know every electrical outlet, every single thing.”

Essig knows her next restaurant will include an open kitchen where she can cook while spying, friendly-like, on guests. She says watching people eat with pleasure still gives her goose bumps. By seating single diners and two-tops at a large, communal table, Essig also wants to reframe the very culture of dining.

“Put simply, I want to get back to why people sit around a table,” she says. “It’s about the people around you, not just what’s on your plate. I’d also love to have some kind of feed-me table for 10 or 12 where there’s no set menu and we do it maybe once a week or once a night, and you get to meet the people at the table.”

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EATS

“I would never walk into your house and say, ‘Hey, it’s great, but your wife is wearing an ugly dress...’”

By bringing guests closer together, she hopes to remove some of the anonymity that permits every diner with a smart phone to be any restaurant’s worst critic.

“You’re essentially walking into my home when you’re walking into my restaurant,” Essig explains. “I would never walk into your house and say, ‘Hey, it’s great, but your wife is wearing an ugly dress, and she doesn’t know how to seat people or open a bottle of wine.’ People look for problems.

How about just being a nice person when you come to dinner? The last thing I’d want is for someone to come and have a bad meal—ever.

» Find Kristen Essig's recipe for tortilla soup on offbeat.com!

“We’d read reviews every week at Meauxbar and Cavan. We’d read our Yelp, OpenTable and TripAdvisor reviews. If something is repeatedly talked about, those are constructive criticisms that we can use. But when someone comes in and says, ‘This is just garbage. I don’t know what all the hype is about.’ What does that do for you? It doesn’t do anything for me because I can’t fix it, or talk to you. Do people really think I want to work for 15 hours a day and have you come in and have the worst experience of your life? I want the exact opposite of that, and I want you to let me try.”

Essig also envisions a minimalist menu that changes on a regular basis.

“At Meauxbar, people were like, ‘We love this dish and it can never come off [the menu]!’ And you know what, it’s never going to come off. And you’re like, ‘God, now I have to make this dish forever. FOREVER!’ And as long as this restaurant is here we’ll be cleaning out bones of their marrow so we can stuff escargots in them. It’s delicious and I’d still eat it to this day, but I just don’t want to do it anymore. It’s hard, though, for a manager to look at the situation—‘This dish is 19 percent of our sales, we can’t take it off...’ But don’t you think we’d put something else on there that would also be amazing? That’s a creative barrier. I understand it from a business point, but there has to be a little bit of ease, a little bit of cooperation.”

And that’s exactly what she has time for now.

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DINING OUT

Shaya It’s a tossup as to which has received more critical acclaim over the past year: the Broadway blockbuster Hamilton or the justified hubris of hummus, restaurant Shaya. While theatre enthusiasts are pre-paying for full season passes (for 2017) to guarantee tickets to Lin Manuel-Miranda’s hip-hop historical drama, foodies near and far are booking reservations months in advance (for dinner on Monday nights) to taste Chef Alon Shaya’s modern interpretations of Israeli cuisine.

Since opening in February of last year, restaurant Shaya has racked up an unprecedented number of best new restaurant awards—the most recent from the James Beard Foundation. Not surprisingly, suspicion constantly follows such accolades. The question is legitimate. Based on sheer numbers alone, how is it possible to determine which one of the nation’s new restaurants rises above all others? And with a menu that features many dishes found at your run of the mill

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Mediterranean café, what distinguishes Shaya from its competition? In a word: everything.

The foundation is the wood-burning oven that churns out freshly baked pita, an attribute that arguably earns Shaya the title of best bread service in the city. Forget about all your past experiences with pita—everything else is just cardboard compared to these steaming pillows of perfection. Start with a selection of shared appetizers that are anything but ordinary: the Bulgarian roasted red pepper spread lutenitsa, creamy labneh accented with wax peppers, or bracingly spiced Moroccan carrots. A number of the dishes feature a strong acid component, so be careful to balance with one of the trio of hummus dishes (I am partial to the version crowned with succulent beef cheeks).

Small plates include crunchy rye bread smeared with avocado and topped with smoked whitefish and pink peppercorns that pop with each bite.

Kibbeh Nayah is a combination of Two Run Farms lamb and beef tartare mixed with bulgur and walnuts and served with Yemenite flatbread so rich that I’m convinced the recipe requires equal parts flour and butter. Lamb kebab sauced with tomato and tahini pairs well with the Persian rice mixed with egg yolks and baked until golden brown.

Avoiding overstuffing oneself before reaching the list of large plates is a feat.

Photo: renee bienvenu

EATS

Exercising self restraint and opting to share will be rewarded with spare room to sample the short rib tagine served with house made couscous or the slow-cooked lamb shank lacquered in its own delectable juices.

Shaya lives up to all the hype, and then some.

—Peter Thriffiley 4123 Magazine Street; lunch (daily) 11a–4p, dinner (nightly) 4–10p; shayarestaurant.com

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899-8221 Kingfish: 337 Chartres St., 598-5005 Mr. B’s Bistro: 201 Royal St. 523-2078 Restaurant R’evolution: 777 Bienville St., 553-2277

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

FRENCH

NEIGHBORHOOD JOINTS

GERMAN Jaeger Haus: 833 Conti, 525-9200

ICE CREAM/CAKE/CANDY Aunt Sally’s Praline Shop’s: 2831 Chartres St., 944-6090 Bittersweet Confections: 725 Magazine St., 523-2626 La Divina Gelateria: 3005 Magazine St., 3422634; 621 St. Peter St., 302-2692 Tee-Eva’s Praline Shop: 4430 Magazine St., 899-8350

INDIAN Nirvana: 4308 Magazine St., 894-9797

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

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

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

ITALIAN

JAPANESE/KOREAN/SUSHI/THAI

The Joint: 701 Mazant St., 949-3232 Whoodoo BBQ: 2660 St Philip St., 230-2070

COFFEE HOUSE

LOUISIANA / SOUTHERN

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

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

CREOLE/CAJUN

MEDITERRANEAN

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

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

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

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Basin Seafood and Spirits: 3222 Magazine St., 302-7391 Crazy Lobster Bar & Grill: 1 Poydras St. 569-3380 LeBayou Restaurant: 208 Bourbon St., 525-4755 Pier 424 Seafood Market: 424 Bourbon St., 309-1574 Royal House Oyster Bar: 441 Royal St., 528-2601

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

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

VIETNAMESE Namese: 4077 Tulane Ave., 483-8899

WEE HOURS Buffa’s Restaurant & Lounge: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038 Clover Grill: 900 Bourbon St., 523-0904 Mimi’s in the Marigny: 2601 Royal St., 872-9868

Spot

How did you first learn of this place?

This is actually my first time eating here, in the restaurant. But I’ve had their food. We were recording our last album at the Living Room, underneath the bridge. We spent a week and a half there and every other day we ordered from here. We had nine guys ordering about five times so we got maybe an eighth of the way through the menu.

They do have a big menu.

There’s so much stuff! I’m probably going to go with one of their weirder items today, like the goat curry. And wings! In the tamarind sauce.

MEXICAN/CARIBBEAN/SPANISH Barú Bistro & Tapas: 3700 Magazine St., 895-2225 Juan’s Flying Burrito: 2018 Magazine St., 569-0000 El Gato Negro: 81 French Market Place, 525-9846 Banks Street Bar & Grill: 4401 Banks St., 486-0258 Buffa’s: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038 Chickie Wah Wah: 2828 Canal St., 304-4714 Dmac’s Bar & Grill: 542 S Jefferson Davis Pkwy, 304-5757 Gattuso’s: 435 Huey P Long Ave., Gretna, 368-1114 Hard Rock Café: 125 Bourbon St., 529-5617 House of Blues: 225 Decatur St., 412-8068

SEAFOOD

[of the Revivalists]

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

MUSIC ON THE MENU

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

Michael Girardot hits the

Adolfo’s: 611 Frenchmen St., 948-3800 Little Vic’s: 719 Toulouse St., 304-1238 Chiba: 8312 Oak St., 826-9119 Mikimoto: 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., 488-1881 Seoul Shack: 435 Esplanade Ave., 417-6206 Sukho Thai: 4519 Magazine St., 373-6471; 1913 Royal St., 948-9309 Wasabi: 900 Frenchmen St., 943-9433

BARBECUE

Biscuits and Buns on Banks: 4337 Banks St., 273-4600 Cake Café: 2440 Chartres St., 943-0010 City Diner: 3116 S I-10 Service Rd E, 8311030; 5708 Citrus Blvd., 309-7614 Cowbell: 8801 Oak St., 298-8689 Dat Dog: 601 Frenchmen St., 309-3362; 5030 Freret St., 899-6883; 3336 Magazine St., 324-2226 Live Oak Cafe: 8140 Oak St., 265-0050 Parkway Bakery and Tavern: 538 Hagan Ave., 482-3047 Phil’s Grill: 3020 Severn Ave., Metairie, 324-9080; 1640 Hickory Ave., Harahan, 305-1705 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

Ben Ellman produced your record. Did he also direct the menu?

Yes, he’s the one who turned us onto Tan Dinh.

I think he comes here all the time.

How’s the goat?

Try some!

—Elsa Hahne

Tan Dinh 1705 Lafayette St. Gretna (504) 361-8008

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Photo: ELSA HAHNE

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

Warehouse Grille: 869 Magazine St., 322-2188

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

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

A Fitting Conclusion

Allen Toussaint American Tunes (Nonesuch) Allen Toussaint began his recording career with an album of instrumentals, The Wild Sound of New Orleans (by Tousan) and now ends it with this album of mostly instrumentals recorded in 2013 and 2015. This is fitting.

While Toussaint is of course best known for his songs, these were songs that were often so rhythmic that they could have stood alone without lyrics because of their propulsive nature. Think “Yes We Can Can,” “Working in the Coal Mine” or “Sneaking Sally Thru the Alley.”

Toussaint ended his recording career under producer Joe Henry, with 2006’s The River in Reverse, 2009’s The Bright Mississippi and now American Tunes. The first is surprisingly dull, the second one is worth listening to because of Allen, and American Tunes is the best of these three. The Bright Mississippi suffers especially from the drumming of Jay Bellerose, a seemingly fine drummer with extensive credits, who somehow thought he was playing on a Tom Waits album. Other sidemen were a mismatch as well. Toussaint’s playing, whipping off New Orleans R&B licks when you least expect www.OFFBEAT.com

them, gives the album the charm it has. He’s like a wily magician pulling one rabbit after another out of his top hat.

American Tunes is a big improvement over Mississippi.

Bellerose’s role is reduced, and the other sidemen are more carefully chosen. Guitarist Bill Frisell is wonderful, adding his ghostly tone to, among other things, Billy Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom,” one of that composer’s top masterworks. Van Dyke Parks is miraculous. The Los Angeles legend, who has worked with Allen at least since Southern Nights, plays second piano on a version of that song here and adds second piano and a lavish arrangement to Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Danza.” It’s fantastic that Toussaint saw fit to pay homage to this nineteenth century New Orleans–born master; and funny that because of Van Dyke’s slightly outré arrangement, the 1857 “Danza” may be the most modernistic thing Toussaint ever recorded.

Wit abounds here. Bill Evans’ jazz classic “Waltz for Debby” is played in duple meter with a Cuban-ish rhythm, a charming transformation. “I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You),” most readily associated with Louis Armstrong, is played very sparely; I sense AT could have been influenced by Thelonious Monk’s famous take.

Perhaps the most radical is Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag,” whose opening section Allen replicates fairly closely but whose blazing stride in the middle is abandoned for a much simpler texture. It makes sense; a 77-year-old is not all of a sudden going to be able to burn on this tune. And yet even when throwing away

the template, Toussaint makes you smile.

Rhiannon Giddens sings two Ellington standards: “Rocks in My Bed” (rocks in the drums here as well) and “Come Sunday.”

She’s perfectly fine, but… I get the sense she was chosen as a fellow Nonesuch artist. Why not pick someone who’s really lived these lyrics instead of this talented newbie? The other vocal is Allen on Paul Simon’s wistful “American Tune.” He’s a world away stylistically from Simon, but delivers the song in a touchingly direct way.

For many the highlight of this disc could be the Professor Longhair covers (five in all if you buy the LP version). “Delores’ Boyfriend,” the Toussaint original which opens the album, is a textbook example of a tune hugely influenced by Fess that only Toussaint could have written.

“Big Chief” (an Earl King tune actually, but equally associated with Longhair) uses some ideas he’s recorded before, but throws in some non-sequiturs, like an agitated snippet of Chopin’s “C-Minor Prelude.” It’s nutty, but very fun. In these Fess covers Allen is not interested in copying Fess exactly (though he certainly had that ability); he’s not trying to outfunk Fess either. It’s a much gentler approach, filled with harmonic surprise.

We don’t know if Toussaint intended this is as his last album, but it’s a very fitting conclusion to his career. With his choice of repertoire, he’s saying, “I started out as a Professor Longhair acolyte, and ended up in the company of Gottschalk, Duke Ellington and Paul Simon.” That sounds just about right to this listener.

—Tom McDermott

Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling Upward Spiral (Marsalis Music) From note one, this album sounds more like a Kurt Elling album backed by the Branford Marsalis Quartet than the other way around. Elling’s voice kicks in immediately on the opening cut, Gershwin’s “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York.” Elling simply dominates the album; that comes as somewhat of a surprise considering the strength and reputation of saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his outstanding band with pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner. Considering that Marsalis is the leader and the album is on his own label, Marsalis Music, it’s curious how this juxtaposition came about.

Fans of Elling and jazz vocalists in general will probably be impressed to hear him perform in front of such a noble crew. He does some fine scatting on tenor great Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy,” a good choice of material for this match. It’s appreciated too that because of the format we hear the beauty of Marsalis’ tenor on “Blue Gardenia,” a tune he might not have otherwise recorded.

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REVIEWS There are also some dubious inclusions, like vocalists Tony Bennett’s—and later Bobby Vinton’s—hit “Blue Velvet.” A better choice was Carlos Jobim’s “Só Tinha de Ser Com Você,” though Elling sounds a touch flat, with Marsalis’s sax saving the day.

Recorded in New Orleans, Upward Spiral looms as a oneshot deal between this unlikely collaboration.

—Geraldine Wyckoff

Brass Bed In the Yellow Leaf (Modern Outsider) Brass Bed’s In the Yellow Leaf takes its name from a line in “The Poet,” a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay where he compares Plutarch and Shakespeare to the aging and maturing of a leaf during fall. Being in the yellow is being in the prime— evolved from the green of youth but far from the crumple and decay of being brown. Is it pretentious to borrow such a metaphor? Or better yet, is it deserved?

Lafayette’s Brass Bed are definitely in the yellow leaf stage of their decade-and multiple record– spanning career. These songs are not the green tinted—but good— indie pop with slight alt-country twang of their early days. They’ve even matured from their critically acclaimed The Secret Will Keep You. This Brass Bed is deep, troubled (but not dark) and comfortable within themselves musically.

The catch-all terms of indie and indie pop snag much of what goes on here, but fans will recognize their modernized Big Star meets indie psyche sounds. Even though In the Yellow Leaf appears to be less influenced by alt-country, there are still plenty of textures—a little crunch here and there on “Mind the Gap”—and songs that move you.

“I am Just a Whisper” is anything but. Likely the most powerful and standout track on the record, it has a slightly muted pulse but builds to a near boil that is careful not to spill.

Likewise, many of the tracks on the record lull you in quietly, then build to just the right hum. Crashing drums of songs like “Be Anything”

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balance out its dreamy quality and don’t let you slip in too deep.

While there’s not a central theme lyrically, there is a connection to these songs and the title. There’s growth and change and questioning throughout—from the very first track, “Maiden Voyage,” about drowning but really a mini allegory for religion. In the melancholy of “Yellow Bursts of Age,” they reflect, “Leaves will shine the brightest as they tumble into heaps” and “Our birth begins decay” over a backing that seems like it was plucked from an underwater love scene of an unreleased 1970s French spy film.

Here and there, it seems like the three-piece is getting older and realizing things are changing around them and that there is little they can do to stop it (or even an interest in doing so). A smart, well written record of grad level poetry, In the Yellow Leaf challenges listeners and is not for those who aren’t looking for something deeper. Instead, they are lush lullabies for post-college thirtysomethings.

It can’t be said that Brass Bed are in their stride—they have never been out of it, helping carry the indie scene in Lafayette since their inception. In the end, In the Yellow Leaf is only as pretentious as it needs to be to be named after Emerson. Yet, the title is definitely fitting. Luckily, Brass Bed are simply continuing to get better and are many falls away from browning.

—Nick Pittman

Jim Pharis Sure to Offend (Independent) Jim Pharis’ Sure to Offend is a bit like his neighbor’s answer

to why he has so many guns, on the song “Gun Rag”: nonchalant, cryptic, almost unwound and perhaps a bit jilted.

Sure to Offend’s cuts are live, non-overdubbed tracks of just Pharis and his guitar, with him utilizing his raw fingerpicking style to weave tales of his life (or an imagined one) into vignettes and half-indictments of the state of the current nation. In the end, Pharis seems like that neighbor you try to avoid in the driveway because you just know he’s going to suck you into another black hole conversation.

A self-described songster, Pharis does not have the best vocals in the world—or even the room—but his honest, no-frills songwriting is not ignorant to

how to spin a good yarn. He’s not exactly humorous but pretty witty.

Instrumentals like “Mister Slippy” and “Convent Street Strut,” on the other hand, showcase his guitar abilities.

Left to right or perhaps in the middle, Pharis is seemingly telling you what’s on his mind. The high water mark of the conversation is the title track, on which he says even if you just say you love cabbage you are sure to offend the anti-cabbage crowd. It’s enough to make him drink— saying that’s all he wants to do on “Whiskey.”

Even though it has its moments here and there, the highlights on Sure to Offend are few and far between.

—Nick Pittman

Expanding Her Range Miss Sophie Lee and the Parish Suites Traverse This Universe (Independent) Sophie Lee, transplanted native of the ’90s or not, could be turning into the Leah Chase of trad jazz; not only does she operate Three Muses while holding down a steady gig at the Spotted Cat, she’s preparing to relaunch Seoul Shack in mid-summer at an Uptown location.

Frankly, the local market is oversaturated with earnest, sensual, earthy singers following in Billie Holiday’s footsteps, so it’s good to see that her latest album is also about expanding her range. In this town, the singer in you always has to keep up with the restaurateur. There are a handful of covers of deathless pop-jazz warhorses to be sure—“Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” are typically obvious moves, even if it is always nice to groove along to Ella’s “Undecided”—but the original half of this album, as it starts to stretch out, reveals actual warmth in her delivery and not just sultriness.

At first, she uses it to color her usual sketches, re the cocktail hour mellow of “You and Me (The Universe),” but the samba of “Someday,” the country waltz of “A Safe Place” and the reggae of “Under the Moon” don’t lose a bit of solace in translation. The closing “Lovely in That Dress,” especially, is a glowing benediction, and “The Way That Love Can Be” removes all her sepia-tone glory to fashion a completely modern funky R&B track, psychedelic and moody in ways that only tangentially touch upon her jazz roots. It’s a terrific gamble that pays off, and a damn good sign for her creativity. After all, it’s also true for food: When things get obvious, bring in some outside flavors.

—Robert Fontenot www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS

Sheriff Bud Torres Saltwater Cowboy (Independent) He bills himself, jokingly, as “That Other Singing Sheriff,” a politically deft nod to fellow Louisianan, actor and vocalist Faron Young, but unlike that honky tonk legend, Beauregard “Bud” Torres really is a sheriff—of Pointe Coupee Parish, no less, though Torres doesn’t sing about life in New Roads on his debut album. No, these ten originals are more about enjoying the salt and spray off the Gulf Coast, specifically Grand Isle. In fact, despite his authentic backwoods twang, the man behind the badge comes off more like a Jimmy Buffett of the wetlands, in theme anyway, offering a series of portraits of the good life—drinking “Tequila & Lime,” enjoying the “Louisiana Rain,” living on “Island Time” and “Dreamin’ ‘Bout Mexico.” And why not? The disappearing coast could use a poster boy at this point.

Torres’ country ballads and mid-tempo lopes are nothing you haven’t heard before musically, but they do convey the slow, lingering, sunny buzz of a very extended weekend on the water—minus, of course, the occasional regret lurking behind the aimlessness of Buffett’s best songs. (Not that he doesn’t try on “True Heart,” “I’ll Do Anything” and “The Way Love Goes.”) The Sheriff’s vocals are a little plain and sometimes flat, but they never get tainted by the two-dimensional tourist ad copy his lyrics sometimes degrade into. He’s too authentic for that, even if he’s not trying to aim that high in the first place.

After all, Bud’s not wasting away in Margaritaville—he runs it.

—Robert Fontenot www.OFFBEAT.com

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REVIEWS sharing that first cup of coffee with, though... It’s hard to leave, but it might be time to at least try.

—Robert Fontenot

Rooftop Junkies Rooftop Junkies (Independent)

The Necessary Gentlemen Hard to Leave (Independent) As already exhibited on last year’s excellent LP Fools to Stay, this is a sextet whose mission statement is to break down true bluegrass, folk, old-timey music and classic C&W and then reassemble the pieces into a new kind of real-yet-radio-friendly country that makes clichés weep and tradition bleed. The formula isn’t quite perfected on their second full-length album, but guided by some hot picking and the vocal double-team of Jon Skvarka and Fefe Byram, they at least manage to map out the game plan. The first half or so of these 10 originals amounts to a hagiography of sorts for the common man, at least the rural one: “Creole Gypsy,” “Pleasant Grove” and “Banks of Beaver Creek” feel so dewy in their back-to-the-land warmth that you almost want to adjust the humidity of their sunrises, with only Fefe’s surprising blues in “Hold On to That Light” suggesting any kind of life outside the farm.

But then their sense of popcraft kicks in, and so does their ambition.

Every time Skvarka passes that minor key on “Passing Through Tuesday” he collects $200 and the kind of regret Don Henley cornered the market in long ago.

“Feel the Need” lets Fefe stalk like an obsessed coffeehouse barista, “Homecoming” bounces with Natalie Merchant earth-mother overtones, and the closing “Live ‘Til Your Love Shows” is James Taylor’s ticket to New Country Grammy gold. Cynical? It doesn’t come off that way—both sides of this group are absolutely genuine, and absolutely gorgeous. Still a little hard to know who we’re

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This is the second EP now from DJ Ragas’ side project, and anybody who heard 2014’s It Starts Here will know just what to expect: punkish meat-and-potatoes roots rock for disaffected middle-aged lovers. Not that you need to be romantically experienced to really feel the lyrics, which are still pretty twodimensional; when it comes to the tricky artifice of welding two souls together, the Junkies rarely get deeper than phrases like “We’re gonna be alright” or “I just can’t believe she did this thing to me.”

But you probably do have to be Gen X to really feel their influences, as the Junkies’ two main creative forces split the songs and vocals right down the middle, leaving two distinct subgenres doing a pretty good job at sharing the same band. Ragas (rhythm guitar) is clearly devoted to a cowpunk type of aesthetic, shades of the Long Ryders or even R.E.M., whereas Travis DeRoche (bass) introduces a lot of first wave hardcore: chanted choruses, fast downbeats, and a hint of Lee Ving or Glenn Danzig sneer in the vocals. Usually the ideas work, if not always together—only the abrupt tempo changes in “Unleashed” seem gimmicky—but as a faster, angrier upgrade on the debut, it delivers.

Just don’t expect either the depth or righteousness of their forbears.

—Robert Fontenot

Lumière Heart Notes on the Bayou (Independent) If it had to fall into categorization, Lumière’s Heart Notes on the Bayou would be a scaled down and earthy Enya meets chants, prayers and Cajun French, all accompanied by the cello, fiddle, guitar and world music instruments. It’s so far removed

from the parameters of pop music, Justin Bieber could not see it with the Hubble telescope. But that isn’t a flaw. Lumière—who goes by Ashana Sophia and is accompanied

by Chad Viator and Michael Doucet, among others—has crafted a fine (although not necessarily for the masses) and intricate piece of work.

A multi-instrumentalist, Ashana Sophia is a classically trained cellist who also plays the esraj, the Indian version of the cello, and the harmonium. Here, however, her most powerful instrument is her voice, which she uses to gracefully give flight to chants and prayers in the style of kirtan—call and response chanting of India that is designed to quiet the mind and bring peace. Her haunting vocals combined with the ethereal and incredible indie-classical-Irish-folk soundscapes give chills. Though rooted in ancient traditions, its

far removal from the soundtrack of modern life makes it seem otherworldly.

Even at its simplest, Heart Notes’ tremendous songs have a deep and rich sound quality. Sometimes grand yet somehow minimal compositions, they stir winds blown by the Far East with local accents provided by Doucet’s fiddle.

While the album contains both original material and tracks based on Sanskrit and Gurmukh mantras, Lumière also pulls from traditional Irish melodies—“Golden Apple Tree” is based on “Star of the County Down” and “Grieving Song” is a take on “Babylon” by Don McLean.

Complex and intricate, Heart Notes is a quiet storm of music made of beautiful clouds on a sunny day that leaves a lasting impact.

—Nick Pittman

Fiery Twin Fiddles Michael Doucet and Tom Rigney Cajun Fandango (Parhelion Records) Epic jam sessions between BeauSoleil’s Michael Doucet and Flambeau’s Tom Rigney eventually materialized into this fiery twin fiddle record for the rest of world to hear. Doucet brought several Cajun tunes, including three new originals; Rigney contributed the rest, including three of his own, for a wide and varied listen. The ingenious title track, a Doucet masterpiece, shifts between a scorching gypsy section and a sweeter Cajun melody. “Marie Catin” opens the proceedings much like a starter’s pistol—with a loud bang.

But don’t expect Rigney to hang back and only second Doucet on the Cajun numbers because he’s not within spitting distance of I-10. He kicks off “Maman Rosin” and “Oh Pauline,” alternates melodies with Doucet and is a lightning bolt in every fiddle storm where bow thrashing and squealing, electrifying high notes are the norm.

But it’s not all about swashbuckling fiddling. On “Oh Pauline,” the two achieve a harmonic soulfulness together, especially towards the end when most of the band drops out and Doucet and Rigney accentuate the tune’s beauty.

Rigney’s groove-bound originals are genre-hopping. “Chasing the Devil” is a solid Cajun two-step; the turbo-charged “Swamp Fever” mixes a gypsy motif and minor blues chord changes over a zydeco rhythm section. Two J.J. Cale tunes appear here, the darkly amusing “Last Will and Testament” and the road trip friendly “Call Me the Breeze.” Flambeau guitarist Danny Caron practically lights his fingers on fire in several places while Caroline Dahl motors on ivories.

—Dan Willging www.OFFBEAT.com

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

WEDNESDAY JUNE 1

Ace Hotel: Helen Gillet (MJ) 8p Algiers Ferry Dock: Wednesdays on the Point feat.

Soul Rebels (FK) 5:30p Banks Street Bar: Nothing for Breakfast (RK) 7p, Major Bacon (BL) 10p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Dave Hickey and Jacob Tanner (VR) 6p, Meschiya Lake and Tom McDermott (JV) 8p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (BL) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Reggae Night (RE) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Shamarr Allen, DJ Chicken (FK) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Maison: Hokum High Rollers, Jazz Vipers, Mutiny Squad (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Khris Royal and Dark Matter, Naughty Palace (FK) 9p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Palm Court Jazz Café: Lars Edegran and Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Jerry Embree (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 4p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 7p

THURSDAY JUNE 2

Banks Street Bar: New Creations Brass Band (BB) 9p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Alexandra Scott and Josh Paxton (VR) 5p, Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6:30p

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Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): the Yat Pack (VR) 9p Chiba: Brint Anderson (BL) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy and Emily Robertson (VR) 6p Circle Bar: Natalie Mae (CW) 6p; Chelsea Lovitt and Boys, Bipolaroid (RK) 9p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Sam Price and the True Believers (VR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Love Train Funkadelic Fusion Dance Party Tour (FK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Maison: the Good For Nothin’ Band, Sweet Substitute, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich and guests (FK) 11p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Margie Perez and Muevelo (LT) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Leroy Jones and Katja Toivola with Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 8p Republic: Joker (EL) 9p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Horace Trahan (ZY) 8:30p Rogers Memorial Chapel (Tulane University): Baroque and Beyond Concert (CL) 7p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis and Heirs to the Crescent City (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Taking a Stand with a Brass Band Blowout feat. DJ Captain Charles, Stooges Brass Band (BB) 7p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses: Tom McDermott (PI) 5p, Kettle Black (JV) 7:30p Vaughan’s Lounge: Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Coyotes (ID) 5:30p

FRIDAY JUNE 3

Ace Hotel: Little Maker (FO) 9p B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, Mason Ruffner (BL) 3:30p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Larry Johnson and Jonte Mayon (BL) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Dash Rip Rock (RK) 10p Blue Nile: Balcony Room: Seguenon Kone (AF) 10p Bombay Club: Steve Pistorius (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Jerry Jumonville (JV) 5p, Isla Nola (LT) 8p, Truman Holland and the Back Porch Review (JV) 11p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes (BB) 8:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): Burgundy Burlesque: A Trixie Minx Production (BQ) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Colin Lake (BL) 9p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 6p, Ike Stubblefield Trio (VR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Loose Marbles (JV) 8p, Buena Vista Social Club Latin Night (LT) 11p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Lincoln Durham (RK) 10p Howlin’ Wolf: Hellzapoppin Circus Sideshow Revue, Donny Vomit (VR) 10p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Appleford (FO) 5p, One Tailed Three (FO) 9:30p Maison: Cats in Heat, Dinosaurchestra, Shotgun Jazz Band (VR) 1p, Jesse Smith Project (VR) 11:59p Maple Leaf: Debauche (GY) 11p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a One Eyed Jacks: Pheasants record-release show, Twain, Toonces, Esther Rose (VR) 10p Palm Court Jazz Café: Kevin Louis and James Evans with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall Brass Band feat. Daniel Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Karma (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Mannie Fresh, Juvenile (HH) 9p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 4p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p

Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, the Tanglers (JV) 9p Time Out: Live music (VR) 3p Tipitina’s: KOAN’S 504 Summer Jam feat. Mystikal, KOAN, DJ Skratchmo, PAASKY (HH) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Kathryn Rose Wood (VR) 5:30p

SATURDAY JUNE 4

B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, Mason Ruffner (BL) 3:30p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Larry Johnson and Jonte Mayon (BL) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Marshland (FO) 8p Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 7p BMC: Margie Perez (SO) 9p Bombay Club: Larry Scala Trio (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Jazz Brunch (BL) 11a, Ruby Ross (FO) 5p, the Royal Rounders (JV) 8p, Michael Liuzza (BL) 11p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): New Orleans Swamp Donkeys (VR) 9p Carousel Bar: High Standards Orchestra feat. Graham Hawthorne, Quiana Lynell and David Harris (JV) 9p Crazy Lobster: Reggae Band (RE) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p Creole Cookery: Mark Weliky Trio (JV) 11a d.b.a.: Cats in Heat (JV) 4p, Tuby Skinny (JV) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 11p Dragon’s Den: Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Hustle feat. DJ Soul Sister (FK) 11p House of Blues: Brees Dream Benefit feat. Tim McGraw (CW) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Parsons (FO) 5p, Lonestar Stout (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p, Marc Stone’s Funky Ass DJ Set (FK) 10:30p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Leah Rucker, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 4p, Kumasi, No Good Deed (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: call club (VR) 11p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a One Eyed Jacks: NOLAW (VR) 10p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Kristina Morales and Inner Organ Trio (JV) 8:30p Orpheum Theater: Kevin Gates, Young Greatness (HH) 9p Palm Court Jazz Café: Palm Court Jazz Band with Brian O’Connell, Fred Lonzo and Ernie Elly (TJ) 8p Preservation Hall: Joint Chiefs of Jazz feat. Frank Oxley (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall All-Stars feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Republic: ELEVENS feat. Ekali, SFAM, BLITZ, LoMeyn, Careasthmatic (EL) 11p Rivershack Gretna: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 9p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Yat Pack (JV) 9p Snug Harbor: Ike Stubblefield with Herlin Riley (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Category 6 (VR) 10p Spotted Cat: Antoine Diel and Arsene DeLay (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 10p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bohren (RR) 11a Tipitina’s: the Revealers, Claude Bryant and the AllStars, DJ Rockadread, MC Eric B (VR) 10p

SUNDAY JUNE 5

Banks Street Bar: Kyle Smith (FK) 4p, Kenny Triche Band (SS) 7p BMC: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Jazz Youth Showcase (JV) 4p, Harry Mayronne (JV) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Sweet Olive Duo (BL) 6p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 8p Columns Hotel: Chip Wilson (JV) 11a Crazy Lobster: Reggae Band (RE) 11a, Poppy’s AllStars (VR) 4p

d.b.a.: Soul Brass Band (BB) 3p, Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Lagniappe Brass Band (BB) 10p Dragon’s Den: Jazz Jam with Anuraag Penyal (JV) 7p, Church (EL) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour (CO) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Deaf and Poor (ID) 7p, Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Joy Theater: Gogol Bordello, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls (GY) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Van Hudson (FO) 8p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs (JV) 10a, Royal Street Winding Boys, Eight Dice Cloth, Swinging Gypsies (JV) 1p Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Russell Batiste and Walter “Wolfman” Washington (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a One Eyed Jacks: Chicano Batman (VR) 8p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: South Jones (RK) 9p Palm Court Jazz Café: Gerald French and Tom Fischer with Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Tom McDermott plays Scott Joplin (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Pfister Sisters (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and Bayou Shufflers (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Sunday Youth Music Workshop feat. Smoke N Bones (VR) 1p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Brandon Moreau and Cajungrass (KJ) 2p, Bayou Cajun Swamp Band (KJ) 7p

MONDAY JUNE 6

Banks Street Bar: Lauren Sturm’s Piano Night (JV) 7p, South Jones (RK) 10p Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Albanie Falletta (BL) 6p, Alexis and the Samurai (ID) 8p Columns Hotel: David Doucet (KJ) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Glen David Andrews (JV) 10p Dragon’s Den: the Kala Bazaar (GY) 8p Gasa Gasa: the Sheepdogs, McGregor (RK) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (VR) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Paul Tobin (FO) 8p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, Crooked Vines (JV) 5p Maple Leaf: call club (FK) Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Ooh Poo Pah Doo: James Andrews and the Crescent City All-Stars with Bobby Love and Miss Judy (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 8p the Saint: Motown Mondays with DJ Shane Love (SO) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Joe Cabral (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Rhythm and Rain (RK) 5p, Beach Combers (RK) 9p

TUESDAY JUNE 7

Banks Street Bar: Clint Boyd, Scott Sanders, the Mighty Orq (FO) 7p, Casey Saba (VR) 10p Blue Nile: Open Ears Music Series feat. Naked Orchestra (MJ) 10:30p Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Cary Hudson and the Piney Woods Players (VR) 8p Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p d.b.a.: DinosAurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Hi-Ho Lounge: Marshland (FO) 8p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Adonis Rose Quintet (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Appleford (FO) 8p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 11p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall-Stars feat.

Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 4p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Jay B. Elston Band (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY JUNE 8

Ace Hotel: Trumpet Mafia (JV) 8p Algiers Ferry Dock: Wednesdays on the Point feat.

Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band (ZY) 5:30p Banks Street Bar: Major Bacon (BL) 10p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Dave Hickey and Jacob Tanner (VR) 6p, Meschiya Lake (JV) 8p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Reggae Night (RE) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Shamarr Allen, DJ Chicken (FK) 9p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Spodie and the Big Shots (JV) 6:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Paintbox with Dave James and Tim Robertson (FO) 9p Mag’s 940: the New Soul Finders feat. Marc Stone, Marilyn Barbarin, Paul Boudreaux (SO) 8:30p Mahogany Jazz Hall: Lips and the Trips (RK) 9p Maison: Albanie and her Fellas, Jazz Vipers, Dana Abbott (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Khris Royal presents Ladies Night feat.

Christin Bradford and Cherry Brown (FK) 9p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Cole Williams (FK) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Lars Edegran and Gregg Stafford with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Boogie Men (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 4p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 7p

THURSDAY JUNE 9

Banks Street Bar: Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires (RB) 9p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Alexandra Scott and Josh Paxton (VR) 5p, Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): the Yat Pack (VR) 9p Chiba: Charlie Dennard (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy and Emily Robertson (VR) 6p, Woodenhead with Mark Mullins and Helen Gillet (VR) 8:30p Civic Theater: Travis Tritt (CW) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p Dmac’s: Outlaw Country Jam with Jason Bishop (CW) 7p Dos Jefes: Peter Harris Quartet (JV) 9:30p Dragon’s Den: the Ill Vibe with DJ Matt Scott (VR) 9:30p Evangeline Lounge II: the iLL Vibe feat. DJ Matt Scott and Otto (VR) 11p Fair Grinds Coffeehouse: Open Mic Night hosted by Robert Eustis (SS) 7p Kerry Irish Pub: Foot and friends (FO) 8:30p Maison: the Good For Nothin’ Band, Roamin’ Jasmine, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich and guests (FK) 11p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: After Hours feat. St. Cecilia Asylum Chorus (RR) 6p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Margie Perez and Muevelo (LT) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Tim Laughlin and Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Louis Ford (TJ) 8p Republic: Yung Lean (HH) 9p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Chubby Carrier (ZY) 8:30p Snug Harbor: O’Conner Band feat. Mark O’Conner (JV) 8 & 10p

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Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses: Tom McDermott (JV) 5p, Dr. Sick (JV) 7:30p Tipitina’s: Chris Robinson Brotherhood (BL) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and Treme Funket (FK) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): McGregor (VR) 5:30p

FRIDAY JUNE 10

Ace Hotel: New Creations Brass Band (BB) 9p B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, Mason Ruffner (BL) 3:30p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Larry Johnson and Jonte Mayon (BL) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Somerton Suitcase Pajama Party (VR) 8p Bombay Club: Dave Boswell (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Hannah KB Band (VR) 5p, Margie Perez and Her Funky Boy Band (SO) 8p, Rebecca Leigh (VR) 11p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes (BB) 8:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): Burgundy Burlesque: A Trixie Minx Production (BQ) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Paul Sanchez (RR) 8p, Raw Oyster Cult (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers (ZY) 10p Dos Jefes: Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 10p Dragon’s Den: Loose Marbles (JV) 8p, Buena Vista Social Club Latin Night (LT) 11p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): the Ugly (FK) 10p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Appleford (FO) 5p, Rubin/Wilson Folk-Blues Explosion (FO) 9p Maison: Eight Dice Cloth, Broadmoor Jazz Band, Shotgun Jazz Band (VR) 4p, Resident Alien, Los Po-boy-citos (VR) 10p Maple Leaf: Dave Jordan and the NIA (RR) 11p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Old Point Bar: Rick Trolsen (PI) 5p, Jamie Lynn Vessels (RK) 9:30p One Eyed Jacks: Feufollet (VR) 10p Palm Court Jazz Café: Palm Court Jazz Band with Kevin Louis and James Singleton (TJ) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall Brass Band feat. Daniel Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: No Idea (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Glen David Andrews (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Good Enough For Good Times, the Stoop Kids (VR) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Calvin Johnson and Native Son (JV) 5:30p

SATURDAY JUNE 11

Ashe Cultural Arts Center: Douglas Redd Cultural Summit (VR) 10a B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, Venessa William (BL) 3:30p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Larry Johnson and Jonte Mayon (BL) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Irene Sage, Mike Darby (BL) 10p Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 7p Bombay Club: Leroy Jones (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Jazz Brunch (BL) 11a, Gentilly Lace (VR) 5p, Water Seed All-stars (FK) 8p, Offensive Jazz Quartet (JV) 11p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): New Orleans Swamp Donkeys (VR) 9p Carousel Bar: High Standards Orchestra feat. Graham Hawthorne, Quiana Lynell and David Harris (JV) 9p Civic Theater: St. Lucia, KiND (ID) 10p Crazy Lobster: Reggae Band (RE) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p Creole Cookery: Mark Weliky Trio (JV) 11a d.b.a.: Tuby Skinny (JV) 7p, Pine Leaf Boys (KJ) 11p Dos Jefes: Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots (ZY) 10p Dragon’s Den: Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p Gasa Gasa: Maggie Belle Band, the Quickening (VR) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Brown Improv (CO) 7p, Hustle feat. DJ Soul Sister (FK) 11p Howlin’ Wolf: the Gentlemen Experience feat. Mark Caesar, Rahim Glaspy and Brandon Tarell, Hosted

by Lew Lewis (CO) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Ruby Ross (FO) 5p, Frank Saucier and friends (FO) 9p Louisiana Music Factory: Spyboy Shotgun Slim (MG) 2p, Young Pinstripe Brass Band (BB) 3p

Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Leah Rucker, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 1p, Miss Mojo, Organized Crime (VR) 10p Maple Leaf: Tab Benoit presents the Fuzz (VR) 11p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Orpheum Theater: Kirk Franklin (GS) 8p Palm Court Jazz Café: Brian O’Connell and Lester Caliste with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 8p Pontchartrain Vineyards: Jazz’n the Vines feat. Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 6:30p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Louisiana Spice (VR) 9:30p Roux Carre: Margie Perez (SO) 2p Snug Harbor: Germaine Bazzle and Larry Sieberth Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: the Producers (VR) 7p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: John “Papa” Gros Band (VR) 10p

SUNDAY JUNE 12

BMC: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Jazz Youth Showcase (JV) 4p, Gerald French Trio (JV) 7p Champions Square: Weezer, Panic! at the Disco (RK) 6:30p Chickie Wah Wah: Sweet Olive Duo (BL) 6p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 8p Crazy Lobster: Reggae Band (RE) 11a, Poppy’s AllStars (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Soul Brass Band (BB) 3p, Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p Dragon’s Den: Jazz Jam with Anuraag Penyal (JV) 7p, Church (EL) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour (CO) 8p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs (SI) 10a, Slick Skillets Serenaders, Loose Marbles, Too Darn Hot, Crooked Vines (JV) 1p Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Russell Batiste and Walter “Wolfman” Washington (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Ooh Poo Pah Doo: South Jones (RK) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: New Orleans Loving Festival Closing Party (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Anvil (ME) 8p Spotted Cat: Yvette Voelker and the Swinging Heathens (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and Bayou Shufflers (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

MONDAY JUNE 13

Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Helen Gillet (JV) 7:30p Banks Street Bar: Lauren Sturm’s Piano Showcase (JV) 7p, South Jones (RK) 10p Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Jenna Guidry (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Albanie Falletta (BL) 6p, Alexis and the Samurai (ID) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Watson’s Theory feat. June Yamagishi, Chris Spies, Caren Green and Jermal Watson (VR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Manouche Masters (GY) 8p Gasa Gasa: Steve Gunn and the Outliners, Promised Land Sound (FO) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (VR) 9p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Appleford (FO) 8p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses (VR) 5p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Ooh Poo Pah Doo: James Andrews and the Crescent City All-Stars with Bobby Love and Miss Judy (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 8p the Saint: Motown Mondays with DJ Shane Love (SO) 10p

Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Three Muses: Andre Bohren (JV) 5p, Russell Welch (JV) 7p

TUESDAY JUNE 14

Banks Street Bar: Nicole Ockmond Group (RB) 9p Blue Nile: Open Ears Music Series feat. Dave Easley, Brooks Hubbert, Jeff Albert and Dave Anderson (MJ) 10:30p Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Columns Hotel: Guitarmony with Phil DeGruy, Todd Duke and John Rankin (JV) 8p Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p d.b.a.: DinosAurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Marshland (FO) 8p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Adonis Rose Quintet (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Gregory Agid, Nyce (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 11p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall-Stars feat.

Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Smoothie King Center: Selena Gomez, DNCE (PO) 7:30p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spitfire: Dick Deluxe’s Wheel of Misfortune (SS) 9p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 4p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Jay B. Elston Band (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY JUNE 15

Algiers Ferry Dock: Wednesdays on the Point feat.

Honey Island Swamp Band, Colin Lake (RR) 5:30p B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Larry Johnson (BL) 6:30p Banks Street Bar: Major Bacon (BL) 10p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Dave Hickey and Jacob Tanner (VR) 6p, Meschiya Lake and Tom McDermott (JV) 8p Circle Bar: the Iguanas (RK) 6p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Reggae Night (RE) 10p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Gasa Gasa: White Reaper (RK) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Shamarr Allen, DJ Chicken (FK) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Vincent Marini (FO) 8:30p Maison: Dinosaurchestra, Jazz Vipers, Mutiny Squad (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Khris Royal and Dark Matter feat. the Music of Danny Abel (FK) 9p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Cole Williams (FK) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Swing Night with Joe Krown (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 4p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Schatzy (JV) 7p

THURSDAY JUNE 16

Banks Street Bar: the Warheadz feat. the Most Infamous (HH) 9p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Alexandra Scott and Josh Paxton (VR) 5p, Doyle Cooper Jazz Band (JV) 9p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): the Yat Pack (VR) 9p Carver Theater: Boosie Badazz, Kidd Kidd, Juvenile Hosted by Rude Jude, Greg D., Geezy Allstar (HH) 8p Chiba: Charlie Wooten (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy and Emily Robertson (VR) 6p, Roosterfoot (VR) 8:30p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Little Freddie King (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: the Ill Vibe with DJ Matt Scott (VR) 9:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Dave Hickey (FO) 8:30p Maison: the Good For Nothin’ Band, Asylum Chorus, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich and guests (FK) 11p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Ogden Museum of Southern Art: After Hours feat. DJ Alfa Leone and DJ Quickie Mart (HH) 6p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Louis Ford (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Geno Delafose (ZY) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Jonathan Freilich presents JFree and the Lowdown (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses: Dave Hull (JV) 5p, Dr. Sick (JV) 7:30p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and Treme Funket (FK) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Noah Young Trio (VR) 5:30p

FRIDAY JUNE 17

Banks Street Bar: Honey Tangerine’s Tangerine Dreams (BQ) 10p Bombay Club: Phillip Manuel (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Davis Rogan (VR) 5p, the Asylum Chorus (VR) 8p, Lynn Drury (FO) 11p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes (BB) 8:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): Burgundy Burlesque: A Trixie Minx Production (BQ) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Roosterfoot (VR) 8p, Seth Walker (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Hickoids, DiNola, Pure Luck (VR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Loose Marbles (JV) 8p, Buena Vista Social Club Latin Night (LT) 11p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p Historic New Orleans Collection: Concerts in the Courtyard feat. Sweet Crude (ID) 6p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 5p, Van Hudson and friends (FO) 9p Maison: Swamp Kitchen, Broadmoor Jazz Band, Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 1p, Shotgun Jazz Band, Street Legends (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: Eagle Saloon Secret Show Fundraiser (VR) 11p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a New Orleans Museum of Art: Alexandra Scott and Josh Paxton (JV) 5:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Wendell Brunious (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall Brass Band feat. Daniel Farrow (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Tab Benoit, John “Papa” Gros Band (BL) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: the Molly Ringwalds (VR) 9p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 6p, Marc Stone (BL) 9p Tipitina’s: New Orleans Suspects, Brent Anderson Duo (FK) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Phil the Tremelo King and the Uptown Downtown Orchestra (VR) 5:30p

SATURDAY JUNE 18

Ace Hotel: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 9p Banks Street Bar: On a Fox Hunt (RK) 10p Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 7p, MainLine (FK) 11p Bombay Club: Los Tres Amigos (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Jazz Brunch (JV) 11a, Steve DeTroy (JV) 5p, Dapper Dandies (JV) 8p, Jeremy Joyce Trio (JV) 11p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): New Orleans Swamp Donkeys (VR) 9p Carousel Bar: High Standards Orchestra feat. Graham Hawthorne, Quiana Lynell and David Harris (JV) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Roosterfoot (VR) 9p City Park: Roots Reggae Culture Festival (RE) 10a Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p Creole Cookery: Mark Weliky Trio (JV) 11a d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 8p Dos Jefes: Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots (ZY) 10p Dragon’s Den: Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Hustle feat. DJ Soul Sister (FK) 11p Kerry Irish Pub: Speed the Mule (FO) 5p, Sista Slick (FO) 9p Mag’s 940: Marc Stone and John Mooney (BL) 5p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires, Swinging Gypsies, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 1p, the Essentials, Brass Lightning (FK) 10p Maple Leaf: Gristle Candy feat. John Gros, Jake Eckert, Alex McMurray, Casandra Faulconer, Russ Broussard (VR) 11p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Preservation Hall: Joint Chiefs of Jazz feat. Frank Oxley (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p

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Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Contraflow (RK) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Herlin Riley Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Three Muses: Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bohren (RR) 11a

SUNDAY JUNE 19

Ace Hotel: Bon Bon Vivant’s High Noon Dance (SI) 12p Banks Street Bar: Kyle Smith (FK) 4p, Simple Sound Retreat (VR) 8p BMC: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 9p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Jazz Youth Showcase (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius and friends (JV) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Sweet Olive Duo (BL) 6p, Whippoorwills (JV) 8p City Park: Roots Reggae Culture Festival (RE) 10a Crazy Lobster: the Gator Baits (VR) 11a, Poppy’s All-Stars (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Soul Brass Band (BB) 3p, Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p Dragon’s Den: Jazz Jam with Anuraag Penyal (JV) 7p, Church (EL) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour (CO) 8p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs (SI) 10a, Royal Street Winding Boys, Slick Skillet Serenaders, Leah Rucker, Corporate America (VR) 1p Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Russell Batiste and Walter “Wolfman” Washington (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Cajun Fais Do Do with Bruce Daigrepont 5:30p Smoothie King Center: R. Kelly (RB) 8p Snug Harbor: Cindy Scott Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: G and the Swinging Three (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and Bayou Shufflers (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Sunday Youth Music Workshop feat. Johnny Vidacovich Trio with Chris Severin and Cliff Hines (VR) 1p

MONDAY JUNE 20

Banks Street Bar: Lauren Sturm’s Piano Showcase (PI) 7p, South Jones (RK) 10p Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Jenna Guidry (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Albanie Falletta (BL) 6p, Alexis and the Samurai (ID) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Watson’s Theory feat. Joe Ashlar, Josh Hawkins, Caren Green and Jermal Watson (VR) 10p Dragon’s Den: Dr. Sick and Gypsy Jazz Jukebox (GY) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (VR) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Claire Cannon and Kenna Mae (FO) 8:30p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, Resident Alien (VR) 5p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Ooh Poo Pah Doo: James Andrews and the Crescent City All-Stars with Bobby Love and Miss Judy (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 8p the Saint: Motown Mondays with DJ Shane Love (SO) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. AllStars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Washboard Rodeo (JV) 7p Tipitina’s: Los Van Van (VR) 8:30p

TUESDAY JUNE 21

Banks Street Bar: the Effective (RB) 9p Blue Nile: Open Ears Music Series feat. Jeff Albert, Dave Capello and Nick Benoit (MJ) 10:30p Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Matt Perrine (VR) 8p d.b.a.: DinosAurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Marshland (FO) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Gregory Agid, Willie Green Project (JV) 4p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 11p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall-Stars feat.

Shannon Powell (TJ) 8p Siberia: Kelcy Mae (FO) 10p Snug Harbor: Sansone, Krown and Fohl (JV) 8 & 10p Tipitina’s: Lake Street Dive, Walker Lukens and the Side Arms (VR) 8p

WEDNESDAY JUNE 22

Algiers Ferry Dock: Wednesdays on the Point feat. King James and the Special Men, Little Freddie King (RB) 5:30p Banks Street Bar: Major Bacon (BL) 10p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Dave Hickey and Jacob Tanner (VR) 6p Circle Bar: the Iguanas (RK) 6p, Littler (PO) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Reggae Night (RE) 10p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Shamarr Allen, DJ Chicken (FK) 9p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Davy Mooney (JV) 5p, Irvin Mayfield and the NOJO Jam (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Spodie and the Big Shots (JV) 6:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Mahogany Jazz Hall: Lips and the Trips (RK) 9p Maison: Cool Nasty, Loose Marbles (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: Khris Royal and Dark Matter presents Electro Rage with Lucas Wylie (FK) 9p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Cole Williams (FK) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Clockwork Elvis (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Sarah McCoy (JV) 7p

THURSDAY JUNE 23

Banks Street Bar: De Lune Deluge, Valaska (RK) 9p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Alexandra Scott and Josh Paxton (VR) 5p, New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): the Yat Pack (VR) 9p Champions Square: Rick Springfield, Night Ranger, Loverboy (CR) 9p Chiba: Keiko Komaki (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy and Emily Robertson (VR) 6p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Otra (LT) 10p Dragon’s Den: the Ill Vibe with DJ Matt Scott (VR) 9:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Crossing Canal with Ruby Ross and Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Maison: the Good For Nothin’ Band, Loose Marbles, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich and guests (FK) 11p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Lil’ Nathan and the Big Tymers (ZY) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Steve Masakowski Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses: Dave Hull (JV) 5p Tipitina’s: the Foreign Exchange, Tales From the Land of Milk and Honey (VR) 9p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 5p, Nonc Nu and Da Wild Matous (KJ) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and Treme Funket (FK) 10p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Coyotes and friends (ID) 5:30p

FRIDAY JUNE 24

Banks Street Bar: Layden and the Lion (SS) 7p, CC Funkateers (RB) 10p Bombay Club: Kris Tokarski Duo (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: Swamp Kitchen (JV) 5p, Bayou Saints with Arsene DeLay (JV) 8p, Gumbo Cabaret with Kelley and Rebecca (VR) 11p Bullet’s: Original Pinettes (BB) 8:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): Burgundy Burlesque: A Trixie Minx Production (BQ) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Michael Pearce (BL) 6p, Ramsey Lewis Tribute feat. Charlie Dennard (VR) 8p Dragon’s Den: Loose Marbles (JV) 8p; Buena Vista Social Club Latin Night (LT) 11p; Upstairs: Comedy Fuck Yeah (CO) 7p Gasa Gasa: New Madrid (ID) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: Snake Oil Festival: Carnival at the Crossroads (BQ) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Paul Ferguson (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p

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JUNE 2016

Little Gem Saloon: Marc Stone Trio (BL) 8p Maison: G and the Swinging 3, Luneta Jazz Band, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 1p, Crooked Vines, No Good Deed (VR) 10p Maple Leaf: Funk Monkey feat. members of Bonerama (FK) 11p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a New Orleans Museum of Art: NOLA String Quartet (JV) 5:30p Old Point Bar: Rick Trolsen (PI) 5p, Jamie Lynn Vessels (RK) 9:30p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Sturmlandia (VR) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Topcats (VR) 9:30p Saenger Theatre: Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen (VR) 8p Snug Harbor: Dr. Michael White’s Original Liberty Jazz Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson (JV) 4p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Russell Welch (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Honey Island Swamp Band (RR) 10p Tropical Isle Original: Down River (RK) 1p, the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p W XYZ Bar (Aloft): Tank and the Bangas (VR) 5:30p

SATURDAY JUNE 25

Ace Hotel: Ponderosa Stomp Presents (RR) 9p Banks Street Bar: LA Modified Dolls (BQ) 9p Bombay Club: Tim Laughlin (JV) 8:30p Buffa’s: New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp Lagniappe Jam (JV) 11a, Kris Tokarski (JV) 5p, Doyle Cooper Jazz Band (JV) 8p, Gentilly Stompers with Catie Rodgers (JV) 11p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): New Orleans Swamp Donkeys (VR) 9p Carousel Bar: High Standards Orchestra feat. Graham Hawthorne, Quiana Lynell and David Harris (JV) 9p Chickie Wah Wah: Cool Nasty (VR) 9p, Tank and the Bangas (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p Creole Cookery: Mark Weliky Trio (JV) 11a d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 8p Dragon’s Den: Upstairs: Talk Nerdy to Me (BQ) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: the Rip Off Show (CO) 7p, Hustle feat.

DJ Soul Sister (FK) 11p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Jay Z Tribute/Reasonable Doubt 20-Year Anniversary (HH) 10p Howlin’ Wolf: Snake Oil Festival: Hoochie Coochie Babylon (BQ) 9p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Leroy Jones Quintet (JV) 8p Joy Theater: RuPaul’s Drag Race (VR) 9p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Neisha Ruffins (JV) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Parsons (FO) 5p, Roux the Day (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Dr. Michael White (JV) 7p Maison: Chance Bushman and the Ibervillianaires (JV) 1p, Cajun/Country Fais Do Do with T’Canaille and Marshland (KJ) 4p, Smoking Time Jazz Club, Chegadao (VR) 7p Maple Leaf: RumpelSTEELskin, Space and Harmony (VR) 11p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old Point Bar: Isla Nola (LT) 9:30p Pontchartrain Vineyards: Jazz’n the Vines feat. the Iguanas (RK) 6:30p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Boogie Men (VR) 9:30p Saenger Theatre: Whoopi Goldberg (CO) 8p Snug Harbor: Jacqui Naylor Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Me and My Friends (VR) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Salvatore Geloso (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bohren (RR) 11a

SUNDAY JUNE 26

Banks Street Bar: Kyle Smith (FK) 4p, Hollow Ends, Reed Lightfoot (FO) 8p Bombay Club: David Boeddinghaus (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Jazz Youth Showcase (JV) 4p, Gerald French Trio (JV) 7p Chickie Wah Wah: Sweet Olive Duo (BL) 6p, Fortifiers (JV) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Baits (VR) 11a, Poppy’s All-Stars (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Soul Brass Band (BB) 3p, Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p Dos Jefes: Michael Liuzza and Co. (JV) 9p Dragon’s Den: Jazz Jam with Anuraag Penyal (JV) 7p, Church (EL) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: NOLA Comedy Hour (CO) 8p Howlin’ Wolf: Snake Oil Festival: the Unholy Roller Revival (BQ) 9p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p

Kerry Irish Pub: Traditional Irish Session (IR) 5p, Chip Wilson (FO) 8p Maison: Chance Bushman and the NOLA Jitterbugs (SI) 10a, Cats in Heat, Brad Walker, Higher Heights (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Russell Batiste and Walter “Wolfman” Washington (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Snug Harbor: Gentilly Groove Masters (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jamey St. Pierre and the Honeycreepers (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and Bayou Shufflers (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Trinity Episcopal Church: Trinity Patriotic Music Festival feat. U.S. Marine Corps Concert Band, Ellis Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis’ Uptown Jazz Orchestra (JV) 3p

MONDAY JUNE 27

Banks Street Bar: Lauren Sturm’s Piano Showcase (PI) 7p, South Jones (RK) 10p Bombay Club: Josh Paxton (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Albanie Falletta (BL) 6p, Alexis and the Samurai (ID) 8p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p d.b.a.: MainLine (BB) 11p Dragon’s Den: Hot Club of Barbacoa (GY) 8p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Instant Opus Improvised Series (VR) 9p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Maison: Chicken and Waffles, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, Jesse Smith Project (JV) 5p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio (FK) 10p Mardi Gras World: Vans Warped Tour (VR) 11a Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Ooh Poo Pah Doo: James Andrews and the Crescent City All-Stars with Bobby Love and Miss Judy (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Jazz Masters feat.

Leroy Jones (TJ) 8p the Saint: Motown Mondays with DJ Shane Love (SO) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. AllStars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Andre Bohren (JV) 5p, Joe Cabral (JV) 7p

TUESDAY JUNE 28

Banks Street Bar: Gypsy Elise (JV) 9p Blue Nile: Open Ears Music Series feat. Jasen Weaver Band (MJ) 10:30p Bombay Club: Matt Lemmler (PI) 8p Buffa’s: Benefit for New Orleans Musicians Clinic with the Squirrel Nut Zippers (SI) 6 & 8:30p Chickie Wah Wah: Cary Hudson and the Piney Woods Players (VR) 8p Columns Hotel: John Rankin and Spencer Bohren (JV) 8p Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p d.b.a.: DinosAurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Marshland (FO) 8p Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse: Adonis Rose Quintet (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Maison: Swinging Gypsies, Gregory Agid, Cool Nasty (JV) 4p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 11p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson (JV) 4p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Jay B. Elston Band (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY JUNE 29

Ace Hotel: Kettle Black (JV) 8p Algiers Ferry Dock: Wednesdays on the Point feat. Bag of Donuts (VR) 5:30p B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Larry Johnson (BL) 6:30p Banks Street Bar: Major Bacon (BL) 10p Bombay Club: John Royen (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Dragon’s Den: Reggae Night (RE) 10p French Market: Patrick Cooper, Natasha Sanchez and Ruby Ross (FO) 2p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters feat. Big Al (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Shamarr Allen, DJ Chicken (FK) 9p

Kerry Irish Pub: Vincent Marini (FO) 8:30p Mahogany Jazz Hall: Lips and the Trips (RK) 9p Maison: Eight Dice Cloth, TK Groove (VR) 6:30p Maple Leaf: Khris Royal and Dark Matter presents ‘80s Night (FK) 9p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Cole Williams (FK) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Creole Stringbeans (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 4p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p Tropical Isle Original: Debi and the Deacons (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

THURSDAY JUNE 30

B.B. King’s Blues Club: B.B. King All-Stars feat. Stevie J. Blues (BL) 12p, B.B. King All-Stars feat. Jonte Mayon (BL) 6:30p Banks Street Bar: ASD (VR) 9p Bombay Club: Davy Mooney Duo (JV) 8p Buffa’s: Alexandra Scott and Josh Paxton (VR) 5p, Doyle Cooper Jazz Band (JV) 9p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 6:30p Burgundy Bar (the Saint Hotel): the Yat Pack (VR) 9p Chiba: Tom Worrell (JV) 8p Chickie Wah Wah: Phil DeGruy and Emily Robertson (VR) 6p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p Dragon’s Den: the Ill Vibe with DJ Matt Scott (VR) 9:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Mark Parsons (FO) 8:30p Maison: the Good For Nothin’ Band, Dysfunktional Bone (VR) 4p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich and guests (FK) 11p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: After Hours feat.

Andre Bohren (CL) 6p Ooh Poo Pah Doo: Margie Perez and Muevelo (LT) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Hall Legacy Band feat.

Gregg Stafford (TJ) 6p, Preservation Hall All-Stars feat. Lucien Barbarin (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas (ZY) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Ed Petersen and the Test (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sarah McCoy and the Oopsie Daisies (JV) 4p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses: Dave Hull (JV) 5p Tipitina’s: Reverend Horton Heat, Unknown Hinson, Koffin Kats, Lincoln Durham (VR) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and Treme Funket (FK) 10p

FESTIVALS JUNE 4-5 The New Orleans Oyster Festival takes place in Woldenberg Park. NolaOysterFest.org JUNE 11-12 The French Market presents its 30th annual Creole Tomato Festival at the French Market and Old U.S. Mint. FrenchMarket.org JUNE 11-12 The Audubon Institute celebrates World Oceans Day with a two-day Oceanfest at the zoo and aquarium.

AudubonNatureInstitute.org/Event/1316-WorldOceans-Day-Oceanfest JUNE 18-19 The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation presents its 10th annual Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival at Armstrong Park. JazzAndHeritage.org JUNE 18-19 The inaugural Roots Reggae Culture Fest takes place in City Park. RRCFest.com ONGOING Thomas Mann Gallery I/O, (1812 Magazine St., 504-581-2113) is exhibiting functional and decorative sculpture by Hernan Caro and a group show of art jewelry and metalsmithing by international artists; both through June.

SPECIAL EVENTS JUNE 19-24 The N. O. Traditional Jazz Camp presents the first of two jazz summer camps. The second is from July 30Aug. 4. NewOrleansTraditionalJazzCamp.com

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BACKTALK

Chris Robinson

talks back

Chris Robinson on right

photo: JAY BLAKESBERG

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t’s been over 50 years since bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company burst out of the San Francisco scene, taking the lead on a psychedelic revolution that expanded the boundaries of rock ’n’ roll. Of course, it wasn’t just boundaries that were expanded, but minds as well. Lord knows how many humans have been inspired to take a different path—the road less travelled, perhaps—by some piece of music from that place and time. Art may imitate life, but we all know it has a way of shaping it too.

The legacy of the San Francisco scene is vast, yet no discussion of the era’s modern incarnation would be complete without mentioning Chris Robinson. The singer and guitarist has been at the forefront of the traditional psychedelic rock movement since his previous band, the Black

Crowes, rose to prominence in the early ’90s, and he’s gone further down that road with his latest project, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood.

Psychedelic music has become more diffuse since the 1960s (we have electronica, and time, to thank for much of that), but few bands have stayed as true to the genre’s roots as the CRB have in recent years. Fewer still have done so with as much success.

The six-year-old ensemble—which currently features Robinson (guitar/vocals), Neal Casal (guitar/vocals), Adam MacDougall (keys), Jeff Hill (bass) and Tony Leone (drums)—has been a veritable touring juggernaut since its inception, often racking up 100-plus dates in a single trip around the sun. One of those lengthy tours will bring them to Tipitina’s on June 9, where they’ll deliver a two-set show in support of their forthcoming album, Anyway You Love, We Know How You Feel.

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By Sam D’Arcangelo

We caught up with Robinson to talk about the new record (slated for release on July 29), the band’s love for Northern California, making music outside the industry model and more.

Your upcoming album Anyway You Love, We Know How You Feel seems a bit more studio-polished in comparison to your earlier releases. Was that something you guys were going for?

Yeah. I think, like anything else, if you’re at least somewhat conscious of being in your moment that, generally, things should be a little bit different. I think we were lucky enough, in this band, to have a sonic arc.

I think we realized the first releases had to be more expansive. Even after the first 100 shows that we did in the first year—or 114 or whatever—we went in the studio and it was still more about us finding out who we were.

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“For me, the success of the Grateful Dead isn’t as interesting as the struggles of the Grateful Dead, in terms of what I identify with.”

But six years have gone by, with personnel changes and a few tweaks here and there, and we definitely have a more firm grasp on our sonic personalities and stuff. So I think that’s really what you’re hearing. It’s just us kind of getting deeper into it.

Musically, at least, the album has a very positive vibe to it—it kind of bounces along exuding positivity. Is that the kind of state you guys are in right now? Is that what you are trying to put out there?

I think that—definitely for us in our sort of California egg state, where we grew up and hatched in California—that California is such a big part of the backdrop and it’s interwoven into what we are doing. So yeah, I think it should be about being positive and being progressive but I don’t think it’s overtly goofy or too giddy. If anything, this record, lyrically, has a little more of a somber tone to some of it. A melancholy [tone] or whatever.

The vibes we want to put out are… dance music and party music is all fine and stuff, but you’re allowed to throw a little poetry in there. People can dance and hang and be a part of something and get some imagery in their minds. It’s like, “Oh what are you, in the renaissance fair, speaking Old English and stuff?” But for lots of us, it’s still a super vital and dynamic way to express yourself.

Definitely. So this is also your first album with Tony Leone on drums. What did he bring to the table? Did you guys just jump right in with him?

Well I think that was part of the master plan.

When we knew we wanted to change directions with our drummer, instead of going right into the studio, we played another 100 or so shows.

That’s another 300 hours on stage and then also rehearsals. And it’s not that Tony couldn’t just sit down at any session and kill it, but I think there is just a different level of confidence that comes with that too. When we started this band, the whole point of it was that I want—and we want—to never tell anyone what to play. You know what I mean? I can write the majority of these songs and insert my two cents or whatever here and there, but everyone has the same perspective. Everyone is free to play what they want to play and find the groove they want to find. That’s why it sounds confident. It’s just that everyone is on the same page.

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You mentioned how integral California was to what you guys are doing, but when people think of your early career it’s viewed as coming from the South. The Black Crowes, it seems, are usually linked with Southern rock. What it is about Northern California that has made it such a part of what you do?

Well, I moved to California in 1991. Yeah, I left. You know, it’s funny because the Black Crowes were a Southern band in terms of us being from Atlanta, but our aesthetic and influences were always so English in terms of what we liked about rock ’n’ roll music. I’m talking early days. I guess that all the music that I’m interested in, as a base, is roots music: jazz, funk, bluegrass, folk, country music, early rock ’n’ roll, world music, Indian classical music. Then my other interest, my esoteric taste, is avant-garde and electronic composers and all sorts of stuff.

California has a great tradition of musicians moving here and letting it adopt them, or vice versa. You kind of surrender to California, if you will. Whether that’s Leon Russell coming from Oklahoma, or Stephen Stills or Neil Young. Even Gregg and Duane Allman came out to L.A. to try and do their thing. All sorts of people found their way out to California and identify with it. I think that’s part of the legacy as well.

Like I said, I was in Southern California first, so only recently have we been spending all our time in Northern California. That concert culture that we all still use as the model was born here with Bill Graham and stuff. For me, the success of the Grateful Dead isn’t as interesting as the struggles of the Grateful Dead, in terms of what I identify with. I identify with the outsider nature of what that scene was. I’ve been given this opportunity to be in an outsider band that doesn’t have any deep connections to the music business as any conventional thing. And part of loving music is knowing the history of some of it. We all step in a pile of dog shit occasionally while growing up, but you don’t want to keep stepping in the same dog shit. You want to eventually find your way around it. The part of it that is inspiring to me is that it’s where the Pandora’s box was opened for all of this psychedelic rock ’n’ roll stuff. There is a lot of information here and a lot of good vibes.

You brought up the Grateful Dead and, much like them, you guys are circumventing the music industry model, sticking to the road and all of that. Can you just talk a little bit about how that’s been working out for you and how you guys have been able to do that?

It’s about everyone’s group mindset. If you open a small organic farm or something, you know you’re not going to use these seeds from this corporation or you’re not going to use these poisonous chemicals. You’ve already made the decision to not be a hugely successful corporate farm and deal in the way that other farms are dealing, or this would be easier. So if everyone can be on the same page, that this is built on our vision, our passion and our hard work, then it becomes a lot easier. Everyone gets grumpy sometimes.

Everyone has good days and bad days.

Everyone has good shows and bad shows, but we are really into this band and this music and the way it sounds. We are into our scene and the people that come see us. We like the little community that we started. We know people are ready to come to see our presentation. It’s not the typical jam band presentation, but it’s not the typical rock band presentation either.

We like our little niche. It’s never exactly what people think it is going to be until they come, and then they are a part of it or they’re not.

Ultimately that’s what keeps everyone in the space and focused on what we all want to be doing. If we nurture that, positive things happen. It’s like the old hippy said: “Forward.

Never straight, man.”

You guys will be back at Tipitina’s on June 9. It will be your second time coming here in eight months. Is there something about that venue and this city that you guys appreciate?

Doesn’t every musician have something to appreciate with that venue? The locals in New Orleans like to get down. People come there for one reason: because they like to get down. That’s kind of where we’re at our best as well. So yeah, we are always happy to be there. God, I’ve been playing there for a long time. One of my first gigs was at Carrollton Station or something. We were still teenagers.

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