New Orleans Social Club Sings Its Way Home

In April 2006 I wrote reviews on several post-Katrina benefit albums. This is the third and last review of those I am posting. Here is the first which originally appeared in the April 2006 (issue 281) of Jazz & Blues Report as well as the April 2006 DC Blues Calendar, then the DC Blues Society’s newsletter. I likely received a review copy, not sure if from the record company, a publicist or Jazz & Blues Report. There is also a live recording of them from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival that is available from jazzfestlive.com. Sadly some acts including Willie Tee have passed on.

The New Orleans Social Club’s Sing Me Back Home (Burgundy Records) is a collection of performances Cut last October in Austin. Dr. John and Irma Thomas (here with Marcia Ball) are the only performers on the Nonesuch disc, Our New Orleans, that are here.

Cyril Neville opens with the Impressions’ protest ballad, This is My Country, followed by Ivan Neville (Aaron’s son) funk reworking of Fortunate Son, with the lyrics about the “millionaire’s son” and “I ain’t no fortunate one,” reverberating with a once again timely message. Somewhere from “West Side Story,” takes a new meaning in light of Katrina as Henry Butler sings “There’s a place for us.” Irma Thomas & Marcia Ball sing about keeping a smile and a sense of things being better on Look Up, while Dr. John, with band, revisits Bobby Charles’ Walking to New Orleans (originally Fats Domino’s hit), although this time with a funk groove and not as gloomy as the take he did that closed one of the televised Katrina benefits.

Troy ‘Trombone Shorty’ Andrews, a threat on both trumpet and trombone, gets the spotlight on Hey Troy' Your Mama's Callin' You, a lively Caribbean-flavored instrumental. The Mighty Clouds of Joy contribute a gospel number while the Subdudes take on Earl King’s Make a Better World. New Orleans legend, Willie Tee contributes First Taste of Hurt, while the Sixth Ward All-Star Brass Band Revue featuring Charles Neville do Where Y’at, a medley of songs associated with Brass bands including Jesus is on the Mainline, I’m Walkin’, and (When) The Saints Go Marching In).

Big Chief Monk Boudreaux’s Chase is set to a reggae grove with its lyric questioning why one wants to send him away from home. Singer John Boutté closes with the moving ballad by Annie Lennox, Why, which is an amazing performance to close another album of terrific music.

New Atlantis Tells Story How Music and Musicians Are Helping rebuild New Orleans

New Atlantis: Musicians Battle For The Survival of New Orleans
John Swenson
Oxford University Press


Music journalist and scholar John Swenson has authored an important new book about the efforts of New Orleans musicians to help rebuild and restore their city after the "federal flood" that occurred after the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina. After an opening chapter dealing with the Voice of the Wetlands project that Tab Benoit had initiated prior to the Hurricane, and a chapter on the Mardi Gras Indians, Swenson interweaves the rebuilding of the city and music scene and the return of some of the musicians who returned over time.


It isn't an easy recovery. For some who came back, there were others who never would, or would pass away not long after returning. And the early returnees came to a city occupied by the National Guard and terrible street violence with musicians and tourists not being safe from gang related violence. But there are James and Troy (Trombone Shorty) Andrews returning to New Orleans 17 days after Katrina to play at Jackson Square at ceremonies associated with the President's speech and having to deal with what they saw.


Musicians slowly came back and started playing but as Swenson observes they did more than simply make music. Craig Klein of Bonerama started the Arabi Wrecking Crew to help gut ruined houses and then partnered with a group building a musicians community. And then there is music such as that by harmonica player Andy Forest with a recording "Real Story," while Coco Robichaux started playing at Molly's when the lights went back on there, and a group including Walter 'Wolfman' Washington played a concert at the Maple Leaf that the National Guard closed down at 8:00PM after curfew, and James Andrews playing a concert at the Ogden Museum, resuming its concert series that Katrina had interrupted.


Taking us through Halloween and Mardi Gras, Swenson introduces us to a variety of individuals (some famous nationally and others local) such as DJ Davis, the real person who served as the basis for the character on the HBO show "Tremé," Paul Sanchez, Papa John Gros, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Dr. John, Dr. Michael White (the great clarinetist who lost countless and irreplaceable musical artifacts in the federal flood), Theresa Anderson, John Boutté, Evan Christopher, Susan Cowsill, Glen David Andrews, the Radiators and others.


There was a protest against the street violence that the musicians were a major force behind as well as important efforts to revive neighborhoods and communities. He discusses a variety of recordings as well as performances and the unique relationship between the musicians and their fans from not just the city but around the world. Swenson's draws the reader into the rich tapestry of people and events that he so compellingly tells us about. It is a superb and import book of a story that still is unfinished and is recommended to anybody who loves New Orleans and its music.


I received an advance review copy from Amazon.com's Vine program, but had purchased this for my kindle.

John Boutté Crescent City Vocal Magic

John Boutté at 2011 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Photo © Ron Weinstock

I had heard of John Boutté and even purchased his CD Jambalaya prior to ever having a chance to see him perform. His performance of Louisiana 1927 from the first post-Katrina JazzFest, issued on a WWOZ CD for members, was one of the most compelling vocal performances I had heard in some time, and supplanted Marcia Ball for delivering the definitive performance of this Randy Newman song, of course enhanced by new lyrics and a terrific Leroy jones trumpet solo. Finally getting to see him a few years ago, he has become one of the must see acts at the New Orleans JazzFest, if his performances are the same weekend as I attend. Also, I have been fortunate to stay for his entire sets this year and 2009 as well as much of the set in 2010.


Boutté’s sets are also fortunately documented by JazzFest Live, the service that makes available on either CD or download, a number of performances from each year’s festival (Check jazzfestlive.com). This year’s set (from April 30, 2011 at the WWOZ Jazz Tent) was no exception so I am able to savor the performance I enjoyed in person. And what is striking is how his sets may have overlap in songs between years, but partly with different bands, but also partly from his own fresh interpretation of the same material, performances have a different character.


This year he had a full horn section with a piano-less band that included a fine band. The difference allows even songs performed one year after another like the Steve Goodman classic City of New Orleans (Arlo Guthrie did not write it) to sound transformed from his studio (and did the nice trombone solo in addition to trumpet), or earlier live performance from 2009. Same can be said of the traditional gospel “Beautiful City, titled by the JazzFestLive folks as One of These Days, with the earlier performance standing out with forceful acoustic guitar and trumpet in its sparser backing.


Then there is the jazz standard that opens this, Basin Street Blues, and a wonderful rendition of Little Willie John’s “Let Them Talk (titled by JazzFest Live as I Want The World To Know) done as a tribute to the legendary James Booker with nice horn voicings in support. Particularly moving is the moving rendition of his post-Katrina collaboration with Paul Sanchez Try to Find a Meaning, which he dedicated to those suffering in the Midwest US and Japan suffering from the natural disasters of the first part of 2011. 

John Boutté - Photo © Ron Weinstock

Boutté combines a marvelous delivery of a song’s lyrics with a way of phrasing that is completely engaging, mixed with a warm stage presence. Then there is also a wonderful rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, with lovely flute accompaniment. By the time John Boutté closed with Treme Song, which many will know from the HBO series Treme, the audience had been satiated with his performance even if we wanted it to continue for another hour. And like his other JazzFest performances available from JazzFest Live, this sounds so very good back home.


I look forward to my next opportunity to listen to a musical Boutté call. 

Meet Me on Frenchman Street

Mystery Street Records is an affiliate of the fan-funded Threadhead Records, that was established after Hurricane Katrina, as a way for lovers of New Orleans, its food, culture, architecture and music, to assist in the recovery of the city and its musical scene. It issued earlier this year Frenchman Street, an anthology of New Orleans music mostly derived from Threadhead Records, but also including rare material from other sources.

Frenchman Street is itself in the Bywater area just outside the French Quarter and the location of music venues such as Snug Harbor, d.b.a., The Spotted Cat, Blue Nile, and other music venues where one can hear Jazz Bands, Trad bands, Funk bands and more to paraphrase Shamarr Allen’s delightful Meet Me on Frenchman Street on which fellow trumpeter Kermit Ruffins joins for a celebration of the scene there. Songwriter Alex McMurray perhaps echoes what many might think when he sings You’ve Got to Be Crazy to Live In This Town, while blues and R&B singer Jesse Moore is heard on When the Hoodoo Come Down from a pre-Katrina CD. Glen David Andrews may be better known for gospel but his Dumaine Street Blues is a blues with brass band seasoning followed by The New Orleans Night Crawlers” with the invocation to party, Alright Alright.

Margie Perez & the King Cake Babies celebrate Mardi Gras Carnival, while Holley Bendtsen & Amasa Miller, joined by the Pfister Singers take us Down to Jazz Fest. Echoes of trad jazz support Paul Sanchez on his Exit to Mystery Street, while he is joined by John Boutté for their collaboration Stew Called New Orleans from a fine Threadhead disc by the two. The disc closes with Boutté’s updated take (from the 2006 JazzFest) of Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927 with his biting new lyrics about President Bush’s response to Katrina and the levees failing in addition to Newman’s lyrics about floods in cajun Louisiana. Previously it was available on a limited edition WWOZ fundraiser but this release makes this available to a larger audience and would almost be reason enough to buy this varied compilation by itself. But there are 11 other additional reasons for obtaining this lively collection.

Previously I ran my review of the Mystery Street compilation Vieux Carre and this is a companion to it. I purchased this disc.

Mystery Street's Fine Collection of Contemporary New Orleans SOunds

Mystery Street Records is an affiliate of the fan-funded Threadhead Records, that was established after Hurricane Katrina, as a way for lovers of New Orleans, its food, culture, architecture and music, to assist in the recovery of the city and its musical scene. Mystery Street has just issued the second anthology of New Orleans music, Vieux Carré, that presents a wide range of music that might be heard in The fabled French Quarter. 14 selections from a variety of sources (not simply Threadhead productions) make for a throughly entertaining hour or so of listening.

Just to give a sampling of the contents there is an engaging rendition of Smiley Lewis’ Hook Line and Slinker, by the Creole String Beans, Ingrid Lucia’s sultry Midnight Rendezvous, John Boutté, Bill Lynn and Paul Sanchez joined by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for a cynical look at BP’s response to its Oil Well spill, Nobody Knows Nothin’, Tricia Boutté and the Norwegian Ytre Suloens Jass-Ensemble on a stirring gospel Keep Your Hands On the Plough (I downloaded the underlying CD Oh Mahalia after hearing this), Holley Bendtsen & Amasa Miller on a wonderful song about missing New Orleans, Creole Moon, Ensemble Fatien’s African-jazz reworking of St. James Infirmary, Paul Sanchez and friends including Shamarr Allen recounting the horrors of the levees breaking on the previously unreleased Home, and Matt Clark and others (Sanchez, Allen, Ivan Neville, and Teedy Boutté) letting us know their spirit is Bent Not Broken, and that New Orleans will be coming back.

This is such a marvelous sampling of the diversity of New Orleans music. Bent Not Broken and Nobody Knows Nothin’ were previously issued as digital singles and the other material is generally from recordings that can be obtained from www.louisianamusicfactory.com and better sources. The applicable websites are www.threadheadrecords.com and www.mysterystreetrecords.com.

Some JazzFest recommendations for Day 2 Saturday April 30

Shannon McNally

For Day 2 of the 2011 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival I have a selected several acts that may be lesser known but should be of interest. 

Charlei Gabriel

11:15 AM on the Gentilly Stage. Shannon McNally & Hot Sauce. I saw Shannon as one of the guests with Lil Band of Gold at their trubute to Bobby Charles held at the House of Blues between the two weekends of the 2010 JazzFest. A fine roots. She may be one of the guests at this year’s Bobby Charles tribute on April 29 and hosts her own Charles tribute with guests including C.C. Adcock and David Egan at Chickee Wah Wah, Saturday April 30. She has recorded a Bobby Charles Tribute album Small Town Talk but I am not sure if it has been issued. Jon Pareles of the NY Times has written: “She has the voice: bruised, smoky and ornery, right at home where country and soul meet… She has the melodies and the timing… she’s irresistible.” 

Alvin Youngblood Hart

12:25 in the WWOZ Jazz Tent - Kidd Jordan & the Imporvisational Jazz Ensemble. There is little free or avant garde jazz at JazzFest. Kidd Jordan is the exception and the JazzFest website states “His deep roots in all music makes his sound accessible to open-eared, novices of free jazz.”


1:40PM at the WWOZ Jazz Tent -The Tenor Sax Woodshed feat. Christian Winther and Charlie Gabriel. I saw tenor saxophonist Charlie Gabriel last year as part of an organ combo and was impressed. I later told that for years he torued with the likes of Aretha and was currently part of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band touring ensemble. Whatever, his playing really impressed me and I assume Mr. Winther brings a similar robust tenor style.


2:30PM in the Blues Tent - Alvin Youngblood Hart’s Muscle Theory. One of the young blood acoustic blues guitarists that included Corey harris that showed an affinity for performing classic country blues. He is more of a modern day songster these days and I have seen him do rock and roll and rockabilly with equal authority.

Pine Leaf Boys

3:00PM on the Sheraton New Orleans Fais Do-Do Stage - Pine Leaf Boys. This is a terrific, traditionally oriented cajun band with respect towards tradition, and with considerable exuberance.

John Boutté

4:05PM in the WWOZ Jazz Tent - John Boutté. Given the boost from his association with the Tréme HBO show, John Boutté’s profile has risen. A terrific vocalist who transcends jazz and can deliver a classic New Orleans R&B Chuck Carbo classic as strongly as San Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come, or his own loving tribute to his sisters, Sisters.