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.
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.
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