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Post 20623
- 7 years and 123 days since I started this blog -
- 7 years and 123 days since I started this blog -
I arrived in New Orleans still feeling sick. I got to my airBnB easily enough, and it seemed pretty nice. I fell asleep quickly.
I woke up feeling fine.
And, from that moment on, I had a great time.
I saw fantastic music every day. I took phone pics and vids, and wrote about what I saw.
Along the way, I ate a lot of good food.
But best of all, I interacted with people, with strangers, every day, at every stop. And made enough of an impact that some of them remembered me, and several times I was recognized and re-engaged. When you're traveling alone, these ephemeral connections feel great. Recognition by new-found friends is the best, no matter how ephemeral.
I felt the same way in Thailand, where it also happened. I guess it's one difference made by traveling alone, you don't have the familiar and comfortable to fall back on.
And now, without further ado, here is my complete trip report, as it was written and published on FB:
New Orleans/JazzFest Trip
April 25-May 2, 2018
April 26: Day 1 began wonderfully, waking up feeling well - without all the cold symptoms I went to sleep with. I wake up grateful for another day every day, but this was pretty special. My AirBnB room is in a low-income neighborhood (any other lodging is hard to come by and very expensive at this time of year, and thanks to new laws, AirBnB prices are also way up) but very nice. I go for a walk to buy some water and snacks, and there isn't much in the way of stores, and the grocery store I find has a pretty poor selection. Oh, well. I'm able to get the water, and some almonds. I have brought my full vitamin-herb-prescription compliment of pills with me, and I like to take them with some food (twice a day). So, I am equipped for that.
It's a warm and beautiful day, but this residential neighborhood isn't so pretty, or interesting.
I retreat back to the house to plan catch up on my email, take care of some correspondence, plan my day and, more importantly, my evening (in between, I play rounds of sudoku). I get a happy call from Kokomo Slim (Brian Paul Dolatowski), my usual NOLA running companion and host, who is MIA this trip working a contract in New England, and is homesick. I cheer him up by reminding him that I will be in his neighborhood soon, and that I'm just following the path we started together here, before he moved down, and that he has extended so wonderfully since taking residence.
My first stop will be to St. Charles Street: Happy hour at the Blind Pelican. This is one of the friendliest bars I know of, anywhere. That might be because of the 25-cent oysters during happy hour, or crawfish boil out front, or just because it serves tourists and residents equally, with good cheer. I am talking to some women in town from Texas and Alabama for a business convention. They're into the grilled oysters, and wondering about the crawfish. The bartender provides them a taste. They decide it's too much work tonight, and they'll dedicate a meal to them before heading home. A Brit wearing an Arsenal journey gets appropriately heated and puffed up when I provoke him by mentioning I'm from Liverpool. I late him rant for a few minutes before explaining that it's a suburb of Syracuse, NY. I wish his team the best, we clink glasses, it's all smiles, we're mates...
I have become Oyster-stuffed Reverend Ken. I linger outside Tacos and Beer next door to the 'Pelican' for a dose of played-soft-and-tight funk, enjoying the perfect evening weather before dialing up my Uber for Oak St.
I'm much too early for the late show, I take a walk up and down Oak Street, window-shopping the restaurants, bars, antique clothing and we-buy-guitars store, the head shop.
Outside the Maple Leaf, a couple of street vendors sell food (not tonight still oyster-full). The street is crowded, people are turning out for the late show - Vernon Reid, George Porter, Jr. and Johnny Vidacovich).
I have a simple rule that applies in this case. Any time George Porter, Jr. is playing and I am in the same general area, I go there. My friend Stephen Reisman turned me on to the Wild Tchoupitoulas album when it first came out, and I've been a fan, and followed him ever since. He is an iconic bass player, and one of the founders of the funk sound that came out of New Orleans in the late 60s, and overtly or covertly, changed the way music sounded, permanently.
Once inside, I get a good place, get a chance to speak, briefly, with the very gracious man himself (for the first time in my life), get the selfie, and then, seemingly suddenly, the floor is packed. I've never seen the Maple Leaf so crowded. It's a big show.
The music starts. The funk is there, of course, but the sound is jazzy. I'm dancing. Well, everybody's dancing. And smiling. Every time a particular player does something awesome (that's a lot of the time), everybody applauds knowingly, and high-fives or fist-bumps the people around them.
Somehow, the music gets better and better for the next 2-1/2 hours.
The cooled-off night can't compete with the heat in the club. N'awlins, y'all.
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April 27: My second day in New Orleans, and the first day of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, aka JazzFest.
I got to bed ‘way late last night, after the great show at the Maple Leaf, and woke up late, late, late.
Consequently, I didn’t get to the Festival until after 1, and missed the first two acts I had planned on seeing. So it goes.
A little info about JazzFest in case you don’t know how it works: There are eleven stages, each of which hosts 5 or 6 shows a day over the 7 days (Fri-Sat-Sun and Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun) of the festival. Each day’s schedule looks like a spreadsheet (you can check it out for yourself here: http\://www.nojazzfest.com/schedule/#/schedule_groupings/printer-friendly-pdfs), you have lots of choices to make every day.
In the past, I’ve taken a random approach, picking out a few must-see concerts, and wandering around to ‘taste’ different, unknown acts. That has always been fun, and low-pressure, and made for many serendipitous discoveries, and that is part of the real fun of JazzFest.
But today, looking at the choices, I selected the first 5 shows all at the Blues Tent, then I figured I’d get a taste of the two headliners of the day that interested me, Sting at the Acura stage (like him, never seen him) or, fallback, Steel Pulse at the Congo stage (love them, never seen them). Anyway, my day was 100% scheduled.
But I missed the first two acts.
The first act I saw was Sidi Touré of Mali, and they were excellent. I’d heard them on one of the World Music shows on WAER, and thought there might be something similar to Ali Farkha Touré, who I had heard and loved via his albums with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder (Talking Timbuktu, a favorite album). I don’t have any idea whether or not they’re related, but the blues-meets-trad-Malian-music was very present. Very enjoyable.
Next up was Luther Kent and Trickbag, a long-time New Orleans big blues band. Lots of fun here, with a selection of songs that wouldn’t be out of place at Rooters Sunday Night Blues jam. Plenty of great soloists in the 11-piece(!) backup band, and Luther interrupted his smooth (if, to be sure, slightly lounge-y) delivery to give them lots of solo time to shine.
Then Samantha Fish came out and really wow-ed the audience. She put on a great show, her band is tight. I’ve heard recorded stuff from her, and it was promising, and she delivered live: She’s a damn good guitarist, and her vocals are excellent. She does something that I really like in any performing band: Putting together arrangements that work for a live act.
it’s a personal thing, but I don’t like performances that translate a recording accurately to the stage. I think a song that is worked out for repeated listening needs to be worked out differently when presented live, to maximize the in-the-moment event that a live performance represents. I’m always amazed when a cover band does a song exactly the way it was recorded, when I’ve heard the band that recorded it rearrange the song to make the live performance special - the bands I like best in concert never play their hits just like the record.
Anyway, Samantha Fish is someone I will happily go see live when she comes to town (and I think she is).
All that digression takes me to my next act: Sting. Now, I liked the Police, I’ve liked a lot of Sting’s solo stuff, and had never seen him live, but had heard good things about his performances, so I was willing to risk a visit to the gigantic Acura stage, which takes up approximately a quarter of the whole festival grounds. This is the only stage I have ever walked out on acts from, mostly because it is where the biggest most popular artists play. Every concert there is jammed, and we’re talking tens of thousands of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, filling a field about the size of two football fields (maybe more). It is so big, not only do they have JazzFest’s biggest video screens, but the have a second pair of screens mid-field! and 3 pairs of speaker towers (nicely, dare I say perfectly, time-delayed, so the sound doesn’t turn to mud).
(I walked out on the SubDudes a few years ago because the sound was simply awful (not the system’s fault - somebody really bad at the mixer). I left Stevie Wonder’s show because the crush of the crowd at my spot in the front-center on a very hot day made me claustrophobic and uncomfortable, and I’m not claustrophobic. It took me a half-hour to get to the edge of the crowd from the center!
But I planned to watch from the furthest point away, in the bleachers at the far end of the field, where I’d watched Galactic last year - not too bad, and ‘safe’.)
But Sting, in delivering his songs perfectly, did that thing I don’t like: He delivered his songs perfectly, just like the record. That, plus the distance between him and the audience had me leaving after a few perfectly wonderful songs that the audience ate right up but left me unmoved.
I made my way over to the Congo stage - meeting someone I met the night before at the Maple Leaf along the way - and saw Steel Pulse.
Thank you so much, Sting! The Steel Pulse show was the best show I’ve seen in a long, long time. They’ve been doing this for something like 40 years, and they were amazing. And, thanks to the smaller (still really big) stage area, very accessible. I was blown away. I want to say more about them, but don’t know what to say other than that, if and when a recording of this set becomes available (as has been the case at past JazzFests), I’m a buyer, and I have never done that before. Also: The last few years the AXS-TV cable station has broadcast concerts from JazzFest. If they’re doing that this year, please check out this amazing band.
Everything about the performance worked for me, and, ,as far as I could tell, the other 5,000 people in the audience (mostly behind me). The day's highlight, a JazzFest highlight, a now-cherished memory of a great concert.
It was a long walk to the Uber pickup point (Lyft and Uber aren’t allowed closer than public transportation gets to the site, which makes sense because traffic is a beastly mess at the end of each day. I had planned on seeing Kermit Ruffins later that night, but needed a nap, and slept through.
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April 28: Day 3 of my NOLA trip, quite the day, and a long story...
I have said for quite some time that I am the luckiest person I know. I have “Gumped” my way through life - accidentally being in the right place at the right time, good things coming from errors and accidents, no plan ever working as planned, no good result from the sum of my efforts, but despite them... But somehow ending up in the clover.
Confirmation bias notwithstanding, I was offered more proof today.
The day started a bit messed up - waking up from a nap that started around 8pm Friday at 1am Saturday, and not being able to fall back asleep until about 7am, when, lo and behold, the original 90 minute nap happened!
My sleep patterns disturbed, I was moving slow - and everything l did, showering, getting breakfast from the mom and pop next door (everything hot gets that way in the deep-fryer), sorting through my emails and FB was tiring. I had little energy, and a bit of a sour stomach after breakfast.
I blew off JazzFest for the day, wanting only to get more sleep, feel less ‘out of it’.
Sleep happened, in and out and light, as I distracted myself on the interwebs, I also had a few long phone conversations with some friends…
I checked the WWOV Live Wire app, which lists all the live music available in New Orleans, and there were, as usual during JazzFest, a lot of great shows to choose from, but one was a standout: Anders Osborne, Ivan Neville and Samantha Fish at Republic NOLA, a club I’d never been to before.
One of the people I spoke with in the late afternoon was my NOLA running-partner, Chicago drummer Kokomo Slim, who moved down to New Orleans about 18 months ago, and at whose apartment I usually stay when I’m in town. He’s out of town and was feeling homesick. I miss him, and promised to give his regards to my dinner destination, the St. Charles Tavern (only a few blocks walk from his apartment). The restaurant is my go-to when I stay with Kokomo, as it’s only a few blocks from his apartment. It’s always-friendly and welcoming staff provides a family atmosphere, and the drinks at the bar are generous.
I got there, chatted up the staff with greetings from Kokomo, who they expressed great fondness for (and concern that he was far from home), then got down to business with some rice and beans and catfish (and a salad and home-made cheesecake). I lingered there for a couple of hours.
Republic NOLA was an 18-minute walk away, and a nice walk was what I wanted after a big meal.
As I approached the ticket window, a woman asked if I would like to buy her ticket at a discount (tickets were relatively expensive, but you know, what a show!) and since she was doing it in front of the ticket window and promised she would have her on-phone ticket printed there for me, I agreed, and saved $10.
I went in, and headed straight for the restroom, where there was a poster for area shows at every urinal. Which is when I noticed that the poster had tonight’s show listed not for Republic NOLA, but at the Howling Wolf. The show I was at was Voodoo Dead - something unknown to me that didn’t sound like a show that I would choose to pay 50 bucks for. As I walked over to the entrance I saw that my ticket was, indeed, for Voodoo Dead, and checked Live Wire to see how I’d screwed up so badly, but the app still said my show was here, and had something completely other for the Howling Wolf.
Back at the ticket office, I showed them how Live Wire had screwed me up, and asked if there was some way they would refund my ticket. However, since it wasn’t my name on the ticket, they couldn’t. But the manager, very nicely told me, “I’ll buy the first round, and I think you’ll really like the show.” OK. My only choice is to take the loss or make the best of it. I go for the latter. After all, there was a time I liked the Dead, before Pigpen died. And I didn’t dislike them after that, but they seemed less relevant and I was back on the East Coast full-time, and back to playing other styles of music.
But the Dead with a bit of N’awlins funk doesn’t sound like the worst thing (it was the Dead who took the Meters on tour with them and broke them nationally - there IS a connection).
And this is where the ‘luckiest guy in the world’ thing starts to come into play.
Because the Voodoo Dead - not really a band, but three members of Bob Weir’s post-Dead group and a floating cast of other New Orleans A-list musicians who perform irregularly and exclusively at Republic NOLA, are focussed on the exact same period of time that I spent liking the Dead, and they duplicate the original line-up, with two drummers (in this case, one on kit, one on an elaborate percussion setup), keys, two guitars and bass.
And Republic NOLA is like an upscale, leather and crystal chandeliers version of Tipitina’s - not a bad thing. The sound system is fantastic, and there’s great line of sight, especially from the balcony-bar area.
I’m at the upstairs bar with my back to the stage when the music starts - and I get chills. Because the sound is the Dead, but better, and better in every respect. Turning to the stage I was stunned to find, in the bass chair, none other than my hero (remember the selfie from Thursday night’s Maple Leaf show?) George Porter, Jr.
He has started following me from the front, showing up where I am, instead of vice-versa.
I’m in Heaven. And I am transported. I’m flashing back to the late 60s, when I liked all the bands that came out of San Francisco. When I lived out there. Before I had any semblance of a music thing of my own going on. I am hearing the Dead played better than the Dead played the Dead. I’m dancing hippie dances. I’m spilling Jamo (a crime, but at least I’m not paying). In my mind, I’m on Acid, just like back then, and I’m tripping happy.
It keeps on getting better over the 2-hour set, with one joltingly special moment, when the group went into ‘Midnight Hour’, which has a special meaning for me, and reinforces my back-50-years-ago dreamscape. When I was just 16, I played that song at the Cafe Wha?’s Sunday afternoon ‘kiddie show’ (no alcohol served, all-ages) with a guy I knew as Jimmy James. A couple of years later, I’d see him in the first American performance of his new band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
But I digress.
It gets better. Out in the street after the first set, I buy a nitrous balloon and get in a small group of pot-smokers, further enhancing the back-in-time feel, and learn a lot more about the group.
The second set starts with a 30-minute version of ‘After Midnight’ that does what the best Dead jams always did: It takes you on a musical journey, tells you a story instrumentally, with plot twists and surprises, spinning and weaving the musical threads and slowly and logically reveals the overall design. It includes a gorgeous and musically exciting instrumental version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’. For me, there’s also the aspect of sitting at a George Porter, Jr. master class, because he is ‘on’. He’s fully iengaged, appears to be having a great time, and is playing better than I’ve ever heard him! He’s leaning INTO it, goddammit.
As the long round of applause dies down, an old guy I don’t recognize walks on stage. I swear, almost everybody gasps. The woman next to me wants to fist-bump. “It’s Bob!” she says. I take out my phone.
Bob Weir hisself is setting up on stage. He takes over for the lead-singer rhythm guitarist who moves over to the keyboards. He does 25 minutes, and I have the video. It. Is. Unbelievable.
He sounds better than ever. Everybody on stage is smiling as he puts his hands together and bows to George Porter, Jr.
He does 2 songs, 25 minutes. I have the video. Every minute. Which I won't be posting here. Also, because of taking the video, I have no photos. Sometime in the future, I'll get a 'still' from the video and add it to the album..**
**This is an edit being made a week later. It wasn't Bob Weir. Who was it? No idea. Somebody famous. Maybe somebody named Bob. Don't know. It's embarrassing, but I got around to checking, because a few people who saw the clip said they didn't think it was him (and they would know better than me, since I haven't seen or heard him in more than 40 years, and they have, relatively recently). Joke's on me. Getting drunk-stoned-tripped out makes a person gullible.
There are more hits after, no letdown in energy, no after-sex lethargy. The show goes on to its conclusion.
Then the encores: First ’Bertha’, then the Dead’s famous instrumental version of Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ as a meditative-yet-funky unspoken hymn. Finally, an all-stops-out version of ‘Love Lights’ that includes one of the, if not the, best bass solos I’ve ever seen performed. Yeah, I was at a Master Class in funk bass.
What a night!
I am the luckiest person I know. Probably, you, too. I’ll do the best I can to spread it around.
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April 29: Day 4.
There’s no point in my talking about any more ‘bests’. Whether it’s a trick of memory or a mental defect or just hubris, what you experience as the ‘best’ today will be bettered in the future, because there are no objective yardsticks, and you aren’t talking about the best anyway, you’re talking about YOUR state of mind.
On the other hand, when you are subjectively reporting on your reactions to things, it’s easy to forget that humans perception is too limited, and our awareness and attention are influenced by below-the-line unseen and unknown forces. The subconscious is just that, but it plays an outsize role. Hell, a human being may turn out to be nothing more than a spacesuit for gut bacteria (which also play a role in our perception).
Anyway, I keep on seeing great shows, meeting interesting people, having new experiences. i'm having the best time, like yesterday, and the day before, and...
Which is what New Orleans is about. Oh, and food. Food is major in the mix, right?
On the way to JazzFest today my Uber driver asked what was my favorite thing about New Orleans. Without hesitation I answered, “The music!”
But then I said, but you can’t separate the music from the people who make it and support it here. And once you’re on the people, then you connect with the food. The people of New Orleans make great music and food, so they have great music and great food.
Which brings me to JazzFest today. First thing I need is some food, and decide what I need is a muffelata and a salad with fried oysters. I take them to the Blues Tent, picking up a water along the way, to enjoy while I listen to my first show, Henry Butler and the Jambalaya Band. This show was one of last year’s highlights. In fact, it was at that show that my friend Darren took the photo of me dancing with the Queen of the Quarter (I’ll post that pic, one of my all-time favorites, in today’s photo album).
Although I don’t always want to repeat shows I’ve seen in the past, it’s hot out, and the other potential concerts I like are at open-air stages, whereas the gymnasium-size Blues Tent is nice and cool and has chairs (I’m eating, remember).
This set is awesome, similar but not the same as last time. One difference is that the bass player is now rocking a 7-string bass, and makes me think of my friend @Devery Battle Battle (Dr. D.) back in Syracuse. A very strong set comes to an on-time but unannounced end, unlike last year’s, which ended in a 2nd line parade around the tent. I’m afraid Henry Butler, Professor Longhair’s last surviving student, wasn’t feeling well.
But the audience was into it, big time, and let him know how appreciative we were of him with a long standing ovation.
Next up in the Blues Tent is Tab Benoit, who I discovered (for myself, he was already a star) two years ago at JazzFest, I’ve seen him a few times since, but the real reason for this repeat was to see his bass player, Corey Duplechin, who I met last year when he was in the bass chair for Danny Alexander’s Monday Blues Jam. He was very sweet to me, allowing me to use his bass for a fun set, another great memory (and another terrific pic from Darren). Corey is not only a nice guy, but he is a MONSTER bass player, one of the best.
I managed to wave and catch his eye, he gave me a wave and a smile. I know he couldn’t hear me shout out, “I’ll see you tomorrow!” but that might be for the best - I hope I will, when I go back to Dmac’s for the jam. Anyway, the band was there to play and the brought it, the set was fantastic, everybody in fine form, and the audience was into it. Corey was expectedly exceptional. This is a trio and Corey and drummer Jeff Alexander are a perfect rhythm section.
Next, I went to the Fais De Do Stage for old Doug Kershaw. Due to unfortunate (for me) scheduling, I could only catch a part of his set. I have found his music exciting and joyful for 50 years, and he hasn’t lost a step, but after enjoying a song-and-a-half, he exchanged instruments with his accordion player, and the band impressed me all over again with Kershaw slinging the squeeze box, After one great number, then, seeing he wasn’t going back to fiddle, I left and went to work my way through the waiting crowd at the big Gentilly Stage where I saw Wilco and Lake Street Dive last year,
This year, it was David Byrne, and he put on his typically amazing and totally choreographed show. Utilizing a marching-band-style rhythm section of 5 percussionists, as well as bass, synth, guitar and a couple of back up vocalists, his theatrical show has every member dancing while playing, and everybody was spot on. If you’ve ever seen Byrne perform live, or seen concert footage, you know what to expect. Everybody wore gray suits and sandals, except Byrne who was barefoot.
I may not be familiar enough with Byrne’s post-Talking Heads output, but all the compelling, beautiful, funky and weird songs in the show that weren’t Talking Heads hits were unfamiliar to me and very good, very enjoyable, their angularity unmistakably Byrne.
Sadly, no pics of David Byrne. Where I was standing, the sun was keeping the stage in shadows, no way to get a photo. So I put away my phone and just bopped on, enjoying the show, staying present. So more memories, memories only.
And then, for me, JazzFest was over. A long, long, walk out of the heavy-traffic zone to catch my ride, go home and reset, then out for dinner and the monthly ‘Foundations of Funk’ at Howling Wolf. Starting with a giant (really good) burger at the Howling Wolf Den, I walked through the entrance and enjoyed the New Breed Brass Band getting down.
I met some folks I had chatted with last night at Voodoo Dead show, and they assured me that we were at the best show in New Orleans that night.
They were right!
Foundation of Funk is a project where Zigaboo Modeliste and George Porter, Jr. (YES!), the rhythm section of the Meters, jam with musicians from other groups. Tonight it was Anders Osborne, guitar, JoJo Hermann (organ and piano) and the Bonerama Horns, with special guest, 14-year-old guitar prodigy Taz Niederauer.
Holy shit. I’m out of superlatives. I’ll put up some video, but I don’t have any of the part where Taz joined the group at the end - he was amazing, totally mature (although he isn’t shaving yet), and the proof, if any was needed, was the big smile on Anders Osborne’s face, as he encouraged Taz in solo after solo, being strictly supportive. There was no trading solos, which would have been the shit - when Taz is on, it’s his show. Not that he has to be front and center every minute - far from it, there was a long mid-tempo song where he showed just how supportive he could be. Impressive.
JoJo Hermann was the revelation for me, though. He is an outstanding player. I didn’t know his name beforehand, so I looked him up. He plays keys and sings in Widespread Panic, and does solo stuff. He is a much-in-demand session player and producer as well. And he can play. He was featured in a couple of songs, where his playing ran the gamut from church organ to mardi gras funk to Headhunters electronic. He was consistently inventive and yet always supported the song and the feel of the other musicians.
The Bonerama horns are three young trombonists, and they just rocked the whole night, taking solos on demand and in the shows finale, trading fours amongst themselves for a real highlight. (Taking this moment to shout out to you, Ethan Jerald and Jake Lawless, and, of course, Melissa Gardiner: You would have loved this).
There is nothing left to say about Zigaboo and Porter - a rhythm section that has influenced every musician that has ever heard them, and in very noticeable ways - from the Grateful Dead to the Rolling Stones, and, well everybody else (they toured with the Dead and the Stones early on, and you can hear their influence on both going forward).
Let me just say this: I rocked all night. I danced all night. I was high all night. I was entranced all night. And then the closer: The real deal, Cissy Strut, and the band is off (Zigaboo: “I think I see my parole officer!”)
It will take me a day to recover, I will never recover. And yet, another incredible New Orleans memory.
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April 30: Day 5 is an easy day. There’s only one plan, to get back to Dmac’s tonight.
So in the afternoon I make the trip’s first and only visit to the French Quarter, digging the street music, a random parade, and a stop at Felix’s for some oysters and a bloody Mary. I do not let the fact that my phone is at 2% bother me much, but I do cut my time a little short to take a cab back to the airBnB to recharge before dinner.
So, Dmac’s is a 24/7 neighborhood bar that has live music. Monday nights, they have a Blues Jam hosted by venerable performer Danny Alexander.
I was introduced to Dmac’s on my JazzzFest trip last year, on the last night in town, by former club owner Reggie Sheppard, the husband of my friend Darren’s airBnB host, Debbie. That night I got to jam with a bunch of great musicians in front of some friends and a bar full of appreciative local music lovers, and had a great time. Dmac’s, Reggie, the musicians there, all made me feel like I was among friends.
Tab Benoit’s bass player, Corey Depluchin is house bass. Getting there before the start, I get a chance to tell him how he killed it at JazzFest yesterday. He told me how much fun it was, that their 75 minute slot felt like it went by in15 minutes, how he felt like he was just getting warmed up.
Just under an hour before start and Dmac’s is so crowded there isn’t any place to sit. I’m reminded of the jams of my youth, when the better jams with known quality of musicians packed bars and clubs - it isn’t like that in many places these days.
I order at the bar and go looking for a spot to park, but every empty seat is being held for someone. I finally see a table in the very back that has a few seats empty, and ask if they’re being saved. Of course, they are. Might I sit down and eat, and promise I’ll move when their friends arrive? Of course. Sit right next to me, darling. My name is…, this is my friend…, and my husband…
And so, when the food (finally - the kitchen is slammed and short-handed) arrives, I’m feeling easy, smiling, talking about my trip, great music, hearing about past and current NOLA scenes. There’s a reason why it’s the Big Easy.
While I’m eating, I see Reggie - turns out, he is the ‘reserved’ at one of the reserved tables. When I’m done with my meal, I thank my new friends (“You know Reggie? That’s cool!”) and join him at a chair at his table that has miraculously (he gets things done) appeared.
We quickly reestablish our connection, talk about our common friend, and update our contact info. He asks if I’m playing tonight, I say, yes, and he claps his hands in approval.
A great set by the house band plus a ‘horn section’ (these guys just know how to do it), and I’m getting another music lesson as I watch and listen to Corey. Now I’m dancing at the table and dancing with strangers who seem like friends. I’ve been going back and forth as musicians I recognize from last year appear, everybody’s happy.
Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington comes in. He was the headliner at DBA the first time I went there a few years ago. He gets up, and before he goes to the mic, he backs up an Australian singer who had just done a totally killer version of ‘Dr. Feelgood’ and gotten a standing ovation. The song is Smokey’s ‘Baby, Baby’. Not everybody on stage knows it, but they pick it up quick and it’s another magical moment.
Walter does a couple of his blues standards, trades 4s with a keyboard player who was on my set last year. Everybody’s in synch - on stage, in the audience, our pulses and brainwaves are all keeping time with the New Orleans beat.
My turn at bass comes, and I’m supporting a female blues belter. We do ’Let the Good Times Roll’, then ‘Shaky Ground’ and then… Well, I admit, I can’t remember. Everybody in the audience is up, everybody’s moving. It feels real good to me, and then… I’m done. There’s a deep list of bass players. I’m grateful, I leave the stage to high-fives and hugs.
Outside, Corey is waiting with a few friends, shakes my hand and tells me he’s glad I took his bass out for a ride. One of his friends embraces me and says, we’re family here, and when you’re in, you’re in for good.
I’m embarrassed by my good fortune, afraid that I don’t deserve this wonderful moment.
Oh, New Orleans!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1: Day 6, another laid-back, no-schedule day. This was my play-it-by-ear, see what happens day, and my last night in NOLA.
The way things turned out, I ended up first in the French Quarter, then decided to take the St. Charles cable car to the Blind Pelican for one last oyster orgy, and the NOLA welcome and camaraderie I’ve come to like so much (“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” - the quintessential quote on New Orleans’ folks easygoing friendship courtesy of Tennessee Williams).
So I found myself at the front-end of the bar, mixing it up with the staff and customers waiting for tables,
The Blind Pelican, you will recall, is famous for their happy hour oyster deals: 25-cent raw oysters, half-price char-grilled oysters. I had a dozen of each (!), and fantastic Bloody Marys to wash all that wonderfulness down.
Along the way, I met Dexter, who I recognized as one of the announcers from JazzFest. I thought I knew him from the Blues Tent, but he corrected me that he worked the Jazz Tent on behalf of WWOZ, a major partner in all things JazzFest, and the world’s greatest radio station. What else did he do? Well, this afternoon-evening he was managing the shrimp and crawfish boil at the Blind Pelican.
Turns out, we had some interesting things in common - a love of jazz, for sure. He moved from NOLA to NYC in his 20s, and without a doubt, we were probably in some of the same jazz clubs at the same time. We talked about how much time we spent in the Village Clubs: The Village Vanguard, the Village Gate, the Cafe Au Go Go, the Bitter End (and the Other End, I reminded him), and Slugs. We traded a few stories, him about getting picked up by women at SOB’s (Sounds of Brazil, get your mind out of the gutter) on a regular basis, me about Pat Sky stomping the shit out of a car that turned out to be his own, or Thelonious Monk nodding off at the piano after playing three notes.
He asked me where I was going for music tonight (he just knew, without asking or my telling him that I was going out for music), and before I could answer, he said, “I’ll tell you where you have to go: The Playhouse - see my man James Rivers play the best straight-ahead jazz in town.”
Sounded great to me, until he told me where the Jazz Playhouse was - it was the lounge in the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. I balked. He said, it isn’t what you expect, and I guarantee you’ll like it.
Good enough for me. Those words had been said to me before on this trip, and I’d never wanted my money back.
So, after finishing up all those “ersters” (you say oysters), and my third Bloody Mary (so good!), I got on the cable car (senior rate, $0.40, free transfers) to the Quarter. The Royal Sonesta is in the very epicenter of the French Quarter, and if you’ve got the coin and are looking for great digs to explore New Orleans from (I met up with a friend from LA who stayed there last year), you could do a lot worse. In fact, except for the expense, you could only do worse. Like I said, epicenter…
Anyway, the St Charles cable line ends at Canal and Bourbon, and its a four block walk to the Royal Sonesta and its lounge, the Jazz Playhouse. The James Rivers Movement had just begun playing their first set, as I was seated at the small banquette.
Admission is free with a one-drink minimum, which the waitress agreed to let me satisfy with dessert and coffee. It’s a very comfortable, 50s-era lounge, dimly lit, yet comfortable and kind of opulent. The kind of place that all the performing lounges in Las Vegas were modeled after.
But the James Rivers Movement is no lounge act (well, technically, that’s exactly what they are, since that’s the gig, but there’s very little shtick, even while they understand that they’re playing for the hotel guest/tourist crowd). This is one classic jazz quartet - tenor sax, piano, bass and drums.
Starting off with the Great American songbook, they took a swing through some New Orleans classics (are there any Fats Domino lovers in the crowd tonight?), with James Rivers showing off a classically beautiful round tenor tone, and a Lou Rawls-ish voice with Louis Armstrong phrasing. Everything swung, and the solos were beautiful - each member of the quartet got their time to shine, and their work was pure gold.
The set included some real crazy stuff. Rivers is a versatile multi-instrumentalist, and really had some unique stuff going on. He had a harp mounted on a flute(!), and the man could play the blues on that harp. His flute work reminded me a little of a cross between Eric Dolphy and Hubert Laws in tone, which is high praise. The band swung some blues, never crossing over from the jazz idiom.
Then there was a “now I’ve seen the elephant’ moment: as Rivers turned his back on the audience and picked up a 3-drone bagpipe, cycling through a medley of songs where the pipes plaid the role of a rock lead guitarist. It was surprising, fresh, exciting, and really well done.
A gigantic piece of chocolate cake arrived at my table with a nice mug of good coffee. I did the best I could with it, but in the end, even with two cups of coffee to wash it down with, the cake won. I couldn’t finish it. It was really good, too.
During the intermission, I had a chance to talk with Rivers, and told him how I’d happened on to him. “Dexter? On St. Charles? Oh, he’s one hip guy! He’s a good man and a good friend. I’ll thank him for introducing us.”
The second set began as a River-less trio session with an extended jam of ‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy’, the often-covered hit by the Ramsey Lewis Quartet. Everybody had an opportunity to solo, and everybody played wonderfully. Rivers came back up with a blues-harp-fueled blues song, “Let It Roll”, and once again, I was impressed with his blues harp playing and his singing.
By the time the evening was over, the band had gone through interesting versions of more New Orleans standards (“Are there any Fats Domino lovers in the house?”), blues, standards, a few novelty items (Tarantella, Hava Nagila, Whiskey In the Jar) and so forth, finally ending in an a cappella rap called ‘Rap is Crap’ (or maybe “I Hate Rap”).
And with that, the live music part of this trip came to an end. And I’m smiling as I walk with the tourist crowd past the bucket drummers and tap dancers on Bourbon Street to my Uber pick-up spot.
It’s been a good night, and for me, its over, as is this day, and this trip. I’ve got one more meal left in New Orleans, an etoufée omelet for a late breakfast at the St. Charles Tavern tomorrow afternoon, and then a flight home.
It’s been a great trip. I had a seemingly continuous string of musical highlights, encountered a lot of wonderful people, ate a silly amount of great food, I never had to deal with any negativity, from the moment I woke up feeling good after leaving home feeling bad.
Like the song says, I’ll miss New Orleans, but of course, I’m already thinking of when I’ll be back, and it makes me smile.
Today's Weight: 203.0 lbs.
Previous Weight (4/24/18): 203.2 lbs.
I woke up feeling fine.
And, from that moment on, I had a great time.
I saw fantastic music every day. I took phone pics and vids, and wrote about what I saw.
Along the way, I ate a lot of good food.
But best of all, I interacted with people, with strangers, every day, at every stop. And made enough of an impact that some of them remembered me, and several times I was recognized and re-engaged. When you're traveling alone, these ephemeral connections feel great. Recognition by new-found friends is the best, no matter how ephemeral.
I felt the same way in Thailand, where it also happened. I guess it's one difference made by traveling alone, you don't have the familiar and comfortable to fall back on.
And now, without further ado, here is my complete trip report, as it was written and published on FB:
New Orleans/JazzFest Trip
April 25-May 2, 2018
April 26: Day 1 began wonderfully, waking up feeling well - without all the cold symptoms I went to sleep with. I wake up grateful for another day every day, but this was pretty special. My AirBnB room is in a low-income neighborhood (any other lodging is hard to come by and very expensive at this time of year, and thanks to new laws, AirBnB prices are also way up) but very nice. I go for a walk to buy some water and snacks, and there isn't much in the way of stores, and the grocery store I find has a pretty poor selection. Oh, well. I'm able to get the water, and some almonds. I have brought my full vitamin-herb-prescription compliment of pills with me, and I like to take them with some food (twice a day). So, I am equipped for that.
It's a warm and beautiful day, but this residential neighborhood isn't so pretty, or interesting.
I retreat back to the house to plan catch up on my email, take care of some correspondence, plan my day and, more importantly, my evening (in between, I play rounds of sudoku). I get a happy call from Kokomo Slim (Brian Paul Dolatowski), my usual NOLA running companion and host, who is MIA this trip working a contract in New England, and is homesick. I cheer him up by reminding him that I will be in his neighborhood soon, and that I'm just following the path we started together here, before he moved down, and that he has extended so wonderfully since taking residence.
My first stop will be to St. Charles Street: Happy hour at the Blind Pelican. This is one of the friendliest bars I know of, anywhere. That might be because of the 25-cent oysters during happy hour, or crawfish boil out front, or just because it serves tourists and residents equally, with good cheer. I am talking to some women in town from Texas and Alabama for a business convention. They're into the grilled oysters, and wondering about the crawfish. The bartender provides them a taste. They decide it's too much work tonight, and they'll dedicate a meal to them before heading home. A Brit wearing an Arsenal journey gets appropriately heated and puffed up when I provoke him by mentioning I'm from Liverpool. I late him rant for a few minutes before explaining that it's a suburb of Syracuse, NY. I wish his team the best, we clink glasses, it's all smiles, we're mates...
I have become Oyster-stuffed Reverend Ken. I linger outside Tacos and Beer next door to the 'Pelican' for a dose of played-soft-and-tight funk, enjoying the perfect evening weather before dialing up my Uber for Oak St.
I'm much too early for the late show, I take a walk up and down Oak Street, window-shopping the restaurants, bars, antique clothing and we-buy-guitars store, the head shop.
Outside the Maple Leaf, a couple of street vendors sell food (not tonight still oyster-full). The street is crowded, people are turning out for the late show - Vernon Reid, George Porter, Jr. and Johnny Vidacovich).
I have a simple rule that applies in this case. Any time George Porter, Jr. is playing and I am in the same general area, I go there. My friend Stephen Reisman turned me on to the Wild Tchoupitoulas album when it first came out, and I've been a fan, and followed him ever since. He is an iconic bass player, and one of the founders of the funk sound that came out of New Orleans in the late 60s, and overtly or covertly, changed the way music sounded, permanently.
Once inside, I get a good place, get a chance to speak, briefly, with the very gracious man himself (for the first time in my life), get the selfie, and then, seemingly suddenly, the floor is packed. I've never seen the Maple Leaf so crowded. It's a big show.
The music starts. The funk is there, of course, but the sound is jazzy. I'm dancing. Well, everybody's dancing. And smiling. Every time a particular player does something awesome (that's a lot of the time), everybody applauds knowingly, and high-fives or fist-bumps the people around them.
Somehow, the music gets better and better for the next 2-1/2 hours.
The cooled-off night can't compete with the heat in the club. N'awlins, y'all.
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April 27: My second day in New Orleans, and the first day of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, aka JazzFest.
I got to bed ‘way late last night, after the great show at the Maple Leaf, and woke up late, late, late.
Consequently, I didn’t get to the Festival until after 1, and missed the first two acts I had planned on seeing. So it goes.
A little info about JazzFest in case you don’t know how it works: There are eleven stages, each of which hosts 5 or 6 shows a day over the 7 days (Fri-Sat-Sun and Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun) of the festival. Each day’s schedule looks like a spreadsheet (you can check it out for yourself here: http\://www.nojazzfest.com/schedule/#/schedule_groupings/printer-friendly-pdfs), you have lots of choices to make every day.
In the past, I’ve taken a random approach, picking out a few must-see concerts, and wandering around to ‘taste’ different, unknown acts. That has always been fun, and low-pressure, and made for many serendipitous discoveries, and that is part of the real fun of JazzFest.
But today, looking at the choices, I selected the first 5 shows all at the Blues Tent, then I figured I’d get a taste of the two headliners of the day that interested me, Sting at the Acura stage (like him, never seen him) or, fallback, Steel Pulse at the Congo stage (love them, never seen them). Anyway, my day was 100% scheduled.
But I missed the first two acts.
The first act I saw was Sidi Touré of Mali, and they were excellent. I’d heard them on one of the World Music shows on WAER, and thought there might be something similar to Ali Farkha Touré, who I had heard and loved via his albums with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder (Talking Timbuktu, a favorite album). I don’t have any idea whether or not they’re related, but the blues-meets-trad-Malian-music was very present. Very enjoyable.
Next up was Luther Kent and Trickbag, a long-time New Orleans big blues band. Lots of fun here, with a selection of songs that wouldn’t be out of place at Rooters Sunday Night Blues jam. Plenty of great soloists in the 11-piece(!) backup band, and Luther interrupted his smooth (if, to be sure, slightly lounge-y) delivery to give them lots of solo time to shine.
Then Samantha Fish came out and really wow-ed the audience. She put on a great show, her band is tight. I’ve heard recorded stuff from her, and it was promising, and she delivered live: She’s a damn good guitarist, and her vocals are excellent. She does something that I really like in any performing band: Putting together arrangements that work for a live act.
it’s a personal thing, but I don’t like performances that translate a recording accurately to the stage. I think a song that is worked out for repeated listening needs to be worked out differently when presented live, to maximize the in-the-moment event that a live performance represents. I’m always amazed when a cover band does a song exactly the way it was recorded, when I’ve heard the band that recorded it rearrange the song to make the live performance special - the bands I like best in concert never play their hits just like the record.
Anyway, Samantha Fish is someone I will happily go see live when she comes to town (and I think she is).
All that digression takes me to my next act: Sting. Now, I liked the Police, I’ve liked a lot of Sting’s solo stuff, and had never seen him live, but had heard good things about his performances, so I was willing to risk a visit to the gigantic Acura stage, which takes up approximately a quarter of the whole festival grounds. This is the only stage I have ever walked out on acts from, mostly because it is where the biggest most popular artists play. Every concert there is jammed, and we’re talking tens of thousands of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, filling a field about the size of two football fields (maybe more). It is so big, not only do they have JazzFest’s biggest video screens, but the have a second pair of screens mid-field! and 3 pairs of speaker towers (nicely, dare I say perfectly, time-delayed, so the sound doesn’t turn to mud).
(I walked out on the SubDudes a few years ago because the sound was simply awful (not the system’s fault - somebody really bad at the mixer). I left Stevie Wonder’s show because the crush of the crowd at my spot in the front-center on a very hot day made me claustrophobic and uncomfortable, and I’m not claustrophobic. It took me a half-hour to get to the edge of the crowd from the center!
But I planned to watch from the furthest point away, in the bleachers at the far end of the field, where I’d watched Galactic last year - not too bad, and ‘safe’.)
But Sting, in delivering his songs perfectly, did that thing I don’t like: He delivered his songs perfectly, just like the record. That, plus the distance between him and the audience had me leaving after a few perfectly wonderful songs that the audience ate right up but left me unmoved.
I made my way over to the Congo stage - meeting someone I met the night before at the Maple Leaf along the way - and saw Steel Pulse.
Thank you so much, Sting! The Steel Pulse show was the best show I’ve seen in a long, long time. They’ve been doing this for something like 40 years, and they were amazing. And, thanks to the smaller (still really big) stage area, very accessible. I was blown away. I want to say more about them, but don’t know what to say other than that, if and when a recording of this set becomes available (as has been the case at past JazzFests), I’m a buyer, and I have never done that before. Also: The last few years the AXS-TV cable station has broadcast concerts from JazzFest. If they’re doing that this year, please check out this amazing band.
Everything about the performance worked for me, and, ,as far as I could tell, the other 5,000 people in the audience (mostly behind me). The day's highlight, a JazzFest highlight, a now-cherished memory of a great concert.
It was a long walk to the Uber pickup point (Lyft and Uber aren’t allowed closer than public transportation gets to the site, which makes sense because traffic is a beastly mess at the end of each day. I had planned on seeing Kermit Ruffins later that night, but needed a nap, and slept through.
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April 28: Day 3 of my NOLA trip, quite the day, and a long story...
I have said for quite some time that I am the luckiest person I know. I have “Gumped” my way through life - accidentally being in the right place at the right time, good things coming from errors and accidents, no plan ever working as planned, no good result from the sum of my efforts, but despite them... But somehow ending up in the clover.
Confirmation bias notwithstanding, I was offered more proof today.
The day started a bit messed up - waking up from a nap that started around 8pm Friday at 1am Saturday, and not being able to fall back asleep until about 7am, when, lo and behold, the original 90 minute nap happened!
My sleep patterns disturbed, I was moving slow - and everything l did, showering, getting breakfast from the mom and pop next door (everything hot gets that way in the deep-fryer), sorting through my emails and FB was tiring. I had little energy, and a bit of a sour stomach after breakfast.
I blew off JazzFest for the day, wanting only to get more sleep, feel less ‘out of it’.
Sleep happened, in and out and light, as I distracted myself on the interwebs, I also had a few long phone conversations with some friends…
I checked the WWOV Live Wire app, which lists all the live music available in New Orleans, and there were, as usual during JazzFest, a lot of great shows to choose from, but one was a standout: Anders Osborne, Ivan Neville and Samantha Fish at Republic NOLA, a club I’d never been to before.
One of the people I spoke with in the late afternoon was my NOLA running-partner, Chicago drummer Kokomo Slim, who moved down to New Orleans about 18 months ago, and at whose apartment I usually stay when I’m in town. He’s out of town and was feeling homesick. I miss him, and promised to give his regards to my dinner destination, the St. Charles Tavern (only a few blocks walk from his apartment). The restaurant is my go-to when I stay with Kokomo, as it’s only a few blocks from his apartment. It’s always-friendly and welcoming staff provides a family atmosphere, and the drinks at the bar are generous.
I got there, chatted up the staff with greetings from Kokomo, who they expressed great fondness for (and concern that he was far from home), then got down to business with some rice and beans and catfish (and a salad and home-made cheesecake). I lingered there for a couple of hours.
Republic NOLA was an 18-minute walk away, and a nice walk was what I wanted after a big meal.
As I approached the ticket window, a woman asked if I would like to buy her ticket at a discount (tickets were relatively expensive, but you know, what a show!) and since she was doing it in front of the ticket window and promised she would have her on-phone ticket printed there for me, I agreed, and saved $10.
I went in, and headed straight for the restroom, where there was a poster for area shows at every urinal. Which is when I noticed that the poster had tonight’s show listed not for Republic NOLA, but at the Howling Wolf. The show I was at was Voodoo Dead - something unknown to me that didn’t sound like a show that I would choose to pay 50 bucks for. As I walked over to the entrance I saw that my ticket was, indeed, for Voodoo Dead, and checked Live Wire to see how I’d screwed up so badly, but the app still said my show was here, and had something completely other for the Howling Wolf.
Back at the ticket office, I showed them how Live Wire had screwed me up, and asked if there was some way they would refund my ticket. However, since it wasn’t my name on the ticket, they couldn’t. But the manager, very nicely told me, “I’ll buy the first round, and I think you’ll really like the show.” OK. My only choice is to take the loss or make the best of it. I go for the latter. After all, there was a time I liked the Dead, before Pigpen died. And I didn’t dislike them after that, but they seemed less relevant and I was back on the East Coast full-time, and back to playing other styles of music.
But the Dead with a bit of N’awlins funk doesn’t sound like the worst thing (it was the Dead who took the Meters on tour with them and broke them nationally - there IS a connection).
And this is where the ‘luckiest guy in the world’ thing starts to come into play.
Because the Voodoo Dead - not really a band, but three members of Bob Weir’s post-Dead group and a floating cast of other New Orleans A-list musicians who perform irregularly and exclusively at Republic NOLA, are focussed on the exact same period of time that I spent liking the Dead, and they duplicate the original line-up, with two drummers (in this case, one on kit, one on an elaborate percussion setup), keys, two guitars and bass.
And Republic NOLA is like an upscale, leather and crystal chandeliers version of Tipitina’s - not a bad thing. The sound system is fantastic, and there’s great line of sight, especially from the balcony-bar area.
I’m at the upstairs bar with my back to the stage when the music starts - and I get chills. Because the sound is the Dead, but better, and better in every respect. Turning to the stage I was stunned to find, in the bass chair, none other than my hero (remember the selfie from Thursday night’s Maple Leaf show?) George Porter, Jr.
He has started following me from the front, showing up where I am, instead of vice-versa.
I’m in Heaven. And I am transported. I’m flashing back to the late 60s, when I liked all the bands that came out of San Francisco. When I lived out there. Before I had any semblance of a music thing of my own going on. I am hearing the Dead played better than the Dead played the Dead. I’m dancing hippie dances. I’m spilling Jamo (a crime, but at least I’m not paying). In my mind, I’m on Acid, just like back then, and I’m tripping happy.
It keeps on getting better over the 2-hour set, with one joltingly special moment, when the group went into ‘Midnight Hour’, which has a special meaning for me, and reinforces my back-50-years-ago dreamscape. When I was just 16, I played that song at the Cafe Wha?’s Sunday afternoon ‘kiddie show’ (no alcohol served, all-ages) with a guy I knew as Jimmy James. A couple of years later, I’d see him in the first American performance of his new band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
But I digress.
It gets better. Out in the street after the first set, I buy a nitrous balloon and get in a small group of pot-smokers, further enhancing the back-in-time feel, and learn a lot more about the group.
The second set starts with a 30-minute version of ‘After Midnight’ that does what the best Dead jams always did: It takes you on a musical journey, tells you a story instrumentally, with plot twists and surprises, spinning and weaving the musical threads and slowly and logically reveals the overall design. It includes a gorgeous and musically exciting instrumental version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’. For me, there’s also the aspect of sitting at a George Porter, Jr. master class, because he is ‘on’. He’s fully iengaged, appears to be having a great time, and is playing better than I’ve ever heard him! He’s leaning INTO it, goddammit.
As the long round of applause dies down, an old guy I don’t recognize walks on stage. I swear, almost everybody gasps. The woman next to me wants to fist-bump. “It’s Bob!” she says. I take out my phone.
Bob Weir hisself is setting up on stage. He takes over for the lead-singer rhythm guitarist who moves over to the keyboards. He does 25 minutes, and I have the video. It. Is. Unbelievable.
He sounds better than ever. Everybody on stage is smiling as he puts his hands together and bows to George Porter, Jr.
He does 2 songs, 25 minutes. I have the video. Every minute. Which I won't be posting here. Also, because of taking the video, I have no photos. Sometime in the future, I'll get a 'still' from the video and add it to the album..**
**This is an edit being made a week later. It wasn't Bob Weir. Who was it? No idea. Somebody famous. Maybe somebody named Bob. Don't know. It's embarrassing, but I got around to checking, because a few people who saw the clip said they didn't think it was him (and they would know better than me, since I haven't seen or heard him in more than 40 years, and they have, relatively recently). Joke's on me. Getting drunk-stoned-tripped out makes a person gullible.
There are more hits after, no letdown in energy, no after-sex lethargy. The show goes on to its conclusion.
Then the encores: First ’Bertha’, then the Dead’s famous instrumental version of Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ as a meditative-yet-funky unspoken hymn. Finally, an all-stops-out version of ‘Love Lights’ that includes one of the, if not the, best bass solos I’ve ever seen performed. Yeah, I was at a Master Class in funk bass.
What a night!
I am the luckiest person I know. Probably, you, too. I’ll do the best I can to spread it around.
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April 29: Day 4.
There’s no point in my talking about any more ‘bests’. Whether it’s a trick of memory or a mental defect or just hubris, what you experience as the ‘best’ today will be bettered in the future, because there are no objective yardsticks, and you aren’t talking about the best anyway, you’re talking about YOUR state of mind.
On the other hand, when you are subjectively reporting on your reactions to things, it’s easy to forget that humans perception is too limited, and our awareness and attention are influenced by below-the-line unseen and unknown forces. The subconscious is just that, but it plays an outsize role. Hell, a human being may turn out to be nothing more than a spacesuit for gut bacteria (which also play a role in our perception).
Anyway, I keep on seeing great shows, meeting interesting people, having new experiences. i'm having the best time, like yesterday, and the day before, and...
Which is what New Orleans is about. Oh, and food. Food is major in the mix, right?
On the way to JazzFest today my Uber driver asked what was my favorite thing about New Orleans. Without hesitation I answered, “The music!”
But then I said, but you can’t separate the music from the people who make it and support it here. And once you’re on the people, then you connect with the food. The people of New Orleans make great music and food, so they have great music and great food.
Which brings me to JazzFest today. First thing I need is some food, and decide what I need is a muffelata and a salad with fried oysters. I take them to the Blues Tent, picking up a water along the way, to enjoy while I listen to my first show, Henry Butler and the Jambalaya Band. This show was one of last year’s highlights. In fact, it was at that show that my friend Darren took the photo of me dancing with the Queen of the Quarter (I’ll post that pic, one of my all-time favorites, in today’s photo album).
Although I don’t always want to repeat shows I’ve seen in the past, it’s hot out, and the other potential concerts I like are at open-air stages, whereas the gymnasium-size Blues Tent is nice and cool and has chairs (I’m eating, remember).
This set is awesome, similar but not the same as last time. One difference is that the bass player is now rocking a 7-string bass, and makes me think of my friend @Devery Battle Battle (Dr. D.) back in Syracuse. A very strong set comes to an on-time but unannounced end, unlike last year’s, which ended in a 2nd line parade around the tent. I’m afraid Henry Butler, Professor Longhair’s last surviving student, wasn’t feeling well.
But the audience was into it, big time, and let him know how appreciative we were of him with a long standing ovation.
Next up in the Blues Tent is Tab Benoit, who I discovered (for myself, he was already a star) two years ago at JazzFest, I’ve seen him a few times since, but the real reason for this repeat was to see his bass player, Corey Duplechin, who I met last year when he was in the bass chair for Danny Alexander’s Monday Blues Jam. He was very sweet to me, allowing me to use his bass for a fun set, another great memory (and another terrific pic from Darren). Corey is not only a nice guy, but he is a MONSTER bass player, one of the best.
I managed to wave and catch his eye, he gave me a wave and a smile. I know he couldn’t hear me shout out, “I’ll see you tomorrow!” but that might be for the best - I hope I will, when I go back to Dmac’s for the jam. Anyway, the band was there to play and the brought it, the set was fantastic, everybody in fine form, and the audience was into it. Corey was expectedly exceptional. This is a trio and Corey and drummer Jeff Alexander are a perfect rhythm section.
Next, I went to the Fais De Do Stage for old Doug Kershaw. Due to unfortunate (for me) scheduling, I could only catch a part of his set. I have found his music exciting and joyful for 50 years, and he hasn’t lost a step, but after enjoying a song-and-a-half, he exchanged instruments with his accordion player, and the band impressed me all over again with Kershaw slinging the squeeze box, After one great number, then, seeing he wasn’t going back to fiddle, I left and went to work my way through the waiting crowd at the big Gentilly Stage where I saw Wilco and Lake Street Dive last year,
This year, it was David Byrne, and he put on his typically amazing and totally choreographed show. Utilizing a marching-band-style rhythm section of 5 percussionists, as well as bass, synth, guitar and a couple of back up vocalists, his theatrical show has every member dancing while playing, and everybody was spot on. If you’ve ever seen Byrne perform live, or seen concert footage, you know what to expect. Everybody wore gray suits and sandals, except Byrne who was barefoot.
I may not be familiar enough with Byrne’s post-Talking Heads output, but all the compelling, beautiful, funky and weird songs in the show that weren’t Talking Heads hits were unfamiliar to me and very good, very enjoyable, their angularity unmistakably Byrne.
Sadly, no pics of David Byrne. Where I was standing, the sun was keeping the stage in shadows, no way to get a photo. So I put away my phone and just bopped on, enjoying the show, staying present. So more memories, memories only.
And then, for me, JazzFest was over. A long, long, walk out of the heavy-traffic zone to catch my ride, go home and reset, then out for dinner and the monthly ‘Foundations of Funk’ at Howling Wolf. Starting with a giant (really good) burger at the Howling Wolf Den, I walked through the entrance and enjoyed the New Breed Brass Band getting down.
I met some folks I had chatted with last night at Voodoo Dead show, and they assured me that we were at the best show in New Orleans that night.
They were right!
Foundation of Funk is a project where Zigaboo Modeliste and George Porter, Jr. (YES!), the rhythm section of the Meters, jam with musicians from other groups. Tonight it was Anders Osborne, guitar, JoJo Hermann (organ and piano) and the Bonerama Horns, with special guest, 14-year-old guitar prodigy Taz Niederauer.
Holy shit. I’m out of superlatives. I’ll put up some video, but I don’t have any of the part where Taz joined the group at the end - he was amazing, totally mature (although he isn’t shaving yet), and the proof, if any was needed, was the big smile on Anders Osborne’s face, as he encouraged Taz in solo after solo, being strictly supportive. There was no trading solos, which would have been the shit - when Taz is on, it’s his show. Not that he has to be front and center every minute - far from it, there was a long mid-tempo song where he showed just how supportive he could be. Impressive.
JoJo Hermann was the revelation for me, though. He is an outstanding player. I didn’t know his name beforehand, so I looked him up. He plays keys and sings in Widespread Panic, and does solo stuff. He is a much-in-demand session player and producer as well. And he can play. He was featured in a couple of songs, where his playing ran the gamut from church organ to mardi gras funk to Headhunters electronic. He was consistently inventive and yet always supported the song and the feel of the other musicians.
The Bonerama horns are three young trombonists, and they just rocked the whole night, taking solos on demand and in the shows finale, trading fours amongst themselves for a real highlight. (Taking this moment to shout out to you, Ethan Jerald and Jake Lawless, and, of course, Melissa Gardiner: You would have loved this).
There is nothing left to say about Zigaboo and Porter - a rhythm section that has influenced every musician that has ever heard them, and in very noticeable ways - from the Grateful Dead to the Rolling Stones, and, well everybody else (they toured with the Dead and the Stones early on, and you can hear their influence on both going forward).
Let me just say this: I rocked all night. I danced all night. I was high all night. I was entranced all night. And then the closer: The real deal, Cissy Strut, and the band is off (Zigaboo: “I think I see my parole officer!”)
It will take me a day to recover, I will never recover. And yet, another incredible New Orleans memory.
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April 30: Day 5 is an easy day. There’s only one plan, to get back to Dmac’s tonight.
So in the afternoon I make the trip’s first and only visit to the French Quarter, digging the street music, a random parade, and a stop at Felix’s for some oysters and a bloody Mary. I do not let the fact that my phone is at 2% bother me much, but I do cut my time a little short to take a cab back to the airBnB to recharge before dinner.
So, Dmac’s is a 24/7 neighborhood bar that has live music. Monday nights, they have a Blues Jam hosted by venerable performer Danny Alexander.
I was introduced to Dmac’s on my JazzzFest trip last year, on the last night in town, by former club owner Reggie Sheppard, the husband of my friend Darren’s airBnB host, Debbie. That night I got to jam with a bunch of great musicians in front of some friends and a bar full of appreciative local music lovers, and had a great time. Dmac’s, Reggie, the musicians there, all made me feel like I was among friends.
Tab Benoit’s bass player, Corey Depluchin is house bass. Getting there before the start, I get a chance to tell him how he killed it at JazzFest yesterday. He told me how much fun it was, that their 75 minute slot felt like it went by in15 minutes, how he felt like he was just getting warmed up.
Just under an hour before start and Dmac’s is so crowded there isn’t any place to sit. I’m reminded of the jams of my youth, when the better jams with known quality of musicians packed bars and clubs - it isn’t like that in many places these days.
I order at the bar and go looking for a spot to park, but every empty seat is being held for someone. I finally see a table in the very back that has a few seats empty, and ask if they’re being saved. Of course, they are. Might I sit down and eat, and promise I’ll move when their friends arrive? Of course. Sit right next to me, darling. My name is…, this is my friend…, and my husband…
And so, when the food (finally - the kitchen is slammed and short-handed) arrives, I’m feeling easy, smiling, talking about my trip, great music, hearing about past and current NOLA scenes. There’s a reason why it’s the Big Easy.
While I’m eating, I see Reggie - turns out, he is the ‘reserved’ at one of the reserved tables. When I’m done with my meal, I thank my new friends (“You know Reggie? That’s cool!”) and join him at a chair at his table that has miraculously (he gets things done) appeared.
We quickly reestablish our connection, talk about our common friend, and update our contact info. He asks if I’m playing tonight, I say, yes, and he claps his hands in approval.
A great set by the house band plus a ‘horn section’ (these guys just know how to do it), and I’m getting another music lesson as I watch and listen to Corey. Now I’m dancing at the table and dancing with strangers who seem like friends. I’ve been going back and forth as musicians I recognize from last year appear, everybody’s happy.
Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington comes in. He was the headliner at DBA the first time I went there a few years ago. He gets up, and before he goes to the mic, he backs up an Australian singer who had just done a totally killer version of ‘Dr. Feelgood’ and gotten a standing ovation. The song is Smokey’s ‘Baby, Baby’. Not everybody on stage knows it, but they pick it up quick and it’s another magical moment.
Walter does a couple of his blues standards, trades 4s with a keyboard player who was on my set last year. Everybody’s in synch - on stage, in the audience, our pulses and brainwaves are all keeping time with the New Orleans beat.
My turn at bass comes, and I’m supporting a female blues belter. We do ’Let the Good Times Roll’, then ‘Shaky Ground’ and then… Well, I admit, I can’t remember. Everybody in the audience is up, everybody’s moving. It feels real good to me, and then… I’m done. There’s a deep list of bass players. I’m grateful, I leave the stage to high-fives and hugs.
Outside, Corey is waiting with a few friends, shakes my hand and tells me he’s glad I took his bass out for a ride. One of his friends embraces me and says, we’re family here, and when you’re in, you’re in for good.
I’m embarrassed by my good fortune, afraid that I don’t deserve this wonderful moment.
Oh, New Orleans!
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May 1: Day 6, another laid-back, no-schedule day. This was my play-it-by-ear, see what happens day, and my last night in NOLA.
The way things turned out, I ended up first in the French Quarter, then decided to take the St. Charles cable car to the Blind Pelican for one last oyster orgy, and the NOLA welcome and camaraderie I’ve come to like so much (“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” - the quintessential quote on New Orleans’ folks easygoing friendship courtesy of Tennessee Williams).
So I found myself at the front-end of the bar, mixing it up with the staff and customers waiting for tables,
The Blind Pelican, you will recall, is famous for their happy hour oyster deals: 25-cent raw oysters, half-price char-grilled oysters. I had a dozen of each (!), and fantastic Bloody Marys to wash all that wonderfulness down.
Along the way, I met Dexter, who I recognized as one of the announcers from JazzFest. I thought I knew him from the Blues Tent, but he corrected me that he worked the Jazz Tent on behalf of WWOZ, a major partner in all things JazzFest, and the world’s greatest radio station. What else did he do? Well, this afternoon-evening he was managing the shrimp and crawfish boil at the Blind Pelican.
Turns out, we had some interesting things in common - a love of jazz, for sure. He moved from NOLA to NYC in his 20s, and without a doubt, we were probably in some of the same jazz clubs at the same time. We talked about how much time we spent in the Village Clubs: The Village Vanguard, the Village Gate, the Cafe Au Go Go, the Bitter End (and the Other End, I reminded him), and Slugs. We traded a few stories, him about getting picked up by women at SOB’s (Sounds of Brazil, get your mind out of the gutter) on a regular basis, me about Pat Sky stomping the shit out of a car that turned out to be his own, or Thelonious Monk nodding off at the piano after playing three notes.
He asked me where I was going for music tonight (he just knew, without asking or my telling him that I was going out for music), and before I could answer, he said, “I’ll tell you where you have to go: The Playhouse - see my man James Rivers play the best straight-ahead jazz in town.”
Sounded great to me, until he told me where the Jazz Playhouse was - it was the lounge in the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. I balked. He said, it isn’t what you expect, and I guarantee you’ll like it.
Good enough for me. Those words had been said to me before on this trip, and I’d never wanted my money back.
So, after finishing up all those “ersters” (you say oysters), and my third Bloody Mary (so good!), I got on the cable car (senior rate, $0.40, free transfers) to the Quarter. The Royal Sonesta is in the very epicenter of the French Quarter, and if you’ve got the coin and are looking for great digs to explore New Orleans from (I met up with a friend from LA who stayed there last year), you could do a lot worse. In fact, except for the expense, you could only do worse. Like I said, epicenter…
Anyway, the St Charles cable line ends at Canal and Bourbon, and its a four block walk to the Royal Sonesta and its lounge, the Jazz Playhouse. The James Rivers Movement had just begun playing their first set, as I was seated at the small banquette.
Admission is free with a one-drink minimum, which the waitress agreed to let me satisfy with dessert and coffee. It’s a very comfortable, 50s-era lounge, dimly lit, yet comfortable and kind of opulent. The kind of place that all the performing lounges in Las Vegas were modeled after.
But the James Rivers Movement is no lounge act (well, technically, that’s exactly what they are, since that’s the gig, but there’s very little shtick, even while they understand that they’re playing for the hotel guest/tourist crowd). This is one classic jazz quartet - tenor sax, piano, bass and drums.
Starting off with the Great American songbook, they took a swing through some New Orleans classics (are there any Fats Domino lovers in the crowd tonight?), with James Rivers showing off a classically beautiful round tenor tone, and a Lou Rawls-ish voice with Louis Armstrong phrasing. Everything swung, and the solos were beautiful - each member of the quartet got their time to shine, and their work was pure gold.
The set included some real crazy stuff. Rivers is a versatile multi-instrumentalist, and really had some unique stuff going on. He had a harp mounted on a flute(!), and the man could play the blues on that harp. His flute work reminded me a little of a cross between Eric Dolphy and Hubert Laws in tone, which is high praise. The band swung some blues, never crossing over from the jazz idiom.
Then there was a “now I’ve seen the elephant’ moment: as Rivers turned his back on the audience and picked up a 3-drone bagpipe, cycling through a medley of songs where the pipes plaid the role of a rock lead guitarist. It was surprising, fresh, exciting, and really well done.
A gigantic piece of chocolate cake arrived at my table with a nice mug of good coffee. I did the best I could with it, but in the end, even with two cups of coffee to wash it down with, the cake won. I couldn’t finish it. It was really good, too.
During the intermission, I had a chance to talk with Rivers, and told him how I’d happened on to him. “Dexter? On St. Charles? Oh, he’s one hip guy! He’s a good man and a good friend. I’ll thank him for introducing us.”
The second set began as a River-less trio session with an extended jam of ‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy’, the often-covered hit by the Ramsey Lewis Quartet. Everybody had an opportunity to solo, and everybody played wonderfully. Rivers came back up with a blues-harp-fueled blues song, “Let It Roll”, and once again, I was impressed with his blues harp playing and his singing.
By the time the evening was over, the band had gone through interesting versions of more New Orleans standards (“Are there any Fats Domino lovers in the house?”), blues, standards, a few novelty items (Tarantella, Hava Nagila, Whiskey In the Jar) and so forth, finally ending in an a cappella rap called ‘Rap is Crap’ (or maybe “I Hate Rap”).
And with that, the live music part of this trip came to an end. And I’m smiling as I walk with the tourist crowd past the bucket drummers and tap dancers on Bourbon Street to my Uber pick-up spot.
It’s been a good night, and for me, its over, as is this day, and this trip. I’ve got one more meal left in New Orleans, an etoufée omelet for a late breakfast at the St. Charles Tavern tomorrow afternoon, and then a flight home.
It’s been a great trip. I had a seemingly continuous string of musical highlights, encountered a lot of wonderful people, ate a silly amount of great food, I never had to deal with any negativity, from the moment I woke up feeling good after leaving home feeling bad.
Like the song says, I’ll miss New Orleans, but of course, I’m already thinking of when I’ll be back, and it makes me smile.
Food and Diet
Net Loss/Gain: - 0.2 lbs.
Diet Comment
An astonishing loss. I spent seven days in New Orleans, eating off-plan at some point every day, with a marked uptake in alcohol consumption, and I come back weighing a little less than when I left... Go figure.
Food Log
Breakfast
5:55pm: A Quest bar.
Lunch
9:00pm: At the Colonial Inn: A small slice of pizza, and some breaded, fried okra with ranch dressing.
Dinner
1:40am: A pint of cottage cheese and a Quest bar.
Liquid Intake
5:55pm: A Quest bar.
Lunch
9:00pm: At the Colonial Inn: A small slice of pizza, and some breaded, fried okra with ranch dressing.
Dinner
1:40am: A pint of cottage cheese and a Quest bar.
Liquid Intake
Espressos: 1; Coffee: 0 oz.; Tea: 0 oz.; Water: 80+ oz.; and a shot of Jameson's Irish whiskey
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