Music

Ellis Marsalis Music Center crowns Musicians’ Village

On August 26, 2011, In Architecture, Music, Rebuilding, By admin

NEW ORLEANS – There was a standing room only crowd, with actress Renee Zellweger in the audience, for the dedication of the new Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, the centerpiece of Habitat for Humanity’s Musicians Village project in the Ninth Ward.

Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis played key roles in developing the Musicians Village, and the center, but as performers, they called this hall acoustically perfect.

“You’re in the middle of the Upper 9th Ward,” said Connick. “You’ve got the highest level of state-of-the-art technical facility here. it is like all these worlds coming together.”

“You could bring a string quartet in here, and they could play without one shred of amplification, and everybody in here could hear every note in here regardless of the volume,” raved Marsalis.

“You could also bring Dr. John in here with his full band, and people would love every minute of it.”

The main performance hall has state-of-the-art recording equipment that is even a boost for Hollywood South.

“We have a facility like that with big screen projection capabilities, and these incredible acoustics, they can actually record the score of an entire movie here,” said Jim Pate of Habitat For Humanity.

But it is also a community center, with meeting rooms, computer labs, and classrooms to train future music stars.

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Foreigner looking for local choir to help out at New Orleans concert

On August 22, 2011, In Event, Music, By admin

Classic rock band Foreigner cannot leave the stage without performing its 1984 No. 1 hit “I Want to Know What Love Is.” And that particular power ballad cannot be properly rendered without the assistance of a gospel choir, as featured on the original recording and video.

Transporting and housing a choir for an entire tour is cost prohibitive. And so, for every date on Foreigner’s current tour with Journey – which hits the New Orleans Arena on Sept. 10 – the band is enlisting a local choir to help out onstage during “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

To pick a choir for the New Orleans stop, the band is holding a contest in conjunction with local radio station Magic 101.9. To enter, choir directors must submit an MP3 recording of their group singing “I Want to Know What Love Is” to the station online and then earn more votes than any other entry.

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Preservation Hall at 50

On June 10, 2011, In Heritage, Music, By admin

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Preservation Hall.”

The greeting comes, as it always does, minutes after 8 p.m. On this brisk Wednesday night in May, Erin Alexander delivers it to a capacity crowd, which at 726 St. Peter St. means a 100 or so people, most of them out-of-towners. Those fortunate to have made it inside first sit cross-legged at the front of the 620-square-foot, 31-by-20 foot living room, knees almost touching the four-chair front line, backs pressed against three packed rows of benches, with a forest of people on tiptoes behind that. Another dozen fill the side porte-cochere, either packed in the narrow doorway or seated on the banquette next to one of the Hall’s resident white cats, Sweet Sage, who despite the commotion is sound asleep. Outside the gate, half as many more remain in line, waiting for the 9 p.m. second set and their turn.

Alexander, the girlfriend of Hall publicity and marketing head Ron Rona (aka New Orleans Bingo! Show MC Ronnie Numbers), next informs the visitors of some basic house rules, largely unaltered since 1961: no flash photography, no video recording. (Smoking also has joined the outlawed list; beverages, never offered by the Hall and previously forbidden, now are allowed, and some listeners hold Pat O’Brien’s plastic Hurricane cups.) At 8:15 p.m., the portico crowd parts for the seven members of the band, clad in jet black suits and crisp white shirts, carrying their instruments and proceeding one-by-one into the rapidly warming room: singer and trumpeter Mark Braud, the group’s youngest member at 37; singer and clarinetist Charlie Gabriel, at 78 its eldest; singer and tenor saxophonist Clint Maedgen; trombonist Freddie Lonzo; and Benjamin Jaffe, his tuba shouldered. Rickie Monie and Joe Lastie Jr. — the pianist and the percussionist, respectively — enjoy the easiest walk.

Nodding and smiling at the audience and at each other, the musicians take their seats. Three shoe taps, a drum roll and a trumpet charge, and they’re off.

A week later and a world away, Ben Jaffe is giving an interview from the back of a New York City taxicab.

“One of the things as a traveling musician that I find very challenging, when you’re on the road, playing one-night shows every night of the year, is the satisfaction you get when you actually sit down and breathe and let ideas come into your head,” Jaffe, the Hall’s creative director since 1993, says over the din of traffic. “Most of the time you’re just worried about how you’re going to get from point A to point B. You’re like, I got to get in a taxi, I got to do a sound check, I got a show, then I got to do an interview, then I have to go to sleep because I have to be up at 4 in the morning to catch a flight. That’s your job, just going from A to B. The only moment you get to go into this creative cocoon is when you perform, and I want to amplify that. I want to make it bigger.”

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Soundgarden to headline 2011 Voodoo Experience in New Orleans

On June 2, 2011, In Event, Music, By admin

NEW ORLEANS — Legendary Seattle rock band Soundgarden will headline the 2011 Voodoo Experience, which takes place Halloween weekend in New Orleans.

Festival producer Stephen Rehage says the group’s appearance will be their only U.S. festival performance of the year.

The rest of the lineup will be unveiled later, but Rehage said Wednesday that fans can expect the talent to reflect a variety of musical genres. The alternative music festival last year featured Ozzy Osbourne, Muse, Weezer, Drake and Raphael Saddiq.

This year’s event, scheduled for Oct. 28-30, takes place in New Orleans’ City Park.

From DailyJournal

Cajun String Bands: The Next Big Thing?

On May 6, 2011, In Music, By admin

The first day of this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival culminated in back-to-back sets by West London’s Mumford & Sons and North Carolina’s The Avett Brothers before a crowd more than 20,000 strong. Here was conclusive proof, as if it were needed, that a new wave of young string bands has broken out of the underground into genuine stardom. These two bands, which performed together with Bob Dylan on this year’s Grammy Awards telecast, have shown that young people can respond in large numbers to the combination of fiddles, acoustic guitars and doghouse bass played with the same energy as punk rock.

If those kids will embrace Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers — as well as related bands like Old Crow Medicine Show, Uncle Earl, The Wailin’ Jennys and Carolina Chocolate Drops — might they also embrace the new wave of Cajun bands that have emerged around Lafayette, La.? After all, bands such as the Pine Leaf Boys, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, the Lost Bayou Ramblers, Feufollet and the Red Stick Ramblers play their string-band instruments with the same contagious momentum as their better-known counterparts.

On Saturday afternoon, for example, you could see the Pine Leaf Boys whip the crowd — smaller than the Avetts’, but equal in enthusiasm — into a frenzy with thumping two-step dance tunes. Wilson Savoy stood center stage with his legs dramatically spread apart like Billy Zoom from the punk band X, but instead of an electric guitar, Savoy held a handmade button accordion, its bellows stretching and collapsing with the propulsive beat. Backed by skinny Courtney Granger on fiddle and cowboy-hatted Jon Bertrand on acoustic guitar, Savoy had the young crowd spinning dance partners in the dusty grass.

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Preservation Hall: My New Orleans Fairytale

On May 3, 2011, In Heritage, Movies, Music, By admin

“Actually, it’s a potential life-changing experience,” replied Danny Clinch, when asked what someone can expect when visiting the legendary jazz venue, Preservation Hall in New Orleans for the very first time. And honestly, I couldn’t agree more.

Clinch, a photographer, filmmaker, and musician, recently finished filming a documentary about the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, who performed alongside the band My Morning Jacket on an album benefiting Preservation Hall. The film titled, “Live at Preservation Hall – Louisiana Fairytale” made its world premiere last month at Austin’sSouth By Southwest film festival (watch an exclusive clip of the film here.)

“Have you ever been there?” he asked. In fact, I have. I visited the hall during Jazz Festback in 2004, before Katrina hit. I can recall it vividly: It was a surprisingly small venue within the French Quarter, with only a few benches and cushions on the floor for seating and standing room only in the back. There was no bar and a few ceiling fans did little to cut through the thick air. From the moment I stepped into that hall and the band started to play, I felt as though I were stepping back in time; stepping back into the days of Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, and Sweet Emma Barrett. Clinch’s film not only does an exceptional job of transporting you to this legendary Louisiana space, but it also gives an intimate look into the lives of the musicians and the history of the hall.

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New Orleans’ Jazz Fest thrives, despite competition

On May 3, 2011, In Event, Music, By admin

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – A sea of flowered shirts, colorful tank tops and straw hats sways to an infectious beat under a searing blue sky.

Artists ranging from Bon Jovi to New Orleans jazz singer John Boutte pump tunes on multiple stages as an exuberant crowd delights in the experience of one of the world’s largest music festivals.

Robbie Alves, an audio engineer from Los Angeles, is nearly as comfortable in this setting as he is in his West Coast home.

“It’s maybe a little bit of escapism, but what’s wrong with that?” asked Alves, who has attended the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival almost every spring for the past 20 years. This year’s festival began last weekend and continues this Thursday through Sunday.

Forty-two years after it began, the event known as Jazz Fest has become a 12-stage, seven-day blockbuster that features not only jazz but also blues, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, rock, funk, Latin and other styles.

It continues to draw music fans — 375,000 people paid an average of $40-$60 to spend a day at the fest last year — even as competition from other festivals has dramatically increased.

“A rock festival has a narrow group of kids that go to it. This festival, from the beginning, went out of its way not to do that,” said Quint Davis, producer and director of the event and CEO of Festival Productions Inc.

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New Orleans, Haiti share cultural history at fest

On May 2, 2011, In Event, Music, By admin

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It’s no coincidence that the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has taken the earthquake-ravaged country of Haiti under its wing.

The city and the country share more than just a love of music and culture. They share history and are both survivors, said Richard Morse, lead singer and founder of the Haitian mizik rasin band RAM.

“I like to say New Orleans and Haiti are twin sisters separated at birth,” said Morse who recounted a bit of history behind the Louisiana Purchase during an interview.

Morse said both Haiti and New Orleans were once part of the same French Colony, but in 1803, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States after a successful black slave revolt on what is now Haiti caused him to lose the land for his empire. After his defeat, experts say Napoleon saw holding onto Louisiana as a liability and sold the land to the U.S. for $15 million.

Morse’s band is scheduled to play on the second weekend of the festival and is among several featured as part of this year’s event. Wyclef Jean performed on the fest’s opening day, while the reigning queen of Haitian songs, Emeline Michel, took the stage at Congo Square on Saturday. Others scheduled to perform include Tabou Combo, Djakout (hash)1, and Ti-Coca & Wanga-Neges.

Michael Callahan, of Portland, Ore., moved to the rhythms of Boukman Eksperyans on Sunday.

“I’m loving them,” he said of the band. “I love the dancing, the beat, everything. Did you hear what he just said? He said, ‘We have to change the system.’ Man that’s powerful. I love the politics of the music. It’s beautiful.”

On Sunday, the DJA-RaRa (JAH-rah-rah) band paraded through the Fair Grounds Race Course drawing spectators along the route to the festival’s Haitian Pavilion where they put on a show.

“They are contagious aren’t they,” said Sabel Gipson, of New Orleans. “Their spirit and sentiment is so similar to New Orleans’ own second-lines. They so represent the culture and spirit of not only Haitians, but also the African diaspora.”

Gipson, who danced and moved throughout the performance, said the festival’s decision to promote the Haitian culture “is the best thing it’s done in the last few decades.”

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The Decemberists and Dr. John Highlight New and Old at JazzFest

On May 2, 2011, In Music, By admin

“That was too dark for Jazz Fest,” Colin Meloy proclaimed after singing “The Rake’s Song” Sunday at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Perhaps a tale of infanticide would have been too grim if performed by Arlo Guthrie or John Mellencamp, both of whom were performing at the same time elsewhere at the Fair Grounds, but the song’s infectious bounce had the audience singing the chorus-ending “alright.” The set drew heavily from the recent The King is Dead, but “The Calamity Song” and “This is Why We Fight” were greeted with the same excitement as “16 Military Wives,” “This Sporting Life” and the set-closing “The Mariner’s Revenge Song.”

Meanwhile, John Legend and the Roots performed less than a football field away, but there was no irony in their set, which focused on last year’s Wake Up. The album of socially conscious soul from the late Sixties and early Seventies sometimes erred on the side of respectful; live, that restraint seemed classy and elegant. The grooves generated by ?uestlove and bassist Owen Biddle were physical, and as the band approached the end of “Compared to What” and Donny Hathaway’s “Little Ghetto Boy,” they pushed the band – with Legend on piano – to raise the energy level. By the set’s end, that manifested itself in a rave-up, multi-chorus guitar solo by Kirk Douglas on “I Can’t Write Left Handed.”

For the encore, Legend’s “Used to Love You,” he called for New Orleans resident Mos Def to come out for a verse. Then the Roots’ Black Thought started “Let Them Shine,” a beautiful end to a day that also included one of the most generous Dr. John Jazz Fest sets in recent memory. The recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee played a spirited set that showcased his piano wizardry and deep songbook, but the moments that made the deepest impression were nods to others. Although he has performed the Mardi Gras Indian classic “Indian Red” for years, Sunday he used the jaunty arrangement by the late banjo player Danny Barker heard in the season-closing episode of Treme last year. He brought out Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dave Bartholomew – the architect of New Orleans R&B – and gave his classic “The Monkey Speaks Its Mind” a spooky groove that would have been at home on Dr. John’s earliest albums. The version inspired the 90-year-old Bartholomew to some of his best trumpet-playing in recent years and gave the song fresh life.

From Rolling Stone

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival opens Friday

On April 28, 2011, In Event, Music, By admin

For fans of its distinct mix of music, heritage, food and sheer laid-back atmosphere, the wait is over: The 42nd edition of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival opens its two-weekend run on Friday, April 29.

As always, the event presents a massive spread of acts playing musical styles distinct to Louisiana, from jazz to funk to zydeco. Jazz Fest also has a tradition of honoring other cultures whose musical traditions have influenced Louisiana’s own, and organizers have said that this year’s festival “will also host the largest celebration of Haitian culture in the U.S.” since a major earthquake devastated portions of that country in January 2010.

As always, the festival tops such offerings with a slate of pop headliners who often have little to do with jazz or heritage, but who draw tens of thousands of listeners to the event’s two main stages.

This year’s top draws include coastal troubadour Jimmy Buffett, who adorns this year’s main official poster. Other major pop acts include Bon Jovi, Kid Rock, Arcade Fire, John Mellencamp, Wilco, Robert Plant, the Strokes, Lauryn Hill, Willie Nelson and the Roots.

Ticket prices have risen by 50 percent since 2006, when single-day passes were $30 in advance and $40 at the gate. But Jazz Fest continues to be what newer events aspire to become: a genuine institution.

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