OffBeat Magazine July 2018 by OffBeat Magazine

Drink & Cocktail Issue:

Tales of the Cocktail's Neal Bodenheimer Snake & Jake's Grape Expectations ____________ ____________ BACKTALK WITH LEDISI ... and more

Quiana Lynell

redefines what it means to be a jazz singer.

NEW ORLEANS MUSIC, FOOD, CULTURE—JULY 2018 Free In Metro New Orleans US $5.99 CAN $6.99 £UK 3.50

Delish Da Goddess • Nayo Jones Sabine McCalla • Billie Davies

PHoto: gus bennett

Leap of Faith

BLAST FROM THE PAST "Jazz Sisters: Kim Prevost and Germaine Bazzle"

Quiana Lynell’s phenomenal ride. Page 26

LETTERS

GRAPE EXPECTATIONS

MOJO MOUTH

Local wine shops make their wine recommendations based on particular varietals.

FRESH

Five Questions with DJ Captain Charles, My Music with Alex Pian (Greazy Alice), CR Gruver opens the area’s first School of Rock and more.

OBITUARY

POWER PLAYERS 29 Billie Davies plays her own music. 30 Delish Da Goddess opens doors. 31 Sabine McCalla speaks from the heart. 32 Nayo Jones raises standards in jazz.

Clarence Fountain

IN THE SPIRIT

A SECOND CHANCE AT A FIRST-CLASS LIFE

Devon Hall at Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29 mixes up a Jole Blon for Harry Choates.

Mike Zito aspires to even greater things.

STREET PARADE Runnin’ Pardners guitarist Brint Anderson has a new menu.

DIVING IN

Neal Bodenheimer serves up a new Tales of the Cocktail.

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Peter Thriffiley reviews Cure.

REVIEWS

Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge sets the bar.

SHAKEN AND STIRRED

OFFBEAT EATS 14

By Jonathan Tabak and Cassandra Lane October 1999

Paul Sanchez, Cha Wa, Darcy Malone & the Tangle, Yvette Landry & the Jukes, Amanda Shaw, Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires, John Mooney, Crossing Canal and more.

LISTINGS

BACKTALK with Ledisi

Kim Prevost: “My mother sang as well as my father…. My mother loves R&B, like Gladys Knight and the Pips, so I heard all that too, I listened to R&B after I prayed.” Germaine Bazzle: “I guess I never thought I was ever up to that standard of excellence to record.” To read more, this issue can be purchased at offbeat.com/issues/ october-1999/. JU LY 2018

Letters Frenchmen Street The following letter is in response to Jan Ramsey’s blog post, “Does Less Beer Mean Happier Musicians?” sharing the results of an OffBeat poll revealing that our readers would overwhelmingly not mind paying a cover to see bands on Frenchmen Street if doors on Frenchmen Street clubs were required to be closed. Wow, this seems wrong in so many ways. We always tell tourists to go to Frenchmen because they can hear music from outside a club or go in or listen for a song and stay if they like it or move on to the next place if they don’t. So if we close all the doors and start charging a cover charge, people have to decide to hear a band they don’t know by the name and a picture on a handbill in the window. That means instead of sampling several clubs in one night they’ll go to one or maybe two. How many cover charges are you going to pay in one night? The nature of Frenchmen Street is a musical buffet where you can sample several performers over the course of a night. I often go to hear a specific band or artist on Frenchmen and when I do, I tip well and tip for each set I stay for. I imagine performers I go to see for an entire performance would suffer a net loss from me by going to a “cover charge” rather than “tip jar.” There are also times that I like to go from club to club, sampling the buffet, to hear new things and maybe stay for a set at each (tipping accordingly). Many people stay for a set at a club and move on to something else after a set, or if they don’t really like the performer just a couple songs. Although I tip at each place I would go, I would likely be loath to spend a cover charge if I’m only staying for a short while—less than a set. How many times have I walked into a club and heard one song followed by “We’re going to take a short pause…” That usually means it’s time to head somewhere else. If I had paid a cover I would either be obliged to

“The nature of Frenchmen Street is a musical buffet where you can sample several performers over the course of a night.” —Gerard Guidoni, New Orleans, Louisiana

stay until the next set or leave and be very upset that I just wasted a cover charge. You might think I’m reaching here, but that really is the nature of visiting Frenchmen Street. So, being that the Frenchmen experience is to have a musical buffet that you can sample from and move on, how would a cover work? Do I have to pay a cover for each performer? And how much? A relatively high cover might dissuade me from coming in to a club especially for a performer I’m not familiar with. Finally, when there is a cover charge, what will ensure that the performers will actually be paid the entire cover charges paid by customers on any given night? Performers will have to have someone watch the door to be sure they are paid whet they are due. Or maybe club owners will charge a cover but have performers sign a contract for a flat rate, and keep the difference. —Gerard Guidoni, New Orleans, Louisiana

Music Business The following letter is in response to Jan Ramsey’s blog post, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” pointing out that anyone who desires to be a professional musician needs to be schooled in the business side. I have been reading your editorials this year, and they are on the mark about New Orleans’ music, musicians, and music business. Nashville is known for its music “business”, Austin is about “art” music, but we are the “fun” music town. We are have lots of low-paying gigs here, but very little of the larger entities to promote and market our product. OffBeat is a tremendous exception, for which, I’m sure many musicians, are appreciative. You have worked for years to focus on developing our music business culture (I was part of your DMBI initiative), and thank you for not giving up on us! —John Rankin, New Orleans, Louisiana

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

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Louisiana Music, Food & Culture

July 2018 Volume 31, Number 8 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jan V. Ramsey, janramsey@offbeat.com Managing Editor Joseph L. Irrera, josephirrera@offbeat.com Consulting Editor John Swenson Food Editor Elsa Hahne, elsahahne@offbeat.com Listings Editor Katie Walenter, listings@offbeat.com Contributors Stacey Leigh Bridewell, Noe Cugny, Frank Etheridge, Elsa Hahne, Jeff Hannusch, Raphael Helfand, Amanda Mester, Brett Milano, John Swenson, Peter Thriffiley, Christopher Weddle, Dan Willging, John Wirt, Geraldine Wyckoff Cover Gus Bennett Art Director/Food Editor Elsa Hahne, elsahahne@offbeat.com Web Editor Amanda Mester, amanda@offbeat.com Videographer/Web Specialist Noe Cugny, noecugny@offbeat.com Copy Editor Theo Schell-Lambert, theo@offbeat.com Advertising Sales/Promotions Coordinator Camille A. Ramsey, camille@offbeat.com Advertising Design PressWorks, 504-944-4300 Business Manager Joseph L. Irrera Interns Danika Andrade, Raphael Helfand, Ashley Mitchell, Matthew Philips Distribution Patti Carrigan, Doug Jackson OffBeat (ISSN# 1090-0810) is published monthly in New Orleans by OffBeat, Inc., 421 Frenchmen St., Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116 (504) 944-4300 • fax (504) 944-4306 e-mail: offbeat@offbeat.com, web site: www.offbeat.com

/offbeatmagazine Copyright © 2018, OffBeat, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the consent of the publisher. OffBeat is a registered trademark of OffBeat, Inc. First class subscriptions to OffBeat in the U.S. are available for $45 per year ($52 Canada, $105 foreign airmail). Back issues are available for $10, except for the May issue for $16 (for foreign delivery add $6, except for the May issue add $4). Submission of photos and articles on Louisiana artists are welcomed, but unfortunately material cannot be returned.

MOJO MOUTH

A Music City Like No Other

reater New Orleans (GNO), Inc.—the organization that’s concerned with economic development in New Orleans— has issued a request for proposal for a consultant to study and recommend how our metro area “becomes a hub for a thriving music business economy beyond the traditional live performance and club culture.” The RFP requires the study to “recognize and include music industry development as a key target industry sector and implement a strategy that builds a sustainable music industry ecosystem of full time quality jobs by concentrating on music business development

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and the intellectual property (music copyright) value stream.” The RFP specifies that the study’s elements must include growth strategies for local musicians to monetize their work beyond the traditional live performance; a vision for GNO to identify strategies, by outlining what we are presently doing and to identify our short- and long-term core objectives for future industry development. The RFP requires “asset mapping” to identify music businesses that already exist: venues, studios, rehearsal spaces, service providers, etc., across the New Orleans region. It also requires a “SWOT” analysis (a strategic planning technique used to help identify the Strengths,

By Jan Ramsey Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats related to business competition or project planning); an economic impact projection and a comparative analysis of other regions (I’m assuming Austin and Nashville at the very least). I’ve waited for the city’s economic development arm to commission a study like this for over 30 years. My opinion is that we should not want to be Nashville or Austin. We can’t model New Orleans after them because we are not like those cities. We have special assets and problems that these cities don’t have. I think the job of the consultant, more than anything, will be to determine New Orleans’ “unique

selling proposition” as a music city. In all the years I’ve been involved in this effort, no one has ever come up with a viable model for what New Orleans is and can be. The possibilities for establishing the city as a recording and/or publishing center—while they sound attractive—are probably no longer feasible. Digital music recording and distribution took care of that. That ship has sailed. What we do have, though, is a remarkable opportunity to make New Orleans a center for music and jazz studies, music business, and live performance education. The assets are there; they just need to be coalesced, marketed and developed. O

JU LY 2018

FRESH

Photo: noe cugny

New Orleans Pride Parade 2018

SOUNDCHECK

OffBeat.com Photo courtesy of the artist

Five Questions with DJ Captain Charles

SWEET TWEETS

J Captain Charles spins at Essence Festival again. The immensely popular deejay and Old School 106.7 FM radio host, who made his first appearance at Essence in the late 1990s, is familiar with the setting. He figures he’s performed at the festival around 10 times working his turntable primarily in the Superdome’s intimate superlounges. He even headed to Houston with the event following Hurricane Katrina. What was it like for you the first time you performed at Essence? It was a great experience. The first year I did it was a Saturday and Doug E. Fresh was on a Friday but he missed his flight. The promoters told him, ‘If you want to do it Saturday, you have to call Captain Charles.’ He gave me a call and I just told him, ‘How can I turn down a legend like you?’ So the first time meeting him was when we did the show together. Do you select material specifically for the Essence crowd? I kind of read the crowd and see about the crowd based on the first song I play. It could be old school or new school or could be an R&B song. Old school is the most popular—anything that you play by Maze or any line dance that you do always goes over. You can also do DJ Kool, Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and the Gap Band, they are crowd-pleasing songs. How might that repertoire differ from other gigs you do like your regular outdoor appearance Uptown on Super Sunday? Every set that I do is different. When I do Super Sunday the crowd is diverse so I try to cater to the crowd—I try to cater to everybody. Do you go hear other performers when you’re playing the Fest or as an attendee? Normally, when I get off the stage at Essence, I have another gig to do outside the Dome. I’m always busy during Essence. When Prince was at Essence [2004], I saw him practicing and on stage he had Doug E. Fresh, Chaka Khan, Sheila E. and Maceo Parker. I was just sittin’ in watching the rehearsal. I was enjoying that. What is your favorite aspect of Essence Fest and what makes it enjoyable for you as an artist? The beautiful part of it is that it brings everybody together with one cause and at the same time you get educated on black history and it’s a party with a purpose. You’re entertaining people from all over the world, not just locals. If you can get those people to react to the music that you’re playing and smile and dance and scream, ‘Oh, that’s my song!’ that’s what I love. —Geraldine Wyckoff

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@NewsCarolyn I love it when people call a radio station to make a request and they’re like, let me ask for this obscure song my friend recorded in his basement in 1993 and then get mad when the station doesn’t have it. @Dee1music Enjoying an album upon 1st listen is like love at 1st sight. But crowning an album a classic takes time... Like, years later, did that love at 1st sight lead to a happy marriage? Only time will tell. @PizzaNola You know you really want your own Hobart 60-qt mixer. How about a 3-phase power converter? Let’s chat. @IAMQUEENLATIFAH I’m excited to share that I’ll be performing Saturday night at #Essencefest this year. See you in NOLA! @essencefest @miaborders Sometimes I think about getting married just so that I can hire @djsoulsister for the reception. @m_tisserand James Andrews, Tee Eva second line.

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FRESH

LIVE RECORDINGS

Photo: New Orleans Jazz Museum

New Orleans Jazz Museum launches Gallatin Street Records Bon Bon Vivant

arlier this year, the New Orleans Jazz Museum issued Gallatin Street Records’ debut release. Gypsy-jazz band Bon Bon Vivant recorded Live at the New Orleans Jazz Museum at the museum’s Performing Arts Center. A record label dedicated to new recordings made at the Jazz Museum’s Performing Arts Center as well as archival material is a new way to fulfill the museum’s mission, said Greg Lambousy, Jazz Museum director. “We see it as one avenue of access to the collection and the programming we’re doing,” he said. “Of course, it would be nice to make some money for the museum, but that’s not our main focus.” The Performing Arts Center, located on the third floor of the Old U.S. Mint, presents afternoon and evening concerts every week. In cooperation with more than a dozen festivals, the space also hosts seminars, panels, lectures, oral histories and artist interviews. “It’s a great room,” Lambousy said. “We use it as much as possible.” Bon Bon Vivant’s Live at the New Orleans Jazz Museum was an easy choice for Gallatin Street Records. Lambousy thinks of the group as one of the museum’s house bands. “They have such energy and they’re a great dance band,” he said. “We’re big on Bon Bon Vivant and they were excited about doing it.” The Jazz Museum’s programming and collection reveal how musical styles are connected. “The traditions that formed ragtime and jazz and rock ‘n’ roll and R&B are all interconnected,” Lambousy said. “A lot of that came from New Orleans. I’m not saying that New Orleans was the only place where these things were happening or were born, but New Orleans is a musical home to much of that music.” Upcoming releases from Gallatin Street include an album culled from the museum’s Public Domain Project. Jazz clarinetist Evan Christopher led the series of four concerts featuring music composed before 1923. Christopher’s collaborators included Don Vappie, Wendell Brunious, Roland Guerin, Leroy Jones and Sarah Quintana. The museum is also discussing projects with OperaCréole and zydeco musician Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes. As for archival material, the label is considering 1950s recordings by Warren “Baby” Dodds. An early jazz drummer, Dodds worked with Bunk Johnson, Joe “King” Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Bechet. Multi-instrumentalist string musician guitarist Ed “Snoozer” Quinn, who performed with Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman and Louisiana’s singing governor, Jimmie Davis, is another possibility. —John Wirt www.OFFBEAT.com

JU LY 2018

FRESH

BACK TO SCHOOL

Alex Pian (Greazy Alice)

CR Gruver opens the area’s first School of Rock

Photo: AMY WAKSMONSKI

MY MUSIC

“S

ome people write third-person lyrics that are stories about other things. What I write is all relatively personal to me. I give my best effort to make first-person observations about things that can be universal and seen by people in whatever way they want to take them. I wrote songs in high school for this blues/rock band that was terrible. One summer in college, I worked a research job in a forest in Alabama. When we had downtime—in the middle of the day, because it was too hot to work—there was nothing to do so I spent hours drinking coffee, playing guitar, writing songs. I came back from that summer with a bag full of songs and started a band and that’s when I really started playing a lot. Songwriting-wise, I draw a lot from Texas songwriters. Guy Clark. Jerry Jeff Walker. Willie Nelson. For guitar, I like a rocking sound. I love all the good English bands of the ’60s and ’70s—the Faces, the Stones, barroom rock ‘n’ roll music for dancing and having fun. With Greazy Alice, we’re all over the place these days, style wise. Patrick [Smith, guitar] is deeply rooted in the blues but has made a transition to playing a more country/rock style. He’s always been super proficient, but over the past two years he’s really come into his own and is now developing his own style, which is so important to the way the band sounds. The drummer [Austin Heilman] likes Primus, Modest Mouse, Clutch. I can tell a lot of the times he wishes we were playing heavier stuff, but he likes playing this stuff, too. I’ve learned that when you put in a lot of effort into making something—work hard, have the right attitude about it, whether or not anything ever comes of it—then it’s going to be a great time and you’re going to remember it fondly for the rest of your life. A lot of my favorite musicians are the ones able to make a life out of playing without chasing any kind of fame or commercial recognition. To be a hero in your town, to be in a band that people around you love to go see. Look at what the 40s [Morning 40 Federation] and King James [and the Special Men] have done, with all that sway they have over the neighborhoods in New Orleans. Just that level of being a fixture and involved in your community. To keep playing, keep developing, not be a flash in the pan or burn out. But to really make a lifetime of having music as a central part of your everyday life and never give up—that’s what I see as success and that’s what I hope to achieve.” —Frank Etheridge

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here’s little doubt that the 2003 film School of Rock starring Jack Black was a smash success at the box office and a pop-culture landmark. But who knew that Black’s maniacal, yet endearing character—screaming the falsetto howls of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” while driving his beat-up van full of students from a prestigious prep school on the road to rock ’n’ roll fantasy—was based on a real music educator? And that the model of success created in 1998 by that musician and music educator Paul Green of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—formed the basis of an international franchise found in 200 global markets and credited with teaching more than 30,000 aspiring musicians? “It’s all about learning how to play music and rocking out,” says New Orleans Suspects keyboardist CR Gruver, who this month opens the first New Orleans–area School of Rock (the only other Louisiana location opened recently in Baton Rouge). “Students will come in for lessons twice a week,” Gruver continues, “and grouped into different age and experience levels, from four-year-olds up to adults. Once the individual lessons are done, we give them the opportunity to perform with other kids, which teaches them about group dynamics and interaction with others. We have semesters, just like a regular school, and the idea is to prepare them over the course of a semester to put on a show. This gives the experience of a real gig at a real venue in front of a real audience.” In this concept, parents will buy a package for one semester that best suits their child. Packages offered include Little Wing (for ages 4–5, with a focus on group-oriented instruction), Rookies (ages 6–8, offering those who don’t have experience to learn on such developmental instruments as one-string bass basses), Rock 101 (for those with little experience, geared toward one-on-one lessons and shorter group rehearsals), and Premier, for advanced students up to age 18 and offering three-hour rehearsals. “We also offer packages for any adult that’s ever wanted to rock out in a band,” Gruver says. Gruver’s franchise also looks to partner with the Rock and Roll Dream Foundation to obtain funds, through private donors and grants that will create scholarships for kids who can’t afford the tuition to take classes from School of Rock. “It’ll be merit- and financial need-based, along with an essay on why they want to do this,” he explains of the scholarship process. “The whole idea is to make this a community school and bring music education to kids who couldn’t otherwise access it.” “This is not going to stop the Suspects,” Gruver says of his main gig. “We played 92 gigs in 2017, so our touring isn’t too intensive. Plus I have a rock-star general manager in Jessica Troske, who can handle everything the days I’m gone. We hope to have 100 students and 10 instructors involved by the end of the year and to keep growing from there.” CR Gruver’s School of Rock (1907 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, 504.618.ROCK) celebrates its grand opening on July 14. —Frank Etheridge www.OFFBEAT.com

IN MEMORIAM

Clarence Fountain 1929-2018

Photo: steve sherman, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

larence Fountain, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner who led the Blind Boys of Alabama for nearly 70 years, died June 3 in Baton Rouge. His death leaves Jimmy Carter as the gospel group’s sole original member. Fountain, 88, and his wife, Barbara, moved to Baton Rouge in 1999 from Detroit. Although diabetes forced him to stop touring in 2007, Fountain continued recording with the Blind Boys. “My theory is to do something good in the end,” he said of the group’s 2017 album, Almost Home. “After that, you can go on home and sit down.” Between 2002 and 2009, the Blind Boys of Alabama won five Grammy Awards. In 2009, the Recording Academy presented the group with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. “These men were raised as blind, African-American males in the Deep South during the Jim Crow years,” Blind Boys manager Charles Driebe said on the group’s website. “They were sent to a school where the expectation for them was to one day make brooms or mops for a living. They transcended all that.” Fountain grew up in Selma. At 8, he enrolled at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind. In 1939, Fountain and five other students formed the Happy Land Jubilee Singers. In 1944, the group left school to be a touring gospel group. The Happy Land Jubilee Singers pioneered the stirring gospel sound that featured a shouting, preaching lead vocalist. “You have to feel the spirit deep in your gut, and you have to know how to make someone else feel it,” Fountain explained. The Happy Land Jubilee Singers became the Blind Boys of www.OFFBEAT.com

Alabama following an appearance in Newark, New Jersey. Promoters billed the concert as a battle between the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. “The name stuck and things took off for us,” Fountain said. Fountain resisted offers to sing secular music. “I was happy singing real gospel,” he said.  In 1983, the group experienced a revival with its appearance in The Gospel at Colonus. A gospel musical adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, the production starred Fountain and Morgan Freeman. The Blind Boys later worked with Peter Gabriel, Aaron Neville, Mavis Staples, Dr. John, Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, Justin Vernon, Solomon Burke, Willie Nelson and many others. “The majority of the time, when I was with the Blind Boys, everything you wanted, we had it,” Fountain said in 2017. “Only difference is, we was on the gospel side.” Fountain is survived by his wife, Barbara. The funeral service at the Promised Land Baptist Church in Baton Rouge took place in June. —John Wirt JULY 2018

MIKE ZITO

A Second Chance at a First-Class Life

ike Zito is making the most of his second chance at a first-class life. In May, the Memphis-based Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Awards named Zito best bluesrock artist. It’s his second BMA. In 2010, Zito and Cyril Neville won the blues song of the year award for their collaboration, “Pearl River.” This year also saw the release of Zito’s 15th album, First Class Life. A saying Zito often heard old-timers say at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings inspired the album’s title song. “Most of my songs that are pretty good, I’ve usually stolen something from an AA meeting,” the southeast Texas–based Zito said. “These old guys would say, ‘You’re getting a second chance at a first-class life.’ ‘First Class Life’ is an autobiographical song, but it’s also funny and ironic and not so serious.” Zito, a singer-songwriter and guitarist who’d once been in the throes of addiction, had been reluctant to write about his sobriety. He’d already recounted his story of finding hope and redemption in his 2013 album, Gone to Texas. “I can’t keep telling the same story,” he said. “But I also continue to stay sober. And I never imagined things would be this good for a poor kid from south St. Louis. I’m thankful.” Following his latest BMA and the number one debut First Class Life made on Billboard’s blues album chart in May, Zito aspires to even greater things. “Just one step at a time, but when my manager and I talk about this, we say the next thing I do needs to count,” he said. Rueben Williams, Zito’s Larosebased manager, is one of his Louisiana connections. Houma

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blues artist Tab Benoit is another. Zito and Benoit met when Benoit performed in St. Louis in the late 1990s. Benoit was doing exactly what Zito wanted to do—touring and recording. “Guys like Tab Benoit were making a name for themselves, but I had been playing other people’s music for so long,” Zito said of his years in bar bands and country bands and brief stint with a Nashville-based Christian music act. “When I came back to St. Louis in 1997, I put my own band together. I told myself I was going to write my own songs and play whatever I want. And that’s what I did.” Zito recorded his first album, 1998’s Blue Room, in a single day at a cost of $1,000. He liked the results. Audiences who heard Zito perform his original songs liked them, too. “It changed everything,” he said. “People By John Wirt

bought the CD. They requested my songs at shows, instead of Jimi Hendrix or Cream or whatever we were jamming on.” In St. Louis, Zito worked hard, playing seven nights a week. But substance abuse stopped his musical progress. By 2000, he couldn’t keep a gig. “I had realized exactly what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t do it,” he said. “It was a crazy time.” Zito survived addiction and found sobriety. He also married and moved to his wife Laura’s hometown, Nederland, Texas. “As soon as I got sober, I started playing music, writing music and recording again,” he said. “I realized that if you show up and do a good job, work hard and take the money home, you can pay the bills. Between New Orleans and Houston, there was enough work around the Gulf Coast.”

Zito reconnected with Benoit when he opened a show for the Louisiana blues artist in Beaumont. Benoit subsequently gave him a monthly gig at Benoit’s Lagniappe Music Café in Houma. In 2004, Zito began his now 14-year association with Rueben Williams. In 2007, he caught another break, recording his first of three albums for California’s Delta Groove Music. David Z (Prince, Etta James, Buddy Guy) produced Today. Musicians Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), James “Hutch” Hutchinson (Bonnie Raitt) and Tony Braunagel (Taj Mahal, Robert Cray) played on it. “All of a sudden I’m in the studio in Hollywood with these guys who played on some of my favorite recordings,” Zito said. “And I was in the right state of mind to take it all in and learn. It was a game changer.” Zito’s move to the Gulf Coast greatly affected his musical outlook. “There’s this thing musicians do here on the Gulf Coast, not necessarily in New Orleans, but in Lafayette and Houston,” he said. “They don’t care what music style it is. They play it all at once. Blues and country and rock ‘n’ roll and Cajun music. That appeals to me.” The late Dallas blues singerguitarist Bugs Henderson’s St. Louis gigs introduced Zito to musical synthesis. “Bugs had a song called ‘American Music.’ He mixed it all up. I always loved his style and that song, because I like all of that roots music. I see the similarities. I don’t see the differences. I see how it all came from the same thing. I’m never writing a song saying, ‘Okay, let’s write a country song.’ What I’ve embraced about where I live is, if it’s good, they’ll like it.” O www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Mike Zito aspires to even greater things.

BRINT ANDERSON

Street Parade

n the final day of the 2018 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Brint Anderson played his final show with George Porter Jr. and the Runnin’ Pardners. Well, maybe not the final show. But after 26 years of being funkbass master Porter’s guitarist, Anderson has a new menu. On April 12, his 64th birthday, he opened StrEAT Parade, a festively decorated food truck on the scenic riverfront at Natchez, Mississippi. During the Runnin’ Pardners’ Jazz Fest set, Porter endorsed Anderson’s change of venue. “If I could afford it, I would hire him to cook for me every day,” he told the crowd at the Gentilly Stage. “The man can cook!” “When we parted ways, I hugged George,” Anderson said a few days later. “I told him I loved him. He told me the same thing. I appreciate everything George has done for me.” “I am sorry to see him go, but we know it is for his first love,” Porter said later. “And that is okay with me.” “This is one of my loves,” Anderson confirmed. “And it’s not like I will never play with George again. I just can’t commit to working all the time.” Anderson named his StrEAT Parade food truck after Earl King’s song about New Orleans revelry, “Street Parade.” King, Eddie Bo, Johnny Adams, Snooks Eaglin, Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Art Neville and Al “Carnival Time” Johnson are among the classic New Orleans rhythm-and-blues artists he’s backed on stage. Tourists who disembark from the riverboats that dock in Natchez, Anderson’s hometown, can’t miss his business. The big yellow truck features a giant image of a court jester. “I wanted it to be

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Mardi Gras-ish and eye-catching,” Anderson said on a Monday morning at his regular spot on Broadway Street. The StrEAT Parade menu includes frankfurters shipped overnight from New York City, smoked chicken salad, sausage sliders, eggs benedict, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf sandwiches and cheese grits. “Mondays most downtown restaurants in Natchez are closed,” Anderson said. “Tourists were asking me all the time, ‘Where can we eat on Monday?’ Now you got a place. I’m open for business.” Anderson is also the official chef for the bar and music venue next door to StrEAT Parade, Smoot’s Grocery Blues Lounge. He plays music at Smoot’s, too. “That’s another thing about me moving back home to Natchez,” Anderson said. “I’ll always be able to play around here.” Anderson does solo gigs in Natchez and, occasionally, he By John Wirt

performs with local bands. Many of his musician peers from Natchez who left for careers elsewhere have also moved home. “I couldn’t be happier,” Anderson said. “And there’s all kinds of history here, just like New Orleans. I refer to Natchez as a miniature of New Orleans.” During his childhood in Natchez and Vidalia, the city just across the river in Louisiana, Anderson spent much time in the kitchen with his mother and grandmother. “They were great cooks,” he remembered. “And we always had big dinner parties at the house. I was my mom’s prep cook. I always loved it. It’s just another form of art.” Anderson’s late mother wanted him to attend culinary school. After her death in 2004, he studied culinary arts in her honor at Delgado Community College in New Orleans. And because Porter was busy in 2005 with PBS, his trio with Russell Batiste, Jr. and

Brian Stoltz, Anderson had time to study cooking, work at Ralph’s on the Park and, in the months after Hurricane Katrina, Bacco in the French Quarter. “We were rolling at Bacco,” he said. “I was cooking bread pudding in the pizza oven with wood. We used propane so we could boil water outside to wash pots and pans. Everything was served with plastic utensils.” Following about a year on the Bacco staff, Anderson’s cooking career detoured when he returned to the Runnin’ Pardners and began performing with keyboardist Joe Krown. “I wanted to stay in the food game, but it’s like what Al Pacino said in The Godfather. ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.’” Anderson’s music career began in Natchez with a trio called the Shades. In the Seventies, he joined the band Blue John. “We studied the blues intensely and we got tight,” he said. In 1981, after Blue John disbanded, Anderson moved to Austin and formed Coupe de Ville. “We were the only band in Austin doing funky New Orleans stuff.” In Texas and Lafayette, Coupe de Ville often backed Dr. John. The band also opened shows for the Neville Brothers. In 1992, Anderson’s work with the New Orleans stars and his Crescent City–based repertoire inspired him to move to New Orleans. He joined George Porter Jr. and the Runnin’ Pardners that year and, in a sign of things to come, cooked for the band during road trips. “It was really kind of George to tell to the crowd Sunday at Jazz Fest about my business,” Anderson said. “That blew me away. And I still have an affinity for New Orleans, but this is where I’m at in my life. I’m good here.” O www.OFFBEAT.com

PHoto COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Runnin’ Pardners guitarist Brint Anderson has a new menu.

Diving In Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge sets the bar. By Amanda Mester, with art by Danika Andrade

“You know, the ‘customer’s always right’ mentality. We live in a bubble here where, no, you’re not. And odds are not only are you not right, you’re drunk.” —Juan Parke, bartender

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estled on an unassuming block in East Carrollton, Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge is a dive bar which has managed to withstand the impact of storms, gentrification and craft beer. Juan Parke has been working the door or tending the bar there since 2011, nearly eight years after he first began to patronize the joint. He’s been living in what he calls the Carrollton Square (an area bordered by St. Charles, Claiborne, Carrollton and Broadway) since the 1990s and has watched the neighborhood endure its growing pains. But what remains constant at Snake’s is the faint glow of red Christmas lights and the aroma of 20 years’ worth of spilled Schlitz. Juan credits much of Snake and Jake’s longevity to its owner, Dave Clements [bass player and brother of guitar player Cranston Clements] who is steadfastly uninterested in caving to the demands of entitled customers. “What you see with gentrification is that it’s driven by a demographic that says ‘I’m the patron, I’m right.’ You know, the ‘customer’s always right’ mentality. We live in a bubble here where, no, you’re not. And odds are not only are you not right, you’re drunk,”

he says. “We don’t have to serve $10 drinks. We have $2 beers, and I think that really helps. That allows us to keep a socioeconomic demographic mixture a lot of places can’t afford to do.” Boasting that he sells more Schlitz beer per square foot than any other bar in the country, Juan tells me there have been times when uninformed Downtowners or curious tourists (whom he calls “enlightened travelers” because there is a certain amount of digging around one has to do to find this dive in the first place) make the grave mistake of ordering a cocktail. “I had one come in and order six grasshoppers, and so I proceeded to take out six cans of Schlitz. He started saying ‘No, no, no…’ and I told him ‘Yes, I understand a grasshopper has crème de menthe. Look around you. What part of dive bar did you miss?’ As if I could even bring out a blender in here. I’m pretty sure time would stop. God would look down and say ‘Really, motherfucker?’” Every once in a while, a customer will ask what kind of wine they have. Juan’s answer is, invariably, “red and white.” Snake and Jake’s caters to everyone. Despite being stumbling distance from Loyola and Tulane, it’s not a college bar. Nor is it a primarily tourist destination, nor a hole-in-the-wall escape for serviceindustry workers and locals. Rather, it’s all of those and more simultaneously. “I think what our strength is, is that we don’t have a demographic,” Juan says as he gives his beloved dog (and unofficial bar mascot) Peeve a shot glass filled with treats. Another bartender chimes in, adding “I www.OFFBEAT.com

think a big part of it too is that there’s still a huge portion of the black population that’s been in this neighborhood their entire life. And those people have all been coming here before Katrina.” Though Clements would be well within his right to keep Snake’s doors open 24 hours, he made the executive decision to keep its doors closed for much of the daytime. “Our official hours are 7 to 7, but I say we close when you start to get cheap or not cute,” says Juan. Sometimes, folks will get there early and stand around outside until the bar opens, a trend resulting from exposure on the Travel Channel and various Anthony Bourdain programs. “He referred to us as a national treasure,” says Juan of the late Bourdain. “That seems like a throwaway line, but I realize now he was right. Dive bars are disappearing, and they’re needed. We’re living in an age of social media where there’s lots of interaction but no contact. Being able to talk to somebody next to you is different than talking to someone 20,000 away via IP. As much as we like to think we see the worst of people in bars, I’ve come to disagree with that. “I see a tremendous amount of humor and kindness. It’s not uncommon that you’ll find somebody that has drank too much and everybody around them, even if they don’t know them at all, a perfect stranger, will rally around and take care of them. I’ve seen that time and again. And then of course you see the dickhead that drinks and becomes belligerent, but that’s far more the unusual case. The more likely case is what Lincoln www.OFFBEAT.com

refers to as the ‘angels of our better nature.’ I tell folks that one of the real strengths of Snake’s and dive bars in particular is that, no matter how odd, or out-of-place, or weird you feel you are, you come in here and I can promise you you’re not the most odd, outof-place or weird person in here. Odds are that person is behind the bar working for you. You’re not alone.” Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge is located at 7612 Oak Street.

“As if I could even bring out a blender in here. I’m pretty sure time would stop. God would look down and say ‘Really, motherfucker?’” —Juan Parke, bartender

JULY 2018

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL

Shaken and Stirred Neal Bodenheimer serves up a new Tales of the Cocktail. PHoto: elsa hahne

ith Tales of the Cocktail coming up July 17–22, OffBeat checks in with Neal Bodenheimer, proprietor of both Cane & Table in the French Quarter and Cure on Freret Street (which won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program this year) on his new role as head of the sprawling cocktail convention. It feels like Tales of the Cocktail is known within the cocktail community almost all over the world, but that a lot of people outside that community think of Tales as an industry-only event. It’s tough because of the sponsorship model. The reality is that there are two different budgets, and honestly, I’m only starting to comprehend this now. You’ve got on-premise budgets, which are completely focused on restaurants and places that sell your products for you. And then you have off-premise budgets, focused on liquor stores where products go directly to the consumer. Depending on the budget, sponsors have different desires. Tales accesses the on-premise budgets, so ultimately, those spirit companies want to get in front of people who will be selling their spirits—not consuming their spirits. It’s taken me a while to untangle that. Why is New Orleans (still) the right home for Tales? That’s a big question. A lot of it has to do with the history of the cocktail here. But New Orleans is also a very compact city and in the third week of July, there’s not much else going on. You almost have an empty canvas where the cocktail community can come in and make a city of cocktails for a week. I don’t think any other city can really offer that.

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Also, Tales has taken 15 years to build. This is year 16. In some ways, as the world becomes more fractured, being able to put together an event based on community from scratch would be very difficult today. There are just so many factions within the spirits professional world, and as it becomes more specialized, Tales already has a lot of those specialties under one umbrella. When it started, it was just about trying to organize different bartenders who were doing stuff in a certain manner—sort of like the slow food movement, but for bartenders. But as the field By Elsa Hahne

has exploded, there are so many interests and segments of that business—lots of different facets. Tales started at the right place at the right time, and it’s grown to be so many different things. It’s hard to wrap your head around it as a local here, what it means to people all around the world. It’s humbling. Why did you want to take Tales over? The reason I got involved is pretty simple. Number one, it was too important for our industry to have it fail, and for the city of New Orleans it’s irreplaceable. The third week of July, if we didn’t

have Tales, things would be pretty grim. For the people in the industry here in New Orleans, it would be a massive loss. When Ann [Tuennerman] stepped down, immediately for me it was about self-preservation. For Cane & Table, specifically, I knew we’d be really affected. We’re in the French Quarter, and without this influx of people, it would be amazingly slow. So automatically I looked selfishly here, but then I kind of picked my head up and looked at my friends who have places all around the Marigny and the Quarter and the CBD and saw that this was going to affect www.OFFBEAT.com

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL

so much more than me—every bartender and server in town who sees 18 million dollars of economic impact in a time that otherwise would have maybe 1 million. Would you go so far as to say that Tales makes or breaks the summer for local cocktail bars? Certainly for us. I’d definitely go that far. It’s akin to swimming a long distance and you find an island and you stop and take a break—‘This is alright’—and then you swim the rest of it. Between Memorial Day and October, basically, is a slow time for the hospitality industry. We’ll get a bump for Essence, but other than that, Tales is it. You’d think business will start to pick up in September, but it doesn’t. It’s hurricane season and the risk is too high for many visitors and conventions to want to be here in September when they know it’s likely they’ll run into at least a tropical storm, which will cost them significant dollars if they’re down here. It happens. How is Tales different from other big meetings and conventions? Tales brings in the perfect guests. No matter where we come from, we all speak the language of hospitality. You’ll see people speaking French and you’ll see people from China, but we quickly understand each other. All of Tales is now non-profit, which is different from the way it was before. Before, it was two different companies—an educational non-profit, and a for-profit management company. Nothing illegal—very common—but our goal in taking Tales over was to save the event for the city and also to give back. www.OFFBEAT.com

JULY 2018

TA L

ES O

F TH

E.. .

“Cocktail bartending is not the easiest way to make a living because in general, you can go to any bar and pull beer for a living and make the same dollar per drink that you make when you put your heart and soul into a cocktail.”

Why is it important for Tales to be non-profit, through and through? Well, there was some confusion before. People were being told it was a non-profit, but the money wasn’t being spent in that way. I prefer not to comment on it since I wasn’t involved then, but I think people want to feel good—it’s part of forming community. People want to feel like they’re doing something for the greater good. The Solomon family really wants to see this as a charitable endeavor, and so do I. How did you guys find each other? I’ve known the Solomon family for a few years—Gary Solomon, Jr., longer than his dad. But I first met senior through Hogs for the Cause, which was a big influence for this because of how much they’ve been able to do, getting people excited about giving back, which is what we’re hoping to do. But I met Gary through Hogs for the Cause and when we had Café Henri and I was really struggling with what to do with it, keep it open or close it—we thought we had a better understanding of the neighborhood and what the neighborhood needed, but I think that we got it wrong and should stick to neighborhoods we can better understand, honestly—my wife said, ‘Maybe you should just call Gary and see what he says.’ So I called him. I said, ‘Gary, I know you don’t know me that well, but I could really use some advice...’ And he was so generous with his time and gave me the advice I needed to hear at the time and it helped us make the decision to close this thing and move on. We could have sweated it out for years and years, but it wasn’t going the right way for us. He

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said we should sell it and get out and not let it take down some of the other things we were doing. It’s funny, because if it wasn’t for Café Henri, we wouldn’t have been sitting down months later talking about Tales together. He said, ‘I see Tales as part of our family legacy and your legacy. Do you want to do it together?’ And, ‘Yeah, of course!’ My original goal was to find a buyer willing to keep Tales in New Orleans. I didn’t really plan on being involved, but knowing that I was going to get to work with the Solomons, how could I not do that? Why are you the right person? I really don’t know! I think it’s yet to be seen whether I’m the right person. But I’m from New Orleans and I care about the future of this industry. I’ve grown with this industry and I care about it. Is there anything about it that scares you? Everything! There’s so much on the line and I feel the pressure to bring Tales to a better place and deliver for the city of New Orleans and the industry. Sometimes I feel like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders, but then I look back and go, ‘Okay, it’s just cocktails, everybody!’ With Cure, you won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program this spring. Do you know why you won? I don’t know! I really don’t. I think we execute at a pretty high level and we try to treat people right, including the people who work for us. We have very little turnover on our staff, and we’ve had consistency. We haven’t chased every trend that’s come our way and we try to be true to who we are. I’m just happy to see my team recognized.

I’ve been writing a cocktail column called In the Spirit for OffBeat for five years now. So far, I’ve interviewed over 60 local bartenders. A few of them are Latino or Asian, but not a single one, as far as I know, is African American. I find that shocking. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I think it’s about opportunity and mentorship. In so many ways, cocktail bartending is not the easiest way to make a living because in general, you can go to any bar and pull beer for a living and make the same dollar per drink that you make when you put your heart and soul into a cocktail. The economics of it hasn’t always been attractive to people. What we realized at Cure is that a lot of people who come to work for us come in through referral, and if you have a majority white staff and they’re referring people, they’re almost always referring white people. We had to ask ourselves—is this system of referral creating a closed network? And also, what’s the career path? We recruit from bar backs, and we were almost exclusively hiring men to be bar backs because the work’s physical, which was creating a bias, so our last two bar back hires have been women. These are difficult questions. It’s not easy to talk about, and I’m certainly not the most qualified to talk about it. Can you tell me more about the male/female side of bartending? More than a third of the bartenders I’ve interviewed have been women. In part, this goes back to the beginning of cocktails— significantly more physical work.

The ice was denser. I can’t tell you how many guys pulled out their shoulders and elbows. Also, when I was coming up, as a guy bartender you couldn’t get work. You could get restaurant work, but the high-paying gigs were in clubs and they’d only hire women. You had to send in your headshot. So with the craft cocktail movement, there were more guys available who were willing to do the work, and that doesn’t get talked about a lot. It felt like there were less women than men involved, but that’s because women were involved in this other segment of the business, which was higher paying. I wanted a club job so bad, because I knew I could make my rent in three days, but I couldn’t get those jobs because they were mainly hiring women. But as the craft cocktail industry has become more professionalized and trendy, it’s become more attractive. It’s not as if women were excluded in the beginning—you just can’t get someone who used to pull in $600 per night to come do $200 a night. The only reason to do it would be if you were passionate about the work. In the beginning, it wasn’t about money, it was about passion, and now it’s about passion and money. You can’t say that in a way that sounds good, but that’s how the history happened. Cocktails used to be a nerdy pursuit that not everybody wanted to do, and then based on the referral system, you had white, male nerds referring other white, male nerds. I never thought about it quite like that before, but it makes sense. Thank you. Thank you. O www.OFFBEAT.com

Grape Expectations

By Elsa Hahne

rench wines are famously all about the terroir, that magical mixutre of soil, sun and slopes—and the occasional eau du pied, from traditional grape trampling by weathered human feet. On French wine bottles it's often unclear which grapes are inside—the attention is on the vineyard (chateau, if you will) and the area. In America, more attention is paid to grape varieties, with Cabernet Sauvignon remaining in the lead for the red team and Chardonnay for the white. Novice wine buyers often gravitate towards these as they're “supposed to be good” and risk missing out on wines they actually might like more. Here, local wine stores pick one of their favorite grapes along with three bottles of wine that might help guide you to new insights as you imbibe.

“Just like beer drinkers clamor for hops, some Chardonnay drinkers expect over-oaked butter bombs that can be pretty excruciating to get through.“ —Dane Mannina, Brady's Wine Warehouse 22

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Sauvignon Blanc

Chardonnay

Grande Krewe, 2305 Decatur Street, Marigny, Brady’s Wine Warehouse, 1029 Oretha (504) 309-8309 Castle Haley Boulevard, Suite C, Central City/ “Some of the best Sauvignon Blanc CBD, (504) 662-1488 comes from France, where they also “Chardonnay comes from France, refer to it as Sancerre. The absolute but is grown all over. It’s a fairly neutral best wines come from along the Loire grape, so you can show a lot of depth if Valley, but there are also fantastic you’re a skilled winemaker, but you can vineyards in Sonoma, California. And also throw oak on it, or modulate the they produce great Sauvignon Blanc acid to cover up mistakes. A common Corvina, Pinot Noir Sauvignon Chardonnay Cabernet, in New Zealand—just spectacular wines in the misconception about Chardonnay is that Gamay, Sauvignon Chardonnay Syrah Cabernet, Corvina, Pinot Noir Blanc Marlborough area. So the grape is grown all over it’s sweet or over-oaked, Barbera Gamay, which it can be. Just like Syrah Blanc the world, while the taste will vary because of soil. beer drinkers clamor Barberafor hops, some Chardonnay In France, you have the classic taste that comes drinkers expect over-oaked butter bombs that can from clay and limestone—a bright, crisp flavor be pretty excruciating to get through. But there that’s citrusy, with a touch of key lime and kiwi. are many eloquent and excellent wines made with As far as food, it pairs wonderfully with Chardonnay. Maybe you’ve had a French Chablis oysters, and all types of fish, such as drum, or Pouilly-Fuissé or Champagne that you thought redfish and speckled trout—any of the mildwas amazing—all Chardonnay!—but you rarely flavored fishes where you don’t want the wine see the grape listed on the bottle.” to stand up to it. But you could put it with —Dane Mannina salmon as well, and it wouldn’t back down.” —Bob Heaps Domaine Servin Chablis Les Pargues 2015 “This is a high-acid un-oaked Chardonnay Philippe Girard Sancerre 2017 where you can taste the chalky limestone clay— “Because the Loire Valley is limestone, it has real terroir to it. Granny Smith apples... you’ll have that hint of flint and then pick up Great with salad and shellfish.” $21.99 gooseberry and yellow fruits like peaches. Great minerality.” $23.99 La Crema Kelli Ann Vineyard Chardonnay Russian River Valley 2015 Matanzas Creek Winery Sauvignon Blanc “This is one of the best surprises I’ve seen Sonoma County 2015 in a while. You taste baked pear, crème “Aside from the lemon background, you’ll brulée, yellow apple and toasted hazelnut. come across kiwi and lime. It becomes more You can serve this with everything from heavy citrusy as it opens up.” $20.99 poultry to lighter pork dishes, or buttery seafood dishes like crab and escargot—even Jules Taylor OTQ Single Vineyard fried seafood would be fine.” $39.99 Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2016 “On the nose, it comes across as peach and Duval-Leroy Premier Cru Brut Champagne elderberry, but on the palate it’s more peach and “Flavors like white flowers, brioche, guava, as is maybe indicative of New Zealand, poached pear and almond biscotti. A great you’ll pick up notes of honey as well.” $23.99 deal for a Premier Cru.” $49.99 www.OFFBEAT.com

net, y, ra

onnay

Pinot Noir Martin Wine Cellar, 3827 Baronne Street, Uptown, (504) 899-7411 “I consider myself a Pinot Noir snob so my tastes tend to gravitate to the wines from the Burgundy region of France. There, the Pinots take on a brighter, higher-acid style that demands consumption with food. I can’t tell you Corvina, Pinot Noir how many people get turned off by Burgundy Syrah because they open a bottle just to have a glass of Pinot, only to find that it’s not the fruit-driven style found in most domestic versions of the wine.” —Marc Pelletier Elk Cove Winery Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2015 “Here the Pinot takes on a ‘juicy’ richness without sacrificing the acidity that I raved about above. Superb balance; great by itself or with food.” $26.99

grape and it’s not even a big red. People see Cab and think it’s going to be as big as Cabernet Sauvignon, but it’s not. It’s very much a crowd pleaser, sort of in between Syrah and Pinot Noir. Plus you can chill Cabernet Franc and not think twice about it in summer. Genetically, it’s a cross between Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. No wonder it’s so versatile.” —Leora Pearl-Madden Owen Roe Yakima Valley Cabernet Franc 2015 “This is an elegant expression of Cabernet Franc out of the new world—lots of complexity, some rosemary, with a medium mouthfeel. People can be pessimistic about what can come out of the new world, but this is a nice example of what can be brought to the table.” $32.49

Beatrice et Pascal Lambert Chinon Les Terrasses 2015 “This is 100% organic and biodynamic, which is hard to find in this price point. It has a lighter and fresher mouthfeel—green, if you will. I also pick up some cranberry, but not like you would find in a California Vincent Girardin Bourgogne Cuvee Pinot Noir, but in a Saint-Vincent 2015 Burgundy. With the “Girardin’s Bourgogne showcases the Loire Valley so close, acidity one would expect from this area. Earthy it lends itself to that.” aromas and a light-to-medium body take Pinot Noir $20.99Chardonnay Cabernet, people who are used to domestic Pinot by Sauvignon Gamay, Blanc surprise, but this is what Pinot from Burgundy Barbera La Giareta Colli is supposed to be. Have it with food!” $22.49 Berici Cabernet Franc 2015 Marc Hebrart Cuvée de Reserve “Velvety, with “Hebrart’s non-vintage Cuvée de Reserve is hints of blackberry 82% Pinot Noir with Chardonnay making up and bay leaf. Very the balance of the blend. The elegance and approachable. If you tell me ‘weightlessness’ of this budget Champagne that you only drink Malbec are extraordinary.” $39.99 from Argentina, or Australian Shiraz, I will hand you a glass of this and you’ll still enjoy it, I think.” $15.99 Pearl Wine Co., 3700 Orleans Avenue, Suite 1C, Mid-City, (504) 483-6314 “Cabernet Franc is used as a blending grape, especially in the Bordeaux region, but also by itself. There’s been a definite movement in the last 10 years to grow more Cabernet Franc with the intention it solo. It’sCorvina, a gorgeous red Cabernet, of bottling Pinot Noir Gamay, Syrah Barbera www.OFFBEAT.com

Cabernet Franc

Corvina Swirl Wine Bar & Market, 3143 Ponce De Leon Street, Bayou St. John, (504) 304-0635 “Corvina is grown in the northeastern part of Italy called Veneto, near Venice. It’s a lowacid grape, and the traditional flavors are bitter almond and sour cherry.” —Chelsea Palmer Le Morette Bardolino Chiaretto Classico Rosé 2017 “This wine has a distinct cherry flavor and a clean finish. More minerality than fruit, but well-balanced, with depth of flavor.” $16.99 L’Arco Rosso Del Veronese 2013 “This is delicious and has a little Sangiovese in it, which sort of fattens up the wine, with a hint of clove or cinnamon. This wine is perfect with red sauce and traditional Italian foods.” $28.50 Corte Volponi Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore 2015 “Valpolicella is made through a second fermentation with Amarone grapes, which are partially raisinated. This wine is sustainably farmed, made through a traditional process and Corvina, aged in French and Slovenian oak. It’s Syrah rich and spicy, with black pepper and a wilder, brambly taste. It’s excellent with stews and gamey foods like venison. $26.99

Barbera Faubourg Wines, 2805 St. Claude Avenue, Marigny, (504) 342-2217 “Barbera is an interesting varietal that I’ve only recently started to appreciate. It comes from northern Italy and the Piedmont region that’s famous for Barolo and Nebbiolo. Barbera is lighter, with vibrant fruit—these wines are nervy and have lots of energy. Barbera is to Italy what Burgundy is to France—they’re comparable. I think people who appreciate Pinot Noir would love Barbera, with its cherry and raspberry flavors. Plus they’re not terribly expensive, and you get a lot of value for the money.” —Catherine James JULY 2018

Gran Passione Barbera D’Asti 2014 “This is an entry-level Barbera with wild raspberry and sweet earth flavors.” $12.99 Kermit Lynch Cantine Valpane Cabernet, Rosso Corvina, PinotPietro Noir Barbera del Gamay, Syrah Monferrato 2015 Barbera “This is so vibrant it’s almost mischievous, with lots of herbs. The first glass never tastes the same Cabernet, Noir Sauvignon as theChardonnay last. It sneaks around on you.”Pinot $15.99 Gamay, Blanc Barbera De Forville Barbera D’Asti 2016 “This is refined and elegant. I’m surprised how versatile this wine is when it comes to food pairings. It’s not afraid of a little spice, and you can serve it with red meat, fish or vegetables.” $22.00

donnay

Syrah The Wine Seller, 5000 Prytania Street, Uptown, (504) 899-6000 “Syrah originates from the northern Rhone Valley in France, but it’s also grown in California and Washington and in Australia, where it’s called Shiraz. This is a thick-skinned grape, dark

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and bold, with a dry and jam-like character that makes for full-bodied red wines.” —Ben Lazich

Gamay

Spirit Wine, 3500 Magazine Street, Uptown, (504) 309-8744 Etienne Bécheras Saint-Joseph “Gamay is a thin-skinned grape, like 2014 Pinot Noir. It embodies both the most “The Rhone Valley wines tend to serious aspects of Burgundy that I can have a dry, earthy, leathery character afford as well as the most fun aspects to them, and this one has nice fruit up of the wines that have nothing serious front. It’s spicy and minerally.” $31.98 to offer. You get a lot of blackberry Corvina, andPinot blackcurrant flavors and peachy Cabernet, Corvina, Noir Sauvignon Chardonnay Syrah Graillot Syrocco Alain Morocco 2014 notes too, citrus overtones, Syrah Gamay, Blanc Barbera “I was intrigued when I first heard about a variety of fruit. And the North African wine. The climate is near perfect. floral qualities are almost This wine has a deep, earthy, concentrated ethereal, floating—irises flavor with a gamier quality to it, sort of like and peonies—more straw and dried leather.” $23.98 blooming flower notes.” —Darrell Greiwe Stolpman Vineyards La Cuadrilla 2015 “This is from Calinfornia—a bit brighter, Pierre-Marie Chermette Beaujolais with fleshier fruit. It’s a medium-body, fun Les Griottes 2016 wine—not quite as serious as the Rhone Valley “Raspberries that hit you in the face, iris and wines. And it has a nice story. Some percentage white pepper. This wine is all attack.” $20 of the vineyard was set aside for the workers to make their own wine, Dufaitre Beaujolais-Villages Prémices 2017 sort of like a training “More subtle, earthy, with some forest floor, program, and it was blueberry and sandalwood.” $20 such a hit they started selling it to the public. Olivier Lemasson Gama Sutra 2017 The profits benefit the “Very mineral, sort of chalky, with tomato leaf workers.” $19.98 and boysenberry and under-ripe raspberry.” $26

www.OFFBEAT.com

Leap of By Raphael Helfand Photography by Gus Bennett

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aith

Quiana Lynell’s phenomenal ride.

“T

he last year of my life has been phenomenal,” Quiana Lynell says. It stands to reason. In the past 12 months, she’s scratched more items off her musical bucket list than most of us have ever written down. And unlike most of us, she actually does write them down. “I’m a planner, so I had this 10-year plan on my wall,” she says. “But this last year—my little 10-year plan is out the window. It accelerated expotentially!” Lynell may be stretching the English language slightly, but jazz is what she does for a living, after all. Lynell’s only been consciously pursuing a career as a jazz vocalist for about five years, but already, she’s won one of the genre’s most prestigious awards, signed to one of its most storied labels and collaborated with some of its most legendary artists, so her excitement and figurative language are more than warranted. Music has always been Lynell’s calling, but her path to jazz was far from standard. “I grew up in a very religious home,” she says. “My parents loathed secular music, so there was not a lot of push to do anything outside of gospel.” Still, Lynell’s talent was apparent from the start. “In Abilene, [Texas], we’d have all the holiday programs and we’d vie for the solo, and it came to the point where ‘We know Quiana’s gonna get the solo,’” she says. She made the all-state choir in high school and won a scholarship to LSU. But even in college, jazz was never on her musical horizon. “I’m pre–the [Popular and Commercial Music] and pre–the Jazz Studies programs that are at a lot of schools now,” she explains. “For vocal majors, it was strictly classical voice.” Lynell’s parents weren’t thrilled to see their daughter dabbling in secular music, but they were willing to do whatever it took to put her through school. “I’m a first-generation college graduate, so it was whatever I had to do to get in school because there wasn’t a lot of money,” she says. “So wherever the scholarship can come from, let’s get it.” They came around on her singing too, eventually. “My mom always tells the story of when I had to submit audition tapes to different schools,” she says. “She heard the tapes and she was like ‘Whoa, Quiana can really sing!’ This is my senior year, and she’s finally realizing this might be something!” Since then, Lynell’s mom has become her biggest fan. “Whenever she’s at a show, she’s like ‘The band’s just too loud. They need to turn your voice up!’ And I’m like ‘Okay, mom.’ It’s a mom thing,” she reasons. www.OFFBEAT.com

Despite her mother’s mom-ish support, Lynell decided to set her musical aspirations aside after college. “The classical world is very competitive, and to progress in that career, you have to audition for all these schools and residencies and companies,” she says. “And you’re competing against perfection. Like ‘Who can do this piece exactly like it’s written?’ And I just wasn’t very good, at that time, at accepting a ‘no.’ The thought of not being right was scary to me. Not being the best was scary to me. So I retreated from that world and went into sales and decided to become a mom. I was like ‘If I’m gonna be a singer, somebody’s gonna find me. I’m gonna be discovered if that’s my path.’” Lynell kept singing, even as she started a job at AT&T and moved up in the ranks from customer service to sales. She returned to her roots, singing in the choir at St. James Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge. Still, she hip-pocketed her hopes and dreams for 15 years, leaning into her corporate career and family life. Things changed when she met Janelle Brown, a fellow AT&T sales rep and the lead singer of Baton Rouge zydeco group 2 Da T. “I was at a call center, and unbeknownst to the rest of the world, when we put you on hold, we’re having conversations and playing around,” Lynell confesses. “You have no idea—‘Can you hold while I pull up your account?’ That just means ‘I wanna talk to my neighbor.’ As soon as you call, your information is on our screen, but we just say that stuff because we’re supposed to keep you on the phone.” While customers held patiently, Lynell become the queen of office karaoke and Brown took notice. “She was like ‘Quiana, you need to come sing with my band,’ and I was like ‘This lady doesn’t have a band,’” Lynell recalls. “I had no reference of wedding bands, bands in clubs. My whole world was about choral music, opera. I wasn’t versed in the barrooms, the live music vibe. But then I went one night and sat in with her band and it was the most fun I’d ever, ever had. “That was my first time ever singing with a live band, doing zydeco, R&B. It was so fun,” Lynell continues. “But I was pregnant with my second child and I was doing really well in my career… and then all of a sudden, [Brown] died. And the band was like ‘We need a singer.’ And I was like ‘okay.’ Because every day, [Brown would say] ‘You need to be singing. Your kids are gonna be okay. You’re supposed to be singing.’ So I was like ‘All right. I guess I’m supposed to be singing.’” Lynell was still pulling 50-hour weeks at AT&T and raising a family, but she began to devote more and more of her time and energy to performing. “We had a weekly gig at this little club called Raggs in Baton Rouge, and it was the highlight of my week,” she remembers. “And I got in that world and started meeting more musicians who had that as a career and were able to make a good living being musicians. So I was like ‘Okay. Let me figure out how I can be a musician all the time.’” At the same time, she felt herself lifting off from the other worlds she occupied. “I started having trouble at work, trouble in my marriage,” she says. “It was this transitional period.” She quit her job and found a much less lucrative one as a 5th and 6th grade band director in Donaldsonville, south of Baton Rouge. “It’s actually where my exhusband is from. It’s his hometown and it’s where all my kids’ family is,” she says. “So it was weird, but it was cool. And then I got divorced.” JULY 2018

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“Being a part of people’s lives is my joy, and singing is just how I do that.”

Two years later, the elementary school where Lynell was teaching was turned into a middle school, and without warning, she was thrust into a middle school bandleader position. “I was like ‘Oh, crap,’” she recalls. “The plan was not to be going to parades and football games. I had left 2 Da T by that time and started my own band. I was coming to New Orleans and performing with a lot of New Orleans traveling musicians and bands, and it was taxing to think about all the after-school band rehearsals and my family and my kids—I was a single mom— so I was like ‘Okay, gotta figure something else out.’” Lynell only lasted a year as a middle school band director before returning to elementary school to be a general music teacher, but she says her time leading the band was crucial to her development as a songwriter and arranger. “The last time I’d played an instrument was middle school,” she says, “So it was really good for me growth-wise, putting me in the practice of writing arrangements for the band. It put me in a place to grow me as a bandleader without too much pressure because it was kids.” Back at elementary school, Lynell had more time to travel to New Orleans and gig. It was around this time that she finally decided she wanted to be a jazz musician. “I wasn’t 20; I’m not about to be a pop star,” she says. “So I looked at the singers I loved—Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson—and these ladies sang everything, but jazz was their home.” Lynell’s move to jazz was less a passionate leap of faith than a calculated risk. Her years in sales earned her a savvy many artists never find, and with her family’s livelihood at stake, she couldn’t afford to make a rash career decision. “I’m grown and I have lots on the line,” she says. “This is more than just love for me. This is my life and it’s my business. So I plan and I strategize on what I need to do to be successful. I’m not just a performer—this is business. We all need to think about it that way. Otherwise, we’ll get sidetracked and forget that the decisions we make are affecting our livelihood. So I step back

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from the emotional part of the songs I’m writing and the emotional connection I have with my audience and the euphoric high I get from the performance and think ‘All right, where am I at on my plan? Is my mortgage gonna get paid? Am I still putting into my 401k?’” Even as she crunches the numbers, Lynell is having the time of her life. “At the heart of me, I’m an entertainer and I love experiencing crafted moments with my audiences,” she says. “That’s what I realized when I started singing with 2 Da T. I love the interactions with the people and giving them that time they’ll never forget. You can always remember your birthday when you went out and you saw that band. You remember the joke that singer told. Being a part of people’s lives is my joy, and singing is just how I do that. I would share moments with people if I could be your tour guide—or your teacher. I love teaching. I love working with kids. My favorite thing was being that elementary band director because everything those kids learned about their instruments and about music came from me.” Two years ago, Lynell’s friend Cindy Scott offered her the position she was leaving as a private vocal instructor at Loyola. The move meant Lynell would only have to work two or three days a week and could still make enough money to supplement her career and support her family, but it also meant she’d be spending even more time away from home. “I’m in New Orleans three to five times a week on average, and I live in Gonzales, so people were like ‘Why don’t you just move to New Orleans? Why are you living in Baton Rouge?’ And I’m like ‘It’s my home,’” she says. “Baton Rouge is where I found my voice. It’s where I found the blues. There’s so much I’ve learned from and grown in, and my peace and comfort is sitting on that porch. Sometimes I feel homeless because I’m in New Orleans so much and I’m not as connected to that community as I used to be. And in New Orleans, you can still ask people and nobody knows who I am. Especially with the work I was doing in the hotels; that’s a lot www.OFFBEAT.com

POWER PLAYERS

s e i v a lie D

Bil

... plays her own music

PHOTO: urban504

reedom and expression. These are the things that matter most to Billie Davies, who has used the drums as a means to express herself freely for more than 40 years now. For Davies, seeking freedom is a purpose, a way of life. It stems from her days among bohemian communities in southern France, living in a DIY RV and playing music in the streets, where she shaped her chops early on, playing by herself or along manouche and blues musicians. There is no formal schooling in Davies’ playing—her technique she built playing around different places and different people. She moved from the heavy, fast swing of the gypsy music she practiced in France, to the more modern struts of the cool bop scene in the U.S., managing to crunch in a transitional phase in Greece, where she played what she amusingly refers to as “their sexy music.” The freedom she sought in life, she found in black American music and the jazz tradition. Davies’ great interest in the ECM record label led her to discover the freedom in American improvised music, which she tracked all the way to the U.S. West Coast. Her fresh, intuitive and unrestricted approach to the drums earned her the sympathy of free jazz musicians playing weekly jams in little hole-in-the-walls in run-down areas of San Francisco. These experiences are what she considers to be her school. They are just as valuable to her expressivity as the learning experiences of playing with heavy cats like Larry Grenadier in Portland or John Handy in San Francisco. Today, Davies feels she has come full circle. She likes to compare the bohemian communities of New Orleans with what she encountered in Montpellier in the 1980s, and she’s back living in an RV and playing her own music. A regular guest at the New Orleans Jazz Museum at the U.S. Mint, the drummer keeps building new projects, always bringing in new elements while keeping a tight base of loyal nonconformist musicians and a fixed objective. The form and texture of the music are always malleable, but the music itself has to be natural, organic, or as Davies calls it, “edible.” After releasing a record that featured vocals as well as synthesizers and electronic elements—a new one for the drummers’ previous acoustic tendencies—Billie Davies’ latest venture in expression combined her regular trio with Evan Oberla on piano and Oliver Watkinson on bass, with the sound of reedman Ari Kohn and Allie Porter’s spoken word. The project, entitled Perspectives, was revived for a second chapter at the Art Klub, this time with the addition of two vocalists, as well as two dancers. An opportunity for more ways of expression—more perspectives if you will— to meet and be used to communicate organically, rhythmically, freely. —Noe Cugny www.OFFBEAT.com

JULY 2018

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of tourists. I wasn’t singing in places where I had a local community that knew me. And I wasn’t in OffBeat—I wasn’t in any of these magazines—so I was beginning to feel like ‘Do I even have a home?’ because there was nobody that was really connecting to me. And I felt like people in Baton Rouge had forgotten about me too.” Lynell felt rootless at times, but she never let it stop her hustle. She used her pain as inspiration when she wrote “Baton Rouge,” a love song to the city where she’s spent her adult life, after the historic 2016 flood that almost washed it away. “I’m a very emotionally scarred woman and everything I sing is the story of my life,” she says. “Everything I do has a lot of the blues in it.” Singing the blues is what broke Lynell into a higher stratosphere of the jazz world last fall, when she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition in New Jersey. When she was selected to perform, a friend urged her to “bring all that New Orleans with her to New Jersey.” She wasn’t sure what it meant at first. “But then I looked at the people who were picked and there’s a teacher [who had been] at Berklee for 14 years, other jazz artists who had multiple CDs they’d released—and I only have a five-song EP!” she says. So she brought the “New Orleans” with her and stayed true to herself. “I can’t out-jazz these people and if I try to get in a mindset to think I’m about to be at the level of Sarah Vaughan in my fourth year of studying jazz, there’s no way! So my goal was to go have fun and be Quiana. I didn’t go to school in New York. I haven’t shed in New York. I haven’t grown on the scene in New York. I can only be who I am and that’s what I did. I sang [“Hip Shakin’ Mama,”] an Irma Thomas blues, and I sang “After You’ve Gone,” which is a traditional song, and then I sang an original song of mine. It was phenomenal.”

s s e d God ... opens doors

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PHOTo: Rush Jagoe

he leader of New Orleans’ DIY hip-hop movement lives half an hour outside city limits. Gabriel Major (a.k.a. Delish Da Goddess) resides in the sleepy town of Violet, an unlikely origin for a hip-hop deity. “Being from Violet, you’re living in a small town and everybody is in that bubble, so it’s easy to feel comfortable there,” Delish said. “There’s so many musicians in Violet that’s afraid to leave Violet. And me being a rap artist, there’s not a venue in Violet that would allow me to play there. There’s no open doors.” Still, Delish found a community of artists in her hometown who actively encouraged her work. “When I started making music, I was surrounded by older men,” she said. “They were the people that were telling me that my music sounded good. They was like ‘That’s hot. Keep it that way. Make it faster!’ They taught me what I needed to know to create my own music—that heavy, heavy, heavy in your car, in your speakers–type music.” Delish’s live performances are some of the most exciting this city has to offer. She comes onstage with an unparalleled raw energy, commanding crowds instantly. “It’s always been a party to me,” she said. “But now it’s about how to let them hear what I’m saying while dancing at the same time. I’m still trying to figure that out.” After years of steady output, Delish is finally starting to get the recognition she deserves. She’s been on tour with Big Freedia and recently signed with Freedia’s manager, Reid Martin. Her recent success is representative of a more receptive vibe across the city towards less traditional acts. There’s a long way to go, but the New Orleans hip-hop scene is beginning to open its doors to artists outside the No Limit/Cash Money canon. “I think it’s just about having a venue open up to do our shows. I know more artists have been coming in, but I can’t say there weren’t just as many artists when I started out. But now these places are opening up their doors and letting us play,” Delish said. “Like I’m sure I could put on a show in Violet and people from New Orleans would come see me. But there wouldn’t be a door in Violet that would allow me in where the cops wouldn’t be called immediately. It’s just about letting us in the door and giving us the opportunity to show that we can put on just as many parties as these organized things that y’all trying to put on. And it’ll be a much cuter vibe.” Delish’s dropped her seventh EP, “Violet,” in June. For more information on her releases and upcoming shows, follow her on Facebook @DelishMusic and Instagram @collardgreens5. —Raphael Helfand

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The competition win and the deal with jazz titan Concord Records that came with it capped off a phenomenal 2017 for Lynell. It started at Jazz Fest, where she played with her regular backing band for the first time. “It was David Pulphus on bass, Simon Lott on drums, Ashlin Parker on trumpet and Daniel Meinecke on keys,” she says. “We’d been working together for over a year and a half and we were so freakin’ tight. These guys knew every breath I would take, so that set was one of the highlights of my life. I walked off that stage feeling like ‘I could die right now and i would be so satisfied,’ because everything felt perfect.” After that, Lynell’s phone started ringing. One fateful call came from Terence Blanchard’s manager, Robin Burgess. “We got lunch and she was like ‘I think you should go with Terence to Poland in three weeks.’ And I’m like ‘Okay. I hear you, but actions speak louder than words. I’m too old to be sold on this hype dream. The lights and the smoke and mirrors don’t work on me. I’m waiting for the proof in the pudding.’” Three weeks later, Lynell was boarding a plane to Szczecin, Poland, where she’d join Blanchard, Nona Hendryx and conductor Adam Sztaba’s philharmonic orchestra to perform Blanchard’s Spike Lee movie scores. “All I could remember thinking was ‘Don’t mess up,’” Lynell says. “[Saxophonist] Roderick Paulin… He calls me Qui-Qui, and he was like ‘Qui-Qui: Long as you show up and know what you doin’, you’ll get far in this business. Know what key you’re singing in. Know how to count your song off.’ Singers get a bad rap, especially with www.OFFBEAT.com

POWER PLAYERS

lla a C c eM

Sabin

... speaks from the heart

PHOTo: noe cugny

abine McCalla can handle her own. After years of providing backup vocals to bands around town, she’s finally ready to push her own voice to the front of the stage. Making the move to New Orleans four years ago, McCalla found herself welcomed into a flourishing scene of supportive, fearless artists, gravitating around this young community that nourishes itself with countryfolk and street culture, agreeable musicians, dancers, visual artists of all colors and shapes. It’s a scene where old-time music and lifestyle find a new breath, are brought back and celebrated each day with a fresh perspective and a hunger for the fleshed-out beauty of grassroots Southern music. Last January, McCalla compiled a selection of songs crafted over the last four years in New Orleans and found help from the independent Mashed Potato Records to make a first recording, Folk, a dark and intimate testimony to her fascination for old songs and classic gospel, all fittingly recorded on grainysounding tape. McCalla speaks from the heart. Her songs tell the stories of lost souls and broken hearts with moanful laments. They summon the strength and comfort of old spirituals. Her stripped-down style, either singing a capella or with minimal guitar or vocal accompaniment, bears a force that evokes the most haunting of the early Lomax recordings of historic American music. Things have been moving fast since then. The record reached a couple of ears, including those of Eli “Paperboy” Reed, a New York–based singer and producer who arranged for McCalla to play with the Harlem Gospel Travelers up in the Big Apple. An inspiring and fruitful step, the experience helped McCalla piece together her own first band. A five-piece outfit, Sabine McCalla & the Dew Drops premiered at Siberia in May. In this context, McCalla’s songs benefit from an entirely different treatment, veering toward a classic rhythmand-blues sound, like if a stack of 1950s 45s had spilled over a Ouija board, injecting the light-hearted soul of those days onto the stage. A major piece of that puzzle is the sound and mind of organ and piano player Casey McAllister of Hurray for the Riff Raff, as well as vocalist Casey Jane, with whom McCalla sang backups on Langhorne Slim’s rendition of “Deck the Halls.” For her fresh role as a bandleader, McCalla draws great inspiration from her experience as one of Tasche de la Rocha’s Psychedelic Roses. She mentions the family spirit that reigns and ties the whole group together into a well-balanced, supportive and loving operation. With a strong community around her, a record in the books, a feature on the recent United Bakery Records Revue, backup vocals gigs, connections up north and a promising new band, McCalla has much to look forward to, and many new ears to reach. Ours are wide open. —Noe Cugny www.OFFBEAT.com

JULY 2018

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es n o J ayo

... raises standards in jazz

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PHOTO: golden g. richard, III

ayo Jones is a vocalist who frequently performs with Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers, and appears on their 2015 album I’m So New Orleans. She performed at the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and can often be seen at the Carousel Lounge and the Jazz Playhouse. “I moved here from Arizona six years ago and am kind of surprised by the warm recognition and open arms that I’ve been greeted with. I really do consider it home and it has felt more rewarding musically in this city than other places I’ve performed. There’s just something about New Orleans. Being a woman in music is tough, in general. I don’t think that’s just in New Orleans. Sometimes, as women, we get overlooked. We have to push a little harder to obtain a certain level of respect. Women like myself, who’ve made it in the music industry, should make themselves available and be encouraging to young girls. You do see it happening. I have always made myself available to young women who want to become involved in music. Just watching the [induction] celebration of our new mayor and seeing all those females out there was really awesome. A reporter asked her, ‘What do you want your daughter to take away from this?’ and [Mayor LaToya Cantrell] said, ‘You can do or be anything that you want.’ And that’s how I was raised. I come from a musical family. My dad was a musician and was always very encouraging. When I decided to leave corporate America and get into music, there was no ‘You shouldn’t do that.’ I am so grateful for my father because I was able to avoid some of the pitfalls women encounter in this business. For the Twin Cities Jazz Festival [June 21–23], Dee Dee Bridgewater actually called me personally to congratulate me and say she was excited for me. And that’s an example of women who’ve gone before us extending themselves out to other women. I cannot believe that this happened. I was very excited about Jazz Fest—and I had an amazing Jazz Fest. But once Jazz Fest was over, I immediately [got working on] the Twin Cities Jazz Festival and somehow, some way, the universe said I deserved to be on that stage. I debuted a couple of original tunes that I’d never done before. We had a ball out there. My plan is to do some work with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra on shows they have coming forward while they start trying to rebuild that organization. I’m also working on recording. I recorded a live tribute to Natalie Cole at the Jazz Museum recently and have not had the opportunity to go through that file and put the project together, but I’m very excited about that. Once I do that I can begin to work on some original music. People know me for doing a lot of jazz standards, which I do love doing. I like sharing my take on classic songs. But I’m excited to share some of my original work with people.” —Amanda Mester

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instrumentalists, because a lot of times, we can get by with things that instrumentalists can’t get by with. We don’t know what notes we’re singing a lot of times. We don’t know what key we’re singing in a lot of times. Sometimes we just float by on a good look and a nice voice. So he was like ‘If you wanna be somebody, know what you’re doing when you get on the bandstand.’” Lynell followed Paulin’s advice and came prepared. It paid off. Blanchard took her under his wing and worked with her on her demo, which she’ll be translating into a full-length album this summer and releasing in early 2019. “He’s amazing,” she says. “He’s such a great teacher and a great bandleader. He’s giving about information. He wanted to look at the stuff I was writing and gave me tips on how to compose. It’s phenomenal. It’s phenomenal! It’s phenomenal.” Of Lynell, Blanchard says: “Quiana is that rare talent that is mature well beyond her years. Her soulful, perfect-pitched tone has its own character, alongside a sophisticated bluesy approach to jazz that will set her apart from the pack.” Lynell has ascended to previously unimagined realms. In April, she performed with Blanchard, Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin, Bilal, Ledisi and more at the Orpheum Theater for International Jazz Day. At Jazz Fest 2018, she sang with legendary bassist Marcus Miller. And this summer, she’ll head to Ascona, Switzerland to perform at another worldrenowned jazz festival with equally legendary bassist Roland Guerin. “The people I’ve been around in the last year have all been welcoming, loving, supportive; giving me things to listen to, building me up versus breaking me down (or building me up first and then telling me something I could work on),” Lynell says. “There are different types of teaching styles: There’s the dictator who doesn’t wanna hear anything except what they think and then there’s the leader who values the people on their team’s opinions. And that’s the kind of bandleader that Terence is and Marcus Miller is. That’s the kind of leader I am. I could be on the bandstand and just say ‘This is what I want and this is how I want it,’ but I’ve got five cats that are amazing musicians. What would that make me if I don’t value any of the input that these people who’ve studied just as long on their instrument as I have on mine… If I don’t value anything they have to say… If I don’t give them the opportunity to be a part of the moment?” Bandleaders like Blanchard and Miller have taught Lynell valuable lessons, but she still feels most connected to the women of New Orleans jazz. “There’s a lot of us that are contemporaries in this city. The younger generation of singers: Robin Barnes, Nayo Jones, Stephanie Jordan, Anais St. John... All these ladies I look at and learn. We’re all on the same struggle bus every day trying to keep our focus, dream chasing, trying to stay true to our voice and make our place in this musical city,” she says. “It’s beautiful. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about how it’s a Harlem Renaissance moment across the country. There are so many artists, but in New Orleans and Baton Rouge alike, there’s not a competitive ideology. We’re all sisters. We’re all like ‘What are you doing? Oh, killin’. You wanna come do this?’ It’s never ‘Oh no, you’re trying to take my gig,’ it’s ‘I’m not gonna be there next week. Can you hold it down? Because I know that you can do what you need to do.’ Everybody knows that everybody’s gonna eat. We all bring our own sense of goodness. Your light doesn’t take away from my light. We shine brighter together.” O www.OFFBEAT.com

EATS

“H

arry Choates played the music I grew up with—Cajun music that my grandfather used to play for me, when I was a really little girl. I’m from Biloxi, but grew up with my grandparents. My grandfather’s from Abbeville, south of Lafayette, and he couldn’t even speak English until he was seven. He’s passed on, but I’d listen to him speak Cajun and see him and my grandmother dance the two-step and stuff. My grandfather grew up on a farm and his grandmother had something like 17 children who all worked the farm. He had an uncle who’s the same age as him. They grew sugarcane on their farm, so it made sense to include rum in this drink—aged rum—and blackberries, which I grew up eating, and an egg white. My grandfather was a drinker and sometimes for breakfast, he’d have a beer with an egg in it—hangover cure, a whole egg. You ever saw anybody do that? It’s pretty

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gross-looking. That was my first bartending job, actually—going to the fridge to get Old Milwaukees for him, wherever he was. Fetching beers since I could walk was maybe, quite seriously, why I became interested in bartending at first. I also tried my hand at making cocktails for my grandparents here and there. Just simple two-part drinks like gin and tonic, vodka soda. They wanted to sit on the couch and didn’t feel like getting up and I was this little person running around doing everything they wanted me to do. I think a lot of bartenders grew up pouring drinks at their house when they were kids. Later, I was living in Austin, Texas after Katrina and was working at a sushi bar and the girl who was bartending there at the time kept not coming in for her shifts so they’d throw me back there to make do for the day and one day she got fired and my manager asked me if I wanted to stay behind

By Elsa Hahne

the bar—and I did, because I hated serving. You’re still serving people when you’re behind the bar, but they treat you differently. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s true. People respect bartenders to a degree—maybe because we do something they don’t know how to do. In the Wild West, the bar man was the one with the gun, too. He could cut you off, and blow you away. ‘Not only are you not getting another drink, you’re not leaving the bar!’ [laughs] It just might be ingrained in people... My grandfather probably never drank a cocktail that only had an egg white in it, but what are you going to do? At least it’s on the rocks, in a rocks glass, so he might have tried it. Plus there’s cayenne in there, so he’d probably like it. The drink is pink. I actually didn’t want it to be pink—too girly looking—but it’s the blackberry making it do that. But it tastes okay, right? Doesn’t taste girly. Tastes like brown.”

photos: Elsa Hahne

Devon Hall/ Beachbum Berry's Latitude 29

Jole Blon 2 1/4 ounces Roulaison Aged Rum 1 raw egg white 1 ounce fresh lemon juice 1 ounce blackberry syrup (see recipe on offbeat.com) Cayenne pepper Dry shake (without ice) vigorously first, then shake with large-format ice and strain over fresh large-format ice. Garnish with cayenne pepper. www.OFFBEAT.com

DINING OUT

Cure For those New Orleanians with memories shorter than a decade, it’s hard to fathom that there once was a time when a cocktail list was not delivered along with the dinner menu. Equally difficult to acknowledge is that not so long ago, Freret Street was a veritable ghost town of mostly shuttered storefronts. Then came along Matt Kohnke, Neal Bodenheimer and Kirk Estopinal, whose transformation of a 1903 fire station at the corner of Freret and Upperline Streets became the impetus for both the local craft cocktail movement and the revitalization of what is now one of the city’s premier commercial corridors. Quite the unexpected success story for a high-class lounge that opened at the height of the Great Recession to serve $10 drinks and enforce a no shorts dress code. From the outset, locals were drawn to Cure for a variety of reasons. Even friends of Bill W. can appreciate the towering bar shelving backlit in an

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iridescent yellow, with Edison bulbs and tabletop candles creating one of the most intimate yet lively spaces in the city. The rear patio is a more secluded setting for quiet conversation, albeit less beckoning during the summer months. But mostly, at a time when locals were still struggling to save their identity and the institutions that were washed away four years earlier, Cure offered a glimpse of what the future could hold— something different; something contemporary but rooted in history; something better. And the drinks are, of course, exquisite. Fresh off winning the James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program in the country, Cure has remained at the forefront of the craft cocktail movement. The classics are treated with reverence and attention to detail, such as the Bramble, which delicately balances gin, lemon juice and blackberry liqueur over a mountain of crushed ice. The Howitzer is an underrated elixir of bourbon, lemon, peach bitters and champagne, while an Old Fashioned can be mixed either in simple form or with 20-year-old Orphan Barrel Barterhouse Bourbon. The list of original creations changes with the seasons and may run the gamut from the Stryker, a low-proof riff on a Manhattan, to an effervescent daily punch. While cocktails have been and continue to be its primary focus, Cure has always strived to

Photo courtesy of cure

EATS

offer a limited menu of food to complement (but not outshine) the talent behind the bar. The kitchen has been helmed by a number of talented chefs—most recently Alfredo Nogueira, formerly of Cafe Henri. Choose from a number of sophisticated snacks such as cacio e pepe deviled eggs, pimento cheese toast with pepper jelly and smoked trout dip. Marinated white anchovies served atop crusty Bellegarde sourdough is a timeless cocktail hour nibble, as is white bean bruschetta with crunchy pine nuts and a prick of heat from Calabrian chiles. —Peter Thriffiley 4905 Freret Street; Mon-Thur 5p-12a, Fri-Sat 3p-2a, Sun 3p-12a; curenola.com; (504) 302-2357

JULY 2018

REVIEWS

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

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

Each day is a gift to me, not something to be won...

Paul Sanchez One More Trip Around the Sun (Independent) Paul Sanchez keeps turning out classic albums like its 1966. Sanchez may be the perfect example of how New Orleans musicians have dealt with the collapse of the music industry. No corporate label would let a musician put out records with the frequency Sanchez does—there is not enough time to promote one effectively before the next one is released. But if you crowdsource funding, as Sanchez has done with the fan-operated Threadhead Records, or finance the record yourself as Sanchez has done here, you can release them as fast as you write ’em. One More Trip Around the Sun has only one song Sanchez wrote by himself: “Live Like Laura,” an exultant tribute to a friend who lived a spectacular life before dying at age 28. The rest are co-writes—some recorded with producer Mark Bingham at the Living Room in New Orleans and at Bingham’s Henderson reconfiguration of Piety Street Studio. It’s a full-out rock album with a hard-edged Louisiana band of Alex McMurray on guitar, Ray Ganacheau on bass and Carlo Nuccio on drums; and a

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brighter, pop rock LA band with Sanchez’s old friend and cowriter Vance DeGeneres on bass and guitar. The Sanchez/DeGeneres material is highlighted by the myth-exploding “Elvis Promised Me a Cadillac,” a song about childhood dreams that turn sour. The other four continue in the vein of Sanchez’s recent Heart Renovations, dealing with the breakup of a relationship and the search for ways to recover from the loss. That search for recovery also informs “Tougher Locks, Stronger Keys.” “Carlotta, Carlotta” is a great New Orleans song about trying to hold on to a party girl who loves to dance in the clubs on Frenchmen Street. Two of the best songs are co-written with Tom Lavie. Both are traveler songs about restless spirits running on the open road. “Nashville (Total Eclipse)” is a song about driving to Nashville “with my baby for fun” to see the total eclipse of the sun, an event which becomes a metaphor for the relationship itself. “Talking Spanish” is an image-packed shaggy dog tale, part Bruce Springsteen, part Joe Ely, about desperate men packing heat, hopping boxcars and howling at the West Bank. Finally, there are two beautiful songs written with John Rankin—“Christina’s World,” inspired by the Andrew Wyeth painting; and the title track, a life-affirming song of selfrealization: “I know who I am now and I know I’m not done/ I say each day is a gift to me not something to be won/ Here’s to one more trip around the sun.” —John Swenson

Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires Gas Station Guru (Onager Records) A veteran of the New Orleans music scene since he hopped on a Greyhound bus bound for the Crescent City from his native Wisconsin at age 18, Ted Hefko hits a mighty fine stride on his latest studio effort. A UNO Jazz Studies graduate who cut his teeth in the jazz/jam outfit Idletime in the late ’90s / early ’00s, Hefko grew from freelance saxophonist to composer and bandleader in 2009 with his first all-original album, Egyptland. Subsequent years spent in devout study and constant gigging have paid huge dividends, as Gas Station Guru reveals Hefko as adept in songcraft—from lyricism to arrangements to production quality—creating an album that’s fun, funky and fulfilling. The syncopated strut of “Two Vices” opens the record, with Hefko’s world-wise, bandleader-bravado vocals pitching the perfect inflections for lyrics of gambling, greed, the Bible and “the funny things you do” to get through this so-called life. In addition to the licks of guest guitarist Mem Shannon, Thousandaire piano man Joe Welnick provides the

perfect rolls for the “I’ll be your lover/ But I won’t be your fool” closing refrain. Misty Mississippi River imagery, funky backbeats and the superb backing vocals of guests Carolyn Broussard and Arsene DeLay inform “The Roofer” and harken back to the golden age of New Orleans R&B. Recorded at the Marigny Studio and Living Room with Hefko serving as executive producer, guests join the band throughout the album. The country twang on “The Next Train” comes courtesy Cajun band T’Canaille, while pianist Sherman Bernard plies a distinct NOLA groove to “Ten Dollar Hat.” Two covers are included here: a Dixieland bop swinging of the standard “Ain’t Gonna Give You None o’ My Jellyroll” (covered by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Willie Nelson). A jazzy eloquence oozes through the folk masterpiece “City of New Orleans,” a tune Hefko makes his own—a parallel to his journey in making his style and adopted hometown his own. —Frank Etheridge

Amanda Shaw Please, Call Me Miss Shaw (Independent) Please, Call Me Miss Shaw finds Miss Shaw rocking out and www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS continuing to evolve into a fiercely independent musician who refuses to be pigeonholed as a “Cajun artist.” While Shaw has certainly shown hints of this on her previous releases, her latest recording shows an upward tick in this direction. The recording features five originals along with two covers, the traditional “Wednesday Night Waltz” and “Soulful Dress.” The high-octane “Lipstick Stain Blues” gets things jumping right from the start as Shaw gives a powerful vocal performance. Things slow down with “Holiday” as we get the sweeter side of Shaw’s vocal talents, which are complemented

nicely by her tasteful fiddle playing. “How Lucky You Are” was cowritten with ace songwriter Jim McCormick and lies comfortably in Shaw’s wheelhouse. It’s catchy in all of the right ways and puts Shaw’s vocals and fiddle playing up front and center. Shaw tackles infidelity on “Dirty Blonde,” which features some nice back and forth playing between Tim Robertson on guitar and Shaw on fiddle. “Naked to the World” bridges the gap between some of the more rocking songs on this recording with the type of song that many listeners of Shaw have grown accustomed to over the course of her career. Shaw

Spirited and Freewheeling Cha Wa Spyboy (UPT) The easy hook on Cha Wa is that they’re a fusion of Mardi Gras Indian and brass band music. That’s true enough, but the music on their second CD is just too spirited and too freewheeling to build down to a mix of two genres. With the lineup reshuffled from their 2016 album Funk ’N’ Feathers, this version of Cha Wa also takes in reggae, gospel and oldschool R&B, making the different grooves blend seamlessly and funkily. The previous album, for instance, opened with a faithful version of the traditional chant “Injuns, Here They Come.” On this album’s opener it becomes “Cha Wa, here they come.” The increased confidence in J’Wan Boudeaux’s singing is clear from the get-go, and the music is more expansive as well, with the brass section punctuating a wailing Hammond organ solo. “Spy on Fiya” also reworks a traditional tune, in this case “Wade on the Water,” and the group chants give it the communal feel of a vintage Sly Stone track. And their take on “Hey Baby”—the Bruce Channel hit from 1964, which was also in the Buckwheat Zydeco repertoire—is equal parts old-school R&B and marching-band strut. It’s one of many places here where Clifton Smith’s sousaphone locks in tight with Joe Gelini’s drum kit; you’d swear more than once that you were hearing a bass guitar. It’s near-impossible to do convincing dub without one, but they manage it on the cover of Bob Marley’s “Soul Rebel,” a moment of studio wizardry from producer Ben Ellman on an otherwise live-sounding CD. J’Wan’s grandfather Monk Boudreaux turns up for the most ambitious track, “Visible Means of Support,” where he speaks of early experiences with racism and segregation: “Brother Monk Boudreaux, meet Mr. Jim Crow” goes the chorus. But the treatment is as upbeat as everything else here, celebrating the fact that those days are (ideally) gone. Wrapping up the album are two old-school tracks, “Golden Crown” and “I’ll Fly Away” (done a cappella by two guest singers), honoring the tradition that the rest of the album carries forward. —Brett Milano www.OFFBEAT.com

JULY 2018

REVIEWS kicks things into high gear with a no holds barred version of “Soulful Dress,” which finds her aggressively spreading her wings as she delivers a tour de force vocal performance. “Wednesday Night Waltz” closes out the album and really stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the recording. It’s a nice way to wind things down and gives Shaw a chance to shine on fiddle. For many listeners, this is the Amanda Shaw that you may long for; but make no mistake, Shaw is pushing the envelope and discovering who she is as an artist. —Christopher Weddle

the best—a kind of optimistic pacifist’s anthem. “Crescent (Nola Bound Again)” has a touch of Joni Mitchell to it, except California is forsaken for New Orleans. “You Won’t Be Seeing Me Around Anymore” is a goodbye song in the Dylan vein. It’s only six songs, but the brevity kind of adds to the charm. It’s front porch music, meant to please and soothe. —Stacey Leigh Bridewell

John Mooney Truth of the Matter (Independent)

Crossing Canal Lowdown Runaround Fool (Independent) Ruby Ross of Charlottesville and Patrick Cooper of Shreveport make up the singer/songwriter duo Crossing Canal. They interpret their original tunes with gentle vocal harmonies and accompany themselves with lightly strummed acoustic guitars. Their songs float along like on an Appalachian breeze, never over-exerting themselves. Lowdown Runaround Fool is the duo’s debut EP. The opening song, “Chase Me,” is one young lover’s request to another to speed up their courtship. “Pretty Little Bird” describes a picket-fence town with fireflies and bare feet and the desire to fly away. “Jacket Sleeve” is a feisty song about a cheating lover. Even though the song’s a bit more heated than the rest, the duo never stray far from that core of gentleness. Patrick Cooper sings “Things We Can’t Control,” which is about accepting what you can’t control and hoping for

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John Mooney is part of the last group of New Orleans musicians to have worked alongside and learned from departed masters like Professor Longhair, Earl King, Snooks Eaglin et al. A protégé of the blues great Son House, Mooney is a direct link to the foundations of that music. Mooney’s uncanny slide work defines the bottleneck style and informs his songwriting from the inside out—he’s come to the point as a Louisiana musician where he’s no longer in awe of the majesty surrounding him and swinging for the fences on every solo, but a carrier of a tradition suffused with the knowledge that the music can be a way of life that can be handed down for generations to come. That’s how Mooney can write a song as good as “Row My Boat,” a celebration of Louisiana that I can safely say is not about Bayou Boogaloo, where there is water and music but not much room for rowing at this point. Mooney also writes several other solid originals on the LP, including the title track, “Deal With Love” and “Ashes 2 Ashes.” www.OFFBEAT.com

REVIEWS He does great a version of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Please Baby” and “Jailbird Love Song” and adds a moving take on the well-known traditional “Motherless Child,” a New Orleans touchstone. Mooney has a great band with him here, built around bassist Rene Coman, Doug Belote on drums and Alfred “Uganda” Roberts on percussion. Jeff Watkins plays alto and tenor sax and Ian Smith trumpet and valve trombone. Special guests include keyboardists Jon Cleary, John Gros and CR Gruver as well as guitarist Jake Eckert, who co-produced the record with Cleary at his uptown Rhythm Shack Studios, where a lot of great music is being made these days. With finishing touches from the sound magician, Trina Shoemaker, the trick is in the mix. —John Swenson

Lane Mack Swampodisiac (Independent) Lane Mack’s sophomore effort Swampodisiac is sonic proof that his auspicious 2015 debut wasn’t a fluke but a solidly constructed foundation to build upon. Compared to its eponymously titled predecessor, the five-song Swampodiasic has better studio production, a bigger guitar sound and more spellbinding grooves. “Dynamite” is the best example of its groove-ology. The Lafayettebased guitarist trades guitar and bass riffs back and forth and emulates a Howlin’ Wolf howl while the séance-like vocals of Sweet Cecilia add to the intensity. “Hell on My Backside” initially feels Robert Johnson–inspired before launching into a full-

Good Vibes Darcy Malone & the Tangle Pure as Gold (Independent) This is Malone and the Tangle’s third release in two years, and the sound and confidence of the band continue to evolve. In the past they’ve honored the band’s name by presenting a tangled mix of musical styles, but here it all edges toward an identifiable band sound, and they’ve picked a good place to land: Some of these five tracks are more soulful and some more rocking, but the whole things sounds like it could have been cut at Muscle Shoals during its heyday. Malone’s also found a tougher singing voice, more steeped in classic Southern soul. That makes the two slow tracks on the EP the standouts: “Bleed Me Dry” (written by keyboardist James Beaumont) is an oldfashioned, soul-baring ballad that she works for all its worth, mainly with just an electric piano for backup (the band holds off kicking in until the halfway mark). “Meringue,” co-written by Darcy with her father Dave Malone, has a more offbeat lyrical slant—“You keep whippin’ it like meringue” is how it describes a messed-up relationship—but it’s another strong slow-burner, and the end-chorus key change resolves the tension it builds. Elsewhere the band (which now includes Vox & the Hound member and OffBeat contributor Rory Callais on guitar) gets room to stretch out. The Randy Newman song “You Can Leave Your Hat On” sounds nothing like any of the familiar versions; the groove is funkafied and Malone treats it as a straight-up seduction song instead of a mixed-messages sendup. The title track is the disc’s rocker, and an uplifting track with calland-response vocals and fuzz guitar solo. It not only absorbs the sound of a classic musical era, but its pervasive good vibes as well. —Brett Milano www.OFFBEAT.com

JULY 2018

REVIEWS

blown bombastic rocker with Nick Stephan playing a baritone sax through a Leslie organ for a buzzy quasi-jazz texture. As a result of being a contestant on The Voice and collaborating with the other contestants, Mack has improved immensely as a vocalist (not that he was bad before). Sometimes he even sings with a rock-star swagger, such as on the blitzkrieg “Gimme That Love,” which mixes a Black Crowes bluesy angst with Stax-powered horns. But Mack can write gripping songs too, such as “The Water is Rising” inspired by the devastating floods of 2016. Towards the end of the song, there’s an uplifting feeling of solidarity and resiliency as people unite and rebuild their lives together. That’s good storytelling and underscores how Mack is more than just a fiery-fingered guitar slinger. —Dan Willging

Kevin Naquin and the Ossun Playboys Man in the Mirror (Flat Town Music) Considering this is Kevin Naquin’s 11th album of his 23year career, he manages to pack plenty of artistic firsts into these dozen tracks. It’s the first time he’s recorded a contemporary country ballad, “Please Say You’ll Stay” (written by local songwriter Bryan Perrin), and the arrangement demonstrates the Ossun Playboys’ versatility in pulling off something a little more radio-friendly. But Cajun music still remains the epicenter of Naquin’s musical DNA. Two new co-written originals with ULL Professor Emeritus Barry Ancelet serve

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as the disc’s centerpiece. The title track, a stirring waltz, is about a guy content with his integrity; the blasting “Belle journée” chronicles a comical day in a conked-out fishing boat. Naquin achieves another first by transforming Pee Wee Broussard’s “Everybody Waltz” into “Everybody Two Step,” an infectious track with a southern rock tinge. However, on previous albums, Naquin didn’t rely on his signature straight up Cajun dancehall style but rendered “Lemonade Song” and “J’ai été au bal” a la Wayne Toups– inspired zydecajun. Additionally, Naquin achieves yet another first with a blended regional roots sound that also embraces zydeco, Creole, swamp popped Sam Cooke soul (“Bring It On Home”) and vintage country (“Crazy Arms”) with Don Hayes’ rollicking ivories. As part of nurturing the next generation, Naquin’s teenage daughter Kaleigh sang capably and played guitar on the Keith Whitley/Alison Krauss popularized “When You Say Nothing At All.” Overall, it’s a different look for Naquin, but a welcome one that’s his most diversified platter to date. —Dan Willging

James Carr The Best Of (Kent Records) James Carr reissues have appeared over the past three decades on vinyl and CD. While all of the tracks here can be found on other collections, let it be said there is no such thing as an inferior James Carr album.

The poster child for Deep Soul, of all the great Memphis vocalists, along with O.V. Wright, he could worry a note like no other. Carr benefitted by having the best studio musicians, and songwriters like Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham offering his producer Quinton Claunch material. The ultimate cheating song, “The Dark End of The Street,” opens, and no matter how man times you hear the song, you can’t help but being put in Carr’s shoes. Likewise “Pouring Water On A Drowning Man” is sold by Carr’s tortured delivery. Similarly on the aptly titled “You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up,” the man sings with desperation, confusion and passion. Carr even turns his

cover of the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” into an epic soul classic. Of course his better-known material is presented (Carr, who recorded for Goldwax, never had a single that got him off the chitlin’ circuit) including “Love Attack,” “Freedom Train,” and the emotive “A Man Needs A Woman.” Along with the “familiar” material a few obscurities are included that are just as satisfying. That would include “A Lucky Loser,” “You Hurt So Good” and especially “Let’s Face Facts” (how did this song sit on the shelf for 10 years?). Brilliant stuff here. If you’re looking for background music, avoid this. This is the kind of music that seeps into your body. —Jeff Hannusch

Dazzling Boogies Yvette Landry & The Jukes Louisiana Lovin’ (Soko Music) The roots of this Yvette Landry– Roddie Romero collaboration began when they performed Dale & Grace’s number one hit “I’m Leaving It Up to You” at a gig, then waxed a dreamy rendition of it for Landry’s 2014 release Me & T-Coe’s Country. Expand the concept further and you get the Jukes, a seasoned sextet that includes Romero’s Hub City AllStars’ pianist/organist Eric Adcock and saxophonist Derek Huston. While the focus is swamp pop and early Gulf Coast rock ’n’ roll, Louisiana Lovin’ is simultaneously a classic and contemporary affair recalling the golden era of Louisiana’s dancehalls and juke joints. Nearly all the songs are indigenous or longtime emigrants to the South Louisiana repertoire, such as Jack Greene’s “I Need Somebody Bad,” popularized by Warren Storm. Four glorious selections hail from favorite son Bobby Charles. Landry and Romero make for electrifying duet partners, sometimes blending as a single entity (“My Last Date With You”), other times playfully interacting, as on “Yea Yea Baby,” which is practically a scene from a musical. Of the three tunes Landry sings solo, the rumba-rockin’ “Daddy Daddy” is by far her best performance as she couldn’t have channeled the passion and sensuality of her love-smitten protagonist any better. Similarly, Romero delivers knockout interpretations of Charles’ “Homesick Blues” and David Egan’s “Forbidden Love.” Yet a large part of the Jukes’ sound comes from Adcock and his endless supply of dazzling boogies, meandering blues, trills and pulsating triplets. While most will find Louisiana Lovin’ accessible, entertaining and enduring, it’s also a reminder of South Louisiana’s fertile musical legacy that continues to flourish with seeds like this. —Dan Willging www.OFFBEAT.com

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Listings

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These listings are abbreviated. For complete daily listings, go to offbeat.com. These listings were verified at the time of publication, but are of course subject to change. To get your event listed, go to offbeat.com/add-new-listings or send an email to listings@offbeat.com.

AF African AM Americana BL Blues BU Bluegrass BO Bounce BB Brass Band BQ Burlesque KJ Cajun CL Classical CR Classic Rock CO Comedy CW Country CB Cover Band DN Dance DX Dixieland DB Dubstep EL Electro FO Folk FK Funk GS Gospel GY Gypsy HH Hip-Hop HS House IN Indian Classical ID Indie Rock IL Industrial IR Irish JB Jam Band

MJ Jazz Contemporary TJ Jazz Traditional JV Jazz Variety KR Karaoke KZ Klezmer LT Latin MG Mardi Gras Indian ME Metal RB Modern R&B PO Pop PK Punk RE Reggae RC Rockabilly RK Rock RR Roots Rock SS Singer/ Songwriter SK Ska PI Solo Piano SO Soul SW Spoken Word SP Swamp Pop SI Swing VR Variety ZY Zydeco

SUNDAY JULY 1

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, the Pfister Sisters (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Colin Davis and Night People (VR) 6p, Vegas Cola (JV) 10p d.b.a.: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, the Iguanas (VR) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8p Little Gem Saloon: Little Freddie King (BL) 11a Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Walter “Wolfman” Washington (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Snug Harbor: Grayson Brockamp and the New Orleans Wildlife Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Giselle Anguizola and the New Orleans Swinging Gypsies (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Starlight: Handmade Moments (FO) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Mem Shannon (BL) 9p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p, Happy Birds of Blueness (JV) 8p Trinity Episcopal Church: 18th Annual Patriotic Music Festival feat. Marine Corps Concert Band, Ellis Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis and his Uptown Jazz Orchestra, Albinas Prizgintas (VR) 3p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

MONDAY JULY 2

Buffa’s: A2D2 with Arsene DeLay and Antoine Diel (VR) 6p

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Café Negril: Maid of Orleans (VR) 6p, In Business (VR) 10p Fontaine Palace: Louie’s Do the Bar Lounge (VR) 6p Funky Pirate: Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Gasa Gasa: John Francis and the Poor Clares, Mad Dog and her Lil Pups (RK) 9p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, the Red Clay Strays (RC) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Sean Hobbes and the Hi Res (FK) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio feat. Michael Lemmler and Terrence Houston (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars (TJ) 8p Saturn Bar: Michot’s Melody Makers (KJ) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Dana Abbott (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Starlight: Burlesque Bingo with Lefty Lucy (BQ) 7p, Joshua Benitez Band (RK) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel):Alligator Chomp Chomp (RB) 5p Three Muses: Leo Forde (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 7p

TUESDAY JULY 3

Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Café Negril: 4 Sidemen of the Apocalypse (VR) 6p, Vegas Cola (JV) 10p d.b.a.: Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Fontaine Palace: Soul Rotisserie (SO) 5p Gasa Gasa: Walker Lukens (ID) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Siberia: Valerie Sassafras Birthday Bash with Joystick, Rareluth (VR) 9p SideBar NOLA: Carlo Nuccio, Dave Easley, Tom Fitzpatrick and Nick Benoit (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Superunknown: A Tribute to Soundgarden, Catch Velvet (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Starlight: Joe Welnick (JV) 7p, DJ Fayard (SO) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Selectors (VR) 5p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, F.A.S.T. (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY JULY 4

Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: Maid of Orleans (VR) 6p, Another Day in Paradise (VR) 10p d.b.a.: Tin Men (BL) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Fontaine Palace: 4th of July Party (VR) 4p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8p Little Tropical Isle: Mark Parsons (RK) 5p, Reed Lightfoot (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: Percy J (SO) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Santos Bar: Swamp Moves with the Russell Welch Quartet (SI) 10p SideBar NOLA: Helen Gillet and Doug Garrison (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p

Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Michaela Harrison (JV) 9p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: the Troubadour (KJ) 7p

THURSDAY JULY 5

Buffa’s: Gumbo Cabaret (JV) 5p, Tom McDermott and Chloe Feoranzo (JV) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Soul Project (VR) 9:30p d.b.a.: Guitar Lightnin’ Lee & his Thunder Band (BL) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (FK) 11p Little Gem Saloon: Anais St. John and special guest (JV) 7:30p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich (JV) 10p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours feat. David L. Harris (BL) 6p Old U.S. Mint: Robin Barnes (JV) 2p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band (ZY) 8:30p SideBar NOLA: AGE Trio feat. David Anderson, Doug Garrison and Dave Easley (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Quiana Lynell (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Shawn Williams (JV) 2p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Starlight: Alicia ‘Blue Eyes’ Renee (RK) 9p Three Muses: Tom McDermott (PI) 5p, St. Louis Slim (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: DJ Questlove, DJ Soul Sister (FK) 2a Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 5p, Faubourg Ramblers (KJ) 9p Willow: Rebirth Brass Band (BB) 9p

FRIDAY JULY 6

Buffa’s: Davis Rogan (VR) 5p, Freddie Blue and the Friendship Circle (VR) 9p Café Negril: Dana Abbott (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (RE) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Swinging Gypsies (JV) 6p, Soul Brass Band (BB) 10p Dos Jefes: Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 10p Fontaine Palace: Essence Fest Party (SO) 11a Gasa Gasa: Dent May, Shannon Lay, Sexy Dex and the Fresh (ID) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Professor Craig Adams Band (JV) 7:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 5p, the One Tailed Three (FO) 9p Maple Leaf: Slugger feat. Terrence Houston, Max Bronstein, Noah Young and Joe Johnson (FK) 10p Preservation Hall: Preservation All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Siberia: Societé Des Champs Elysée Presents Halfway to Carnival feat. Big Caesar’s Funk Box, Marigny Brass Band, Big Chief Juan Pardo (MG) 9p SideBar NOLA: BugLyfe feat. Cyrus Nabipoor, George Wilde and Nick Benoit (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 6p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 10p Starlight: Afrodiziac’s Jazz (JV) 9p, Lost in Found presents Our House (VR) 11:59p Superdome: Essence Festival (VR) 6:30p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p Tipitina’s: Foundation Free Fridays feat. Maggie Koerner, Miss Mojo (VR) 10p

Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Faubourg Ramblers (KJ) 5p, T’Canaille (KJ) 9p UNO Lakefront Arena: Copeland’s Chicken Jam feat. Me and My Friends, Bag of Donuts (VR) 5p

SATURDAY JULY 7

Buffa’s: MawMaw Fest with Pfister Sisters and guests (VR) 3p, Keith Burnstein Songwriter Circle (VR) 6p, Mark Carroll and Ed Wise with special guests (VR) 9p Café Negril: Joy Clark (VR) 4p, Jamey St. Pierre and the Honeycreepers (SO) 7p, Dana Abbott (JV) 10p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p d.b.a.: New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 11p Fontaine Palace: Essence Fest Party (SO) 11a Gattuso’s: DJ Jerry B’s Back in the Day Party (VR) 7p Howlin’ Wolf: Logging Off with LaLa Milan (CO) 4p Jazz Playhouse: Shannon Powell (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Roy Gele (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Maple Leaf: Space and Harmony (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation All-Stars with Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Donald Harrison Quintet (BL) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Antoine Diel and Arsene DeLay (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Another Day in Paradise (JV) 10p Starlight: Shawan Rice (SO) 7p, Brad Webb Making Faces (JV) 10p Superdome: Essence Festival (VR) 6:30p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Dave Bandrowski (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bouvier and the Royal Bohemians (VR) 11a Tipitina’s: Water Seed (VR) 10p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: the Troubadour (KJ) 1p, Faubourg Ramblers (KJ) 5p, T’Canaille (KJ) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Malevitus Album-release party, Planchettes (RK) 9p

SUNDAY JULY 8

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Jasmine Batiste (JV) 4p Café Negril: Colin Davis and Night People (VR) 6p, Vegas Cola (JV) 10p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (JV) 6p Hi-Ho Lounge: the Divas, Soul Evolution Experience (SO) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8p Maple Leaf: Joe Krown Trio feat. Walter “Wolfman” Washington (RB) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old Point Bar: Piano Summit (PI) 3:30p Snug Harbor: James Singleton Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jamey St. Pierre and the Honeycreepers (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Starlight: Latin House Party (LT) 8p Superdome: Essence Festival (VR) 6:30p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p JULY 2018

LIVE LOCAL MUSIC

MONDAY JULY 9

Buffa’s: A2D2 with Arsene DeLay and Antoine Diel (VR) 6p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, In Business (VR) 10p Circle Bar: Dem Roach Boyz (RB) 7p, Big Huge, Bride (PK) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p Fontaine Palace: Louie’s Do the Bar Lounge (VR) 6p Hi-Ho Lounge: Bluegrass Pickin’ Party (BU) 8p, Jawknee Lawhorn (CW) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio feat. Michael Lemmler and Terrence Houston (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars (TJ) 8p Saturn Bar: Michot’s Melody Makers (KJ) 10p SideBar NOLA: Instant Opus Improvised Music Series (MJ) 9p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Dana Abbott (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Starlight: Burlesque Bingo with Lefty Lucy (BQ) 7p, Joshua Benitez Band (RK) 10p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p, Keith Burnstein (VR) 8p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 7p

TUESDAY JULY 10

Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Café Negril: 4 Sidemen of the Apocalypse (VR) 6p, John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 10p Champions Square: Paramore (RK) 6:30p d.b.a.: Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Fontaine Palace: Soul Rotisserie (SO) 5p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Old U.S. Mint: Charlie Denard (VR) 2p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p SideBar NOLA: Percussion Jungle feat. Doug Garrison and Anthony Cuccia (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Shawn Williams (JV) 2p, Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Starlight: Joe Welnick (JV) 7p, DJ Fayard (SO) 10p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Wild Card (RK) 5p, Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 9p

WEDNESDAY JULY 11

Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: Maid of Orleans (VR) 6p, Another Day in Paradise (VR) 10p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Songwriter/Film/Jazz feat. Joel Willson and Brad Webb (VR) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: Porch Stage: Slim400 (HH) 10p Kerry Irish Pub: Roy Gele (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Anais St. John and special guest (JV) 7:30p Maple Leaf: Percy J (SO) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Mark Braud (TJ) 8p Republic: Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Shamir (FK) 9p Santos Bar: Swamp Moves with the Russell Welch Quartet (SI) 10p SideBar NOLA: Susanne Ortner, James Singleton and Nahum Zdybel (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Delfeayo Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p

J U LY 2 0 1 8

Starlight: Dreamland Burlesque (BQ) 9p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p

Tipitina’s: Foundation Free Fridays feat. Corey Henry’s Treme Funktet, Erica Falls (VR) 10p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Wild Card (CW) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p Willow: YBN Nahmir (HH) 9p

THURSDAY JULY 12

SATURDAY JULY 14

Buffa’s: Rebecca Zoe Leigh (VR) 5p, Piano Night with Joe Krown (PI) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 9:30p d.b.a.: Alex McMurray & his Band (RK) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Dave Bandrowski (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Ingrid Lucia (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Allen Hebert (RK) 5p, Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich (JV) 10p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours feat. Little Freddie King (BL) 6p Old U.S. Mint: Charlie Denard (VR) 2p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Lucien Barbarin (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie (ZY) 8:30p SideBar NOLA: Byron Asher’s CD-release party (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Courtney Bryan Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Hector Gallardo and his Cuban Jazz Band (JV) 2p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Starlight: Alicia ‘Blue Eyes’ Renee (RK) 9p Three Muses: Paul Kemnitz (VR) 5p, Arsene DeLay (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Wild Card (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p Willow: Rebirth Brass Band (BB) 9p

FRIDAY JULY 13

Buffa’s: Bryce Eastwood (JV) 6p, Nyk Snyder “Just a Dab” Vinyl-release party (VR) 9p Café Negril: Dana Abbott (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (RE) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 6p, the Rayo Brothers, Michot’s Melody Makers (VR) 10p Fontaine Palace: Jamie Lynn Vessels Band (RK) 8p Gattuso’s: the Breland Brothers (VR) 7p House of Blues (the Parish): LouMuzik Live (HH) 10p House of Blues: Mac & Cheese Day feat. Werewolf!, Valerie Sassyfrass (VR) 7:30p, Bustout Burlesque and the Bustout Jazz Band (BQ) 10:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Valerie Sassyfras, Dustin Gaspard (VR) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Shannon Powell (JV) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat. Anais St. John (BQ) 11p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 5p, Van Hudson (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Ol’ Man River Band (PI) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Reed Lightfoot (RK) 5p, Styk (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: Jordan Anderson and the Causeways (SO) 10p One Eyed Jacks: DJ Soul Sister presents Soulful Takeover (FK) 10p Portside Lounge: Rotary Downs (RK) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Groovy 7 (VR) 9:30p Saenger Theatre: Alison Krauss, Dee White (BU) 8p SideBar NOLA: Mia Borders (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 6p, Rhythm Stompers (JV) 10p Starlight: Afrodiziac’s Jazz (JV) 9p, Lost in Found presents Our House (VR) 11:59p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Where Y’acht (RK) 9p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p

Buffa’s: the Royal Rounders (VR) 6p, Marc Stone (BL) 9p Café Negril: Joy Clark (VR) 4p, Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 7p, Another Day in Paradise (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Soul Rebels (BB) 11p Fontaine Palace: Buddy Luv Cult Reunion Show, Jesse Tripp (RK) 8p Gattuso’s: the Groove Connection (VR) 7p Hi-Ho Lounge: Original Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 8p, Pink Room Project (VR) 11p House of Blues: Steel Panther: Sunset Strip Live, Supagroup (RK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: Porch Stage: Coast 2 Coast Interactive Showcase (HH) 8p Jazz and Heritage Center: Kyle Roussel Organ Trio (JV) 8 & 9:30p Jazz Playhouse: Nayo Jones Experience (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Vali Talbot (FO) 5p, Paintbox with Dave James and Tim Robertson (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p Maple Leaf: Gravity A (RR) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a New Orleans Creole Cookery: the Whity Three (JV) 6p Portside Lounge: Alex McMurray and his Band (RK) 9p Preservation Hall: Preservation Brass Band feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Siberia: Alex McMurray (SS) 6p, Bob and the Thunder, Leaf Drinker, Champagne Girls (CW) 10p Snug Harbor: Herlin Riley Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Southport Hall: Mothership: Tribute to Led Zeppelin (VR) 8p; Deck Room: Delta Revelry, Black Market Suitor, Dustin Cole (VR) 8p Spotted Cat: John Lisi and Delta Funk (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Starlight: Shawan Rice (SO) 7p, Brad Webb Making Faces (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): NOJO 7 (JV) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Russell Welch (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Stop the Violence Awareness feat. the Wild Magnolias (VR) 10p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Rhythm and Rain (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p

SUNDAY JULY 15

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Al Farrell and Jerry Jumonville (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Colin Davis and Night People (VR) 6p, Vegas Cola (JV) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Bites (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, the Iguanas (VR) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 8p Little Gem Saloon: Little Freddie King (BL) 11a Maple Leaf: Mikey B3 (FK) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old Point Bar: Gregg and James Martinez (RK) 3:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Sanford Hinderlie and Thomas van der Geld Duo (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Yard Dogs (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Starlight: Latin House Party (LT) 7p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Mem Shannon (BL) 9p

Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

MONDAY JULY 16

Buffa’s: A2D2 with Arsene DeLay and Antoine Diel (VR) 6p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, In Business (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p Fontaine Palace: Louie’s Do the Bar Lounge (VR) 6p Gasa Gasa: Starbenders, Rosegarden Funeral Party, Trashlight, Missing (ID) 9p House of Blues: Lake Street Dive (ID) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Two Sheets to the Wind (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio feat. Michael Lemmler and Terrence Houston (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Saturn Bar: Michot’s Melody Makers (KJ) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Dana Abbott (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Starlight: Burlesque Bingo with Lefty Lucy (BQ) 7p, Joshua Benitez Band (RK) 10p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (JV) 5p, Mia Borders (SO) 8p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Rhythm and Rain (RK) 5p, F.A.S.T. (RK) 9p

TUESDAY JULY 17

Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Café Negril: 4 Sidemen of the Apocalypse (VR) 6p, John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 10p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p, Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Fontaine Palace: Soul Rotisserie (SO) 5p Gasa Gasa: the Spencer Lee Band (RK) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Yoshitaka Tsuji Trio (JV) 7p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Old U.S. Mint: Charlie Denard (VR) 2p One Eyed Jacks: Kaisoku Tokyo, PeelanderYellow (VR) 8p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Smoothie King Center: Sam Smith (PO) 8p Snug Harbor: Phil DeGruy All-Stars (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jamey St. Pierre (JV) 2p, Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Starlight: Joe Welnick (JV) 7p, DJ Fayard (SO) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Think Less Hear More, the Warriors (MJ) 8p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 7p

WEDNESDAY JULY 18

Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: Maid of Orleans (VR) 6p, Another Day in Paradise (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Hi-Ho Lounge: Spencer Lee Band (RK) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Nayo Jones Experience (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Anais St. John and special guest (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Mark Parsons (RK) 5p, Reed Lightfoot (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: Percy J (SO) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: James Singleton’s Rough Babies feat. James Evans and Justin Peake (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Terrence Taplin (JV) 8 & 10p

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LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Starlight: Lynn Drury (RK) 7p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Maggie Belle Band, People Museum (FK) 9p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Schatzy (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p

THURSDAY JULY 19

Buffa’s: Gumbo Cabaret (JV) 5p, Piano Night with Tom Worell (PI) 8p Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: the Spanish Plaza 3 (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Little Freddie King (BL) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Howlin’ Wolf: TrapxArt New Orleans (HH) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Ingrid Lucia (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Allen Hebert (RK) 5p, Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich (JV) 10p Old U.S. Mint: Charlie Denard (VR) 2p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: L’il Nathan and the Zydeco Big Tymers (ZY) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Tribute to Don Suhor CD-release show (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Hector Gallardo and his Cuban Jazz Band (JV) 2p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Starlight: Alicia ‘Blue Eyes’ Renee (RK) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Ivan Neville (JV) 9p Three Muses: Paul Kemnitz (VR) 5p, Joe Cabral (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Bayou Club: Cajun Drifters (KJ) 5p, Faubourg Ramblers (KJ) 9p Willow: Rebirth Brass Band (BB) 9p

FRIDAY JULY 20

Buffa’s: Jerry Jumonville and the Jump City Jammers (JV) 6p, Marina Orchestra (VR) 9p Bullet’s: Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 9p Café Negril: Dana Abbott (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (RE) 10p d.b.a.: Cyril Neville and Swamp Funk (FK) 10p Fontaine Palace: Food and Art Festival feat. Flow Tribe (VR) 8p Gasa Gasa: the Body, Thou, Lingua Ignota, Jasper Den Hartigh (ME) 10p House of Blues: Welcome to New Orleans Party with Mannie Fresh (HH) 9:30p Jazz Playhouse: Michael Watson Band (JV) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat. Romy Kaye (BQ) 11p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Guitar Slim Jr. (BL) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Erica Falls (SO) 7:30p Maple Leaf: FuFu All-Stars (AF) 10p New Orleans Creole Cookery: the Whity Three (JV) 6p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Ryan Foret and Foret Tradition (KJ) 9:30p Seven Three Distilling: Michot’s Melody Makers (KJ) 7p Siberia: Alex McMurray Band (FO) 10p Snug Harbor: Ellis Marsalis Quintet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 6p, Dr. Brice Miller and Buku NOLA (JV) 10p Starlight: Afrodiziac’s Jazz (JV) 9p, Lost in Found presents Our House (VR) 11:59p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Super Doppler, Coyotes, Midriff (ID) 9p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Foundation Free Fridays feat. Gravity A, Video Age, Spencer Whatever (VR) 10p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p Willow: Neutral Snap presents Christmas in July (VR) 9p

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SATURDAY JULY 21

Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay and Charlie Wooten (VR) 6p, Asylum Chorus (VR) 9p Café Negril: Joy Clark (VR) 4p, Jamey St. Pierre and the Honeycreepers (VR) 7p, Higher Heights (RE) 10p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Jazz Vipers (JV) 7p, Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Fontaine Palace: Brunch Event and Day Party (VR) 10:30a, Dirty Bourbon River Show Band (VR) 8p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters (BL) 8:30p Hi-Ho Lounge: Pink Room Project (VR) 11p Jazz Playhouse: Professor Craig Adams Band (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Neisha Ruffins (JV) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Paul Tobin (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p Maple Leaf: the Iceman Special Album-release show (RR) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old U.S. Mint: Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 2p Preservation Hall: Preservation Brass Band feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Saenger Theatre: Cheap Trick (RK) 8p Siberia: Julie Odell Band (FO) 10p SideBar NOLA: Lynn Drury (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Lynne Arriale Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Neva Wright and the My Bads (JV) 2p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Starlight: Shawan Rice (SO) 7p, Brad Webb Making Faces (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Muevelo (LT) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Esther Rose (JV) 6p, Leo Forde (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bouvier and the Royal Bohemians (VR) 11a Tipitina’s: Deacon John and the Ivories (RB) 8p

SUNDAY JULY 22

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Coney Island Pete and Old Gold (VR) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Ecirb Muller’s Twisted Dixie (JV) 6p, Vegas Cola (JV) 9:30p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (JV) 4p, d.b.a.’s 18-Year Anniversary Party feat. Michot’s Melody Makers, Smitty (VR) 8p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Little Gem Saloon: Little Freddie King (BL) 11a Maple Leaf: Bert Cotton Trio (JV) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Orpheum Theater: Blind Boys of Alabama, Legends of New Orleans feat. Cyril Neville, Cornell Williams, Terence Higgins, Mem Shannon, Tom Worrell, Irma Thomas (BL) 7:30p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 8p Siberia: Greazy Alice, Tattered Rabbit, Ivory Sons (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Victor Goines Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: John Lisi and Delta Funk (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Starlight: Latin House Party (LT) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Mem Shannon (BL) 9p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p

MONDAY JULY 23

Buffa’s: A2D2 with Arsene DeLay and Antoine Diel (VR) 6p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, In Business (VR) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p JULY 2018

LIVE LOCAL MUSIC Fontaine Palace: Louie’s Do the Bar Lounge (VR) 6p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Haunted Like Human (FO) 9p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio feat. Michael Lemmler and Terrence Houston (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Charlie Gabriel (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Swing Dance Party (SI) 7p Saturn Bar: Michot’s Melody Makers (KJ) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Dana Abbott (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Starlight: Burlesque Bingo with Lefty Lucy (BQ) 7p, Joshua Benitez Band (RK) 10p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p, Washboard Rodeo (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Rhythm and Rain (RK) 5p, F.A.S.T. (RK) 9p

TUESDAY JULY 24

Buffa’s: Tacos, Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 8p Café Negril: 4 Sidemen of the Apocalypse (VR) 6p, John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Fontaine Palace: Soul Rotisserie (SO) 5p Funky Pirate: Blues Masters (BL) 8:30p House of Blues (the Parish): La Santa Cecilia (LT) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: James Rivers Movement (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Old U.S. Mint: Charlie Denard (VR) 2p SideBar NOLA: Steve Masakowski, Tom Fitzpatrick and Kirk Duplantis (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Starlight: Joe Welnick (JV) 7p, DJ Fayard (SO) 10p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, F.A.S.T. (RK) 9:15p

WEDNESDAY JULY 25

Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: Maid of Orleans (VR) 6p, Another Day in Paradise (VR) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Tin Men (RK) 7p, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p House of Blues (the Parish): River Whyless (FO) 8p House of Blues: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (HH) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Anais St. John and special guest (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Mark Parsons (RK) 5p, Reed Lightfoot (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: Percy J (SO) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a, Krewe du Two (VR) 1p Preservation Hall: Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Mark Braud (TJ) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra with Terrence Taplin (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Chris Christy (JV) 2p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Antoine Diel and the New Orleans Power Misfits (JV) 10p Starlight: Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue (CW) 7p, Lynn Drury (RK) 10p Three Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Josh Gouzy (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 5p, Debi and the Deacons (RK) 9p

THURSDAY JULY 26

Buffa’s: New Orleans Trad Jazz Camp Vocalists (JV) 6p, New Orleans Trad Jazz Camp Piano Showcase (JV) 9p

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Bullet’s: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Soul Project (VR) 9:30p d.b.a.: Alexis and the Samurai (ID) 7p, Zydefunk feat. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (MG) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (FK) 11p Little Gem Saloon: Madeline Ford Trio (JV) 7:30p Little Tropical Isle: Allen Hebert (RK) 5p, Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: the Trio feat. Johnny Vidacovich (JV) 10p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours feat. Naked on the Floor feat. Jonathan Freilich (MJ) 6p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Gregg Stafford (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Lucien Barbarin (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners (ZY) 8:30p SideBar NOLA: Jesse Morrow Trio feat. Brad Walker and Simon Lott (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis and the 21st Century Trad Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: John Lisi (JV) 2p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Starlight: Alicia ‘Blue Eyes’ Renee (RK) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Big Easy Brawlers (BB) 9p Three Muses: Paul Kemnitz (VR) 5p, Arsene DeLay (JV) 8p Willow: Rebirth Brass Band (BB) 9p

FRIDAY JULY 27

Buffa’s: Happy Birds of Blueness (JV) 6p, Greg Schatz Trio (VR) 9p Bullet’s: Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 9p Café Negril: Dana Abbott (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (RE) 10p Crazy Lobster: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses (JV) 6p, Shamarr Allen (FK) 10p Fontaine Palace: Nebula Rosa (VR) 8p Gattuso’s: Sgt. Pepper’s Beatles Tribute (VR) 7p Hi-Ho Lounge: the River Dragons (RK) 6p, AJ and the Woods, the Whiskey Hollow, Casey Saba (RK) 9p House of Blues: the Prince Experience (PO) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): DeeDay, DJ Dizzi (HH) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Little Freddie King (BL) 7:30p, Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom feat. Romy Kaye (BQ) 11p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 5p, Roux the Day (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Erica Falls (SO) 7:30p Maple Leaf: Hash Cabbage (FK) 10p Portside Lounge: Lynn Drury (SS) 8p SideBar NOLA: James Singleton Presents (VR) 9p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (BL) 6p, the Scuppernons (JV) 10p Starlight: Afrodiziac’s Jazz (JV) 9p, Lost in Found presents Our House (VR) 11:59p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Black Milk and Nat Turner Band (JV) 9p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Foundation Free Fridays feat. Honey Island Swamp Band, Sonic Bloom (VR) 10p Willow: Salmon of Capistrano (PK) 8p

SATURDAY JULY 28

Buffa’s: Debbie Davis and Josh Paxton (VR) 6p, God Save the Queens with Margie Perez and Hannah K. Benson (VR) 9p Café Negril: Joy Clark (VR) 4p, Jamey St. Pierre and the Honeycreepers (SO) 7p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 10p Crazy Lobster: the River Gang (VR) 11a, Poppy’s Poppin’ Saturday Review (VR) 4p d.b.a.: New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 7p, Brass-A-Holics (BB) 11p

Dos Jefes: Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots (ZY) 10p Fontaine Palace: Mofongo Latin Band (LT) 8p French Market: the National WWII Museum’s Victory Belles (VR) 1p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 2p, Blues Masters (BL) 8:30p Gattuso’s: Carlo Ditta Quintet (VR) 7p House of Blues: Beatles Fest (CR) 9p Howlin’ Wolf: PureChaos hosted by ALT 92.3’s Chris Chaos feat. Akadia, Vedas, Paris Ave., Green Gasoline, Typical Stereo (RK) 8p Jazz National Historical Park: African Drumming and Dance with Luther Gray and Mama Jamila (AF) 12p Jazz Playhouse: Nayo Jones Experience (JV) 8p Joy Theater: Lost Bayou Ramblers: A Live Music and Film Screening Celebrating Louisiana Story’s 70th Anniversary (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Dave Hickey (FO) 5p, Lynn Drury (FO) 9p Little Gem Saloon: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7 & 9p Little Tropical Isle: Reed Lightfoot (RK) 5p, Styk (RK) 9p Maple Leaf: Dirtfoot (RR) 10p Morning Call City Park: Billy D. Chapman (JV) 10a Old U.S. Mint: New Orleans National Dance Day Celebration (DN) 2p Preservation Hall: Preservation Brass Band feat. Kevin Louis (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, the Catahoulas (JV) 6p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 10p Starlight: Shawan Rice (SO) 7p, Brad Webb Making Faces (JV) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): the Soul Rebels (BB) 9p Three Muses: Chris Christy (JV) 5p, Russell Welch (JV) 9p Time Out: Andre Bouvier and the Royal Bohemians (VR) 11a

SUNDAY JULY 29

Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Nattie Sanchez Songwriter Circle (VR) 4p, Steve Pistorius Quartet (JV) 7p Bullet’s: Teresa B. (RB) 6p Café Negril: Colin Davis and Night People (VR) 6p, Vegas Cola (JV) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: the Gator Bites (VR) 11a, the Neon Shadows (VR) 4p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Pontchartrain Wrecks (VR) 10p Funky Pirate: Mark and the Pentones (BL) 4p, Willie Lockett Band (BL) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 10p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 5:30p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Little Gem Saloon: Little Freddie King (BL) 11a Little Tropical Isle: Styk (RK) 5p, Frank Fairbanks (VR) 9p Maple Leaf: TriFuncta (FK) 10p Snug Harbor: the Extended Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Giselle Anguizola and the New Orleans Swinging Gypsies (JV) 2p, Kristina Morales and the Inner Wild (JV) 6p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Starlight: Tango hosted by Valerie Hart (LT) 9p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Mem Shannon (BL) 9p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, Linnzi Zaorski (JV) 8p Tropical Isle Original: the Hangovers (RK) 5:15p, Late As Usual (RK) 9:15p

MONDAY JULY 30

Buffa’s: A2D2 with Arsene DeLay and Antoine Diel (VR) 6p Café Negril: Jamie Lynn Vessels (RK) 6p, In Business (VR) 9:30p Circle Bar: Dem Roach Boyz (RB) 7p Crazy Lobster: the Insta-Gators (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Grand Marquis (VR) 10p

Fontaine Palace: Louie’s Do the Bar Lounge (VR) 6p House of Blues: the English Beat (SK) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8:30p Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop: Lucky Lee (SS) 9p Maple Leaf: George Porter Jr. Trio feat. Michael Lemmler and Terrence Houston (FK) 10p Morning Call: Valerie Sassyfras (VR) 10a Preservation Hall: Preservation Jazz Masters feat. Leroy Jones (TJ) 5p, Preservation AllStars feat. Will Smith (TJ) 8p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Swing Dance Party (SI) 7p Saturn Bar: Michot’s Melody Makers (KJ) 10p SideBar NOLA: Instant Opus Improvised Music Series (MJ) 9p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Dana Abbott (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Starlight: Burlesque Bingo with Lefty Lucy (BQ) 7p, Joshua Benitez Band (RK) 10p Three Muses: Joe Cabral (JV) 7p Tropical Isle Original: Graham Robertson (RK) 5:15p, Trop Rock Express (RK) 9:15p

TUESDAY JULY 31

Café Negril: 4 Sidemen of the Apocalypse (VR) 6p, John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 9:30p Crazy Lobster: AC and the Heat (VR) 5p d.b.a.: Treme Brass Band (BB) 9p Fontaine Palace: Soul Rotisserie (SO) 5p Kerry Irish Pub: Jason Bishop (FO) 8:30p Little Gem Saloon: Madeline Ford Trio (JV) 7:30p Maple Leaf: Rebirth Brass Band (FK) 10p Preservation Hall: Preservation Legacy Band feat. Wendell Brunious (TJ) 5p, Preservation All-Stars feat. Rickie Monie (TJ) 8p SideBar NOLA: Helen Gillet Presents (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Starlight: Joe Welnick (JV) 7p, DJ Fayard (SO) 10p Three Keys (Ace Hotel): Position Reverse HH with DJ Pr_ck (VR) 8p Trinity Episcopal Church: Organ and Labyrinth with Albinas Prizgintas (CL) 6p Tropical Isle Bourbon: Wild Card (RK) 5p, Jezebels Chill’n (RK) 9p

FESTIVALS June 30 The Rock and Rouge Women’s Music and Food Festival takes place at the Old U.S. Mint. TheRockAndRouge.com July 5-8 Essence Festival features concerts at the Superdome, a conference and expos. Festival. Essence.com July 17-22 Tales of the Cocktail includes seminars, tastings, competitions and networking. TalesOfTheCocktail.com

SPECIAL EVENTS July 4 The annual Go 4th on the River celebration features patriotic music and fireworks from dueling barges. Go4thOnTheRiver.com July 4 The 4th Fest in Crescent Park includes live music, food and drink vendors and fireworks. FrenchMarket.org July 27-28 Sublime Boudoir presents an immersive theater experience featuring burlesque and cuisine at the New Orleans Airport. Sublime-Boudoir.com

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BACKTALK

Ledisi

PHOTO: GOLDEN G. RICHARD, III

edisi, whose name means “to bring forth” in the Yoruba language, will be in a very familiar setting when she performs at the Essence Music Festival on Friday, July 6. First of all, the “party with a purpose” is presented in New Orleans, her place of birth and where many members of her family as well as friends reside. During her childhood, the rhythm and blues vocalist, movie and Broadway actress and author, whose star continues to rise to super nova status, left the Crescent City and moved to Oakland, California where she still lives. Nonetheless, Ledisi proudly calls New Orleans her home and keeps the city close to her heart and soul. The 12-time Grammy nominee, whose 2017 album, Let Love Rule, is in that honorable number, also knows her way

around the Superdome, the site of the event, having performed there beginning in 2004. Back then, she sang in one of the superlounges, intimate venues located on an upper level of the Dome. In 2012, Ledisi made her first appearance on the main stage and it’s been hers ever since.

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By Geraldine Wyckoff

What was it like to play the main stage at the Superdome for the first time? Did you miss the intimacy of the superlounge at all? It felt really good. The audience was responsive and I loved the show because it was fun and people stood up at the end. I was used to more intimacy from being in the little room but I was able to make the big stage as intimate as I could get it. That was a goal for me and I think I conquered that.

talks back

I think any artist remembers being up close to the people who support them. But when you can get more, that’s the bigger turnaround for it. Hanging around and watching big artists, like legends, you learn how to take the room and make it more intimate. I think I’ve learned that now. When I toured with Maxwell, arenas taught me that even more plus getting to see Prince do it a lot up close. He invited me to the Coachella Music Festival. My first Essence experience was playing in the little room and Prince was in the big room. That was the year he had Larry Graham, Chaka Khan and he was on roller skates and everything. Do you go see other artists after you perform or have you gone to Essence as an attendee? JULY 2018

B AC

KTA

“There’s a swing that musicians from New Orleans have. There’s arrogance—not in a mean way—but an arrogance of grandness that we have and we carry ourselves knowing that we take pride in where we’re from.”

One year, I got to go and be a person just floating around. That didn’t work very well. [She explains she was too recognizable.] I have more fun going to New Orleans when Essence is not there because New Orleans is home to me. But I did love the activity and that you get to see all these artists that you see on the road and they’re all in one spot. So how many musicians are in your band this year and will your repertoire be designed for the Essence crowd? It’s seven of us total—two backgrounds singers, a keyboardist, a bass player and a drummer, James Agnew, who is also my music director. I probably had two guitars last time but I don’t need all that now. It’s nice to keep it small. We’re good. I would like to do more from Let Love Rule because it’s the latest album. I’ll still add those songs that people love. People like “High” and “All the Way” right now but the traditional songs they love are “Alright” and “Pieces of Me.” But I’m a little risk taker so I like to make sure that people get my language all the time. People from New Orleans get that you were born here and that you love the city. Do people out in the world relate to you as being from New Orleans? Do any of the songs on your set list reflect the city and its musical influence? Some people do; some think I’m predominately from Oakland. I mention that I’m from New Orleans everywhere I go. I can’t help it. My birth certificate says I’m from New Orleans. When I first did Essence I did some songs that had that [New Orleans influence] but now I’m promoting my album. But when I do jazz or my ‘Nina and Me’ [tribute to Nina Simone] concert, I definitely bring the New Orleans flair to it by adding a groove on a song and break out into it. As I progress in my music, I plan to add more colors of where I’m from in the music. Let’s talk About Let Love Rule. You cowrote several tunes on the album. Is this common for you or do you usually write alone? Were you responsible for “Shot Down,” the reggae-inspired tune?

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If you look at the catalogue of my work, I write a lot. For this album, I let go and let others write. My executive producer wanted me to work with different producers and to write more with other people on this album and I was open to the idea. The only song that I predominately wrote was ‘All the Way.’ We wrote that at the piano sitting there at the piano like traditional songwriters. There were two lines I didn’t write on ‘Shot Down’—‘rock love is pocket love’— everything else, the melody and the lyrics, I wrote on a plane. I wanted a reggae beat so I said to the producer, Khalil [Abdul-Rahman] that I’d been into this reggae feel because I’ve been listening to Bob Marley and how he can bring people together and still say what he needs to say. That has always been the makeup of who I am. On every album, I’d try to sneak something like this in but this time I was really upset by the climate and I wanted to talk about those things and I brought them up in a song. I did what I think art should be is that you use your art to express how you feel. You do include or integrate a number of different genres on the release including what you once described as “soulful rhythm and blues.” You went for a straight-up soul ballad on “Forgiveness.” I’m a mixture of everything. Every album I don’t stick in one area because of the jazz influence. I marry worlds together. I am what I’ve learned. I try hard to stay focused and do one style but it’s just not me. So on an album I get to paint a lot of different colors for different people. I think a lot of that comes from where I’m from. So far people like it. What was it like portraying gospel great Mahalia Jackson in the film “Selma?” It was awesome. It was also awesome recording ‘Precious Lord.’ I recorded one version on film and the soundtrack version at Esplanade Studios. I went and visited her grave and paid homage to her before I recorded. Playing her was great. I studied more about her and learned more about her which made it easier once you know who you are representing.

It appears as if you have a special relationship with Essence beyond performing at the festival. The company published your book, Better Than Alright: Finding Peace, Love & Power, you were on the magazine’s cover and have also been the subject of several Essence articles. I guess we’ve had a relationship for a long time. I’ve done one cover and I had to share it with Erykah Badu and Solange [Knowles] and I have been featured in the magazine a lot. It was really an honor to be mentioned—it was really cool—and to finally get a cover was really awesome. We’ve done a book together and a lot of fun stuff. I empower women and especially black women in my music. That’s who comes to my shows a lot. That’s where I’m from and that’s who I am. You were a frequent visitor to the White House during the Obama administration. I’ve been there for several events. At the second inauguration I sang at the little church that they went to before the actual inauguration. I’ve been at birthday parties and other wonderful events there to support the Obamas when they were in the White House. They were really concerned about people and families, culture, education, especially music education, the arts. I was part of the Turnaround Arts program and I’m still a part of that as a mentor. They felt that it all goes together and I really champion that idea. What would you tell people who aren’t familiar with you or your music to encourage them to come out and hear you perform? I would tell them I am a little bit of something old and something new and to be open when you listen and you’ll find something in there that you’ll like. I’m all about the feel good. There’s a swing that musicians from New Orleans have. There’s arrogance—not in a mean way—but an arrogance of grandness that we have and we carry ourselves knowing that we take pride in where we’re from. We know we’re good at what we do because we study it. Our whole lives are about that. We have a smile in our music. O www.OFFBEAT.com