Free In Metro New Orleans US $5.99 CAN $6.99 £UK 3.50
NEW ORLEANS MUSIC, FOOD, CULTURE—MARCH 2020
PLUS SUper Sunday BEST OF THE BEAT WINNERS Christone ‘‘Kingfish’’ Ingram Upbeat Academy LaWRENCE Sieberth Lucien Barbarin
The Icemen Cometh The Iceman Special makes musical magic
CONTENTS TA B L E
p. 26
O F
p. 53
6 Letters 7 Mojo Mouth 8 Fresh
p. 28
22 Celebrate While We Incinerate
35 Restaurant Review
24 Indie Rock’s 10-Year Anniversary
36 Reviews
Malevitus has never sounded weirder or more beautiful.
Five Questions with rapper Stone Cold Jzzle; Super Sunday schedule; My Music with DJ Lady Lavender; Jamaican Me Breakfast Club; Top Taco; Five Questions with author Maurice Carlos Ruffin; Cajun-Zydeco Festival; Tennessee Williams Festival and more.
16 Obituary: Lucien Barbarin.
New Orleans rock artists have always been a part of the city’s music scene.
26 Mr. Z
Matthew Zarba is Upbeat Academy’s unflappable rap principal.
28 The Icemen Cometh
The Iceman Special makes musical magic with a cross-generational collaboration and family ties.
18 Best of the Beat
All the winners and photos too.
Michael Dominici reviews Gianna Restaurant.
Michael Doucet avec Lâcher Prise, Susanne Ortner Trio, Sam Doores, Sierra Green & the Soul Machine, Stoo Odom, Lawrence Sieberth, Naughty Professor, Mike Zito & Friends, plus more.
45 Listings 53 Backtalk
with Christone ‘‘Kingfish’’ Ingram.
34 OffBeat Eats
BLAST FROM THE PAST March 1998
The History of New Orleans Rock
By James Lien
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March seems to be the month that OffBeat features New Orleans rock bands. In 1998 James Lien gave us a history of New Orleans rock. “New Orleans has always had a pretty decent share of great rock bands. As Fred LeBlanc of Cowboy Mouth says, ‘rock is sort of treated like the red-headed stepchild, which isn’t fair really.’” (To read more his issue can be purchased at http://www.offbeat.com/shop/back-issues/1998/offbeat-magazine-march-1998/)
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letters Louisiana Music, Food & Culture
“This has been the best weekend I have had in maybe my life. I saw so many bands, made friends that I hopefully will have for years to come, and got to play a song I wrote in front of real professionals.”—Tony Sinn, New Orleans, Louisiana relocated to Rural Hall, North Carolina, not This letter is in response to December 2019 Greensboro. Mojo Mouth “Do We Really Want Shiny and Also: With a tip of the hat to Harold Soulless?” by Jan Ramsey.—ED. Battiste and his arrangements, credit is due I kept your previous issue of OffBeat handy to bassist Carole Kaye of the Wrecking Crew to share with others because of the lovely who forged that memorable bass riff to “The tribute you wrote about New Orleans and its Beat Goes On.” soul. It was a beautifully-written piece, and I’ve —Bil Jenko, Winston Salem, North Carolina meant to write you to say how wonderfully you expressed that “something special” quality Geoff Douville about New Orleans. My husband was reading This letter is in response to Michael Patrick during this time the book Who’s Your City, and Welch’s news post “Geoff Douville of Egg Yolk your article summed up so much of what Jubilee Has Died.”—ED. makes New Orleans so unique! I didn’t know him personally however many Now I’ve just read your January note about of my friends have learned and laughed a lot the Folk Alliance International event at the with him. Egg Yolk is one of my favorite local Sheraton. Here’s wishing you and OffBeat and bands and I sure hope that they will continue. all of New Orleans a happy and prosperous I’ll for sure be at that Lesseps party. 2020. —Bridgett Hess, Austin, Texas —Mary Sue Roniger, New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans Soul
Folk Alliance International
I just wanted to thank you again for giving me the opportunity to attend the FAI Fest [Folk Alliance International] this weekend.This has been the best weekend I have had in maybe my life. I am still processing the events. I saw so many bands, made friends that I hopefully will have for years to come, and got to play a song I wrote in front of real professionals, (a Juno Award nominee, for one) that seemed to like it and were not just being nice to me. To say I had fun is a gross understatement. This has been what promises to be a lifechanging experience. I did not expect it, and am humbled by it. All I can do is say thank you sincerely. —Tony Sinn, New Orleans, Louisiana Mr. Sinn won passes to the Folk Alliance Conference in New Orleans by taking OffBeat’s Weekly Poll. —ED.
Little Queenie
One minor correction: Leigh Harris
New Orleans Jazz Market
MARCH 2020 Volume 33, Number 3 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
Jan V. Ramsey, janramsey@offbeat.com Managing Editor
Joseph L. Irrera, josephirrera@offbeat.com Web Editor
Amanda “Bonita” Mester, amanda@offbeat.com Consulting Editor
John Swenson Layout and design
Eric Gernhauser Listings Editor
Katie Walenter, listings@offbeat.com Contributors
Stacey Leigh Bridewell, Rory Callais, Michael Dominici, Jay Mazza, Cree McCree, Robert Fontenot, Tom McDermott, Amanda “Bonita ” Mester, Brett Milano, Paul Sanchez, Sabrina Stone, John Swenson, Dan Willging, John Wirt, Geraldine Wyckoff Cover PHOTO
Noé Cugny
Videographer/Web Specialist
Noé Cugny, Noécugny@offbeat.com Advertising Sales/ Promotion and Event coordinator
Camille A. Ramsey, camille@offbeat.com Advertising
Sabrina Stone, Sabrina@OffBeat.com
Advertising Design This letter is in response to OffBeat’s Best of PressWorks, 504-944-4300 the Beat Awards moving from Generations Hall Interns to the New Orleans Jazz Market.—ED. Rachel Michel and Charles Maples In the New Orleans Jazz Market?—built Distribution with stolen library money by Irvin Mayfield Patti Carrigan, Doug Jackson and Ronald Markham who have yet to be put in trial.You mean to tell me all is forgotten and OffBeat (ISSN# 1090-0810) is published monthly there is no other venue to have this event? This in New Orleans by OffBeat, Inc., magazine devotes too much time being the 421 Frenchmen St., Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116 advocate for the wrong things, striving to stay (504) 944-4300 • fax (504) 944-4306 relevant in the local market and doing nothing e-mail: offbeat@offbeat.com, to deliver this to the rest of the world. In fact web site: www.offbeat.com being successful outside of New Orleans is detrimental to this publication. —Bri Tronfson, Covington, Louisiana The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, which is /offbeatmagazine housed in the New Orleans Jazz Market, is now led by drummer Adonis Rose (our December 2019 cover story). The fine NOJO musicians Copyright © 2020, OffBeat, Inc. No part of this publication may (who had nothing to do with the Mayfield/ be reproduced without the consent of the publisher. OffBeat is a registered trademark of OffBeat, Inc. First class subscriptions to Markham debacle) should not be punished. OffBeat in the U.S. are available for $65 per year ($70 Canada, $140 foreign airmail). Back issues are available for $10, except for the Jazz We continue and always have advocated for Fest Bible for $15 (for foreign delivery add $5) Submission of photos Louisiana musicians.—ED. and articles on Louisiana artists are welcomed, but unfortunately material cannot be returned.
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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O F F B E AT. C O M
Killing the Goose T
his morning as I climbed into my office chair overlooking Frenchmen Street, I was taken aback by the view of two guys— obviously not from around here— dancing/tweaking in the middle of the street to music blaring from a boombox at the intersection of Frenchmen and Decatur. Since it’s Mardi Gras season, I expect that these guys are trying to get tips from passers-by. That was fairly obvious from the big white tip bucket they put beside the boombox. But little do they know that Frenchmen, despite its reputation as “Baby Bourbon,” doesn’t get the daytime tourist foot traffic tourists that Bourbon does (they left). The OffBeat office has been on Frenchmen Street for almost 24 years. We moved here before Frenchmen was a “thing.” Back then it still had a bakery, galleries, a print shop, a doctor’s office, a small grocery store, and a few bars and restaurants. It was still like a lot of small commercial streets in the city. Everything but the bars and restaurants are now gone, and there are a lot more than there used to be. Not long ago, the beloved Praline Connection on the corner of Frenchmen and Chartres was bought by real-estate mogul Aaron Motwani, with lip service that the Praline Connection wasn’t closing, just “relocating” to another location on Decatur Street (yeah, for about 15 minutes). In its place, instead of great soul food and homemade pralines, we have another Willie’s Chicken Shack and Daiquiris, one of the many owned by Mr. Motwani on Bourbon and in the Quarter. I’m using Motwani as an example, but this is what happens when a
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mojomouth
A Note From Publisher J an Ramsey
street that has wonderful vibe and was a destination for locals to hear great music, becomes a victim to rampant capitalism that runs out local patrons (other than maybe college kids—same thing happened on Bourbon) and concentrates on tourists, most of whom don’t give a damn about local music and musicians. Zoning on the street prohibits restaurants from collecting a cover for live entertainment, which means musicians will never be able to make a decent wage at these establishments, unless there’s an owner who is sensitive to the needs of the musicians. Yes, most of the venues on Frenchmen are restaurants (another zoning issue). I suppose you could contend that this is the nature of businesses wanting to make money.Yes, I get it. But there’s a time when the city should step in and change things to guarantee that the very culture that created a cultural destination for both locals and visitors could become a place where musicians could at least expect a door cover charge for their efforts. And it’s going to get worse. The people who owned the original venues on Frenchmen were, for the most part, interested in the music and culture. That’s changing drastically as owners age out, get annoyed at the “scene” (which is becoming louder, less interested in music and more raucous), and sell their properties. It’s only a matter of time until we have not one, but two full-fledged entertainment streets, targeted towards sucking as much money as possible from tourists. I hold the city of New Orleans responsible for the demise of our musical culture and killing the goose that laid the golden egg.O
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NEW & NOTEWORTHY
Aside from Mardi Gras, the most significant day for the city’s Mardi Gras Indians is “Super Sunday,” always the third Sunday in March, close to St. Joseph’s Day (March 19). Super Sunday is the traditional day when the city’s Mardi Gras Indian “gangs” don their suits and march through New Orleans’ streets. Some of the beautifully beaded and feathered suits can weigh up to 150 pounds with the headdress alone weighing 50 to 75 pounds. Each year a new suit must be created, entirely by hand, with (in some cases) the suit worn the previous year dismantled. Creating an entire suit takes nearly a year to complete and is a treasured tradition found only in New Orleans. In recent years, there has
been yet another Super Sunday called Big Sunday, which falls in April during the open weekend between French Quarter Festival and Jazz Fest. Before 1969, the Indians celebrated by coming out at night to meet and greet other tribes. In 1969, the first parade was created and rolled through town at night. In 1970, it was switched to a day parade on Sunday afternoon, and has continued in that tradition to this day. The traditional route begins at noon in A.L. Davis Park, located on Washington Avenue at Lasalle Street. The procession goes down Lasalle to Martin Luther King Blvd, to South Claiborne Avenue back to Washington ending where it started at A.L. Davis Park. The party begins at 11 a.m. and
the parade starts at 1 p.m. Super Sunday is free and open to the public. The Tambourine and Fan organization, founded in 1968 by civil rights activist Jerome Smith, traditionally organizes their annual “Super Sunday” parade on the Sunday closest to St. Joseph’s Day,
with the event beginning at Bayou St. John. The West Bank Super Sunday begins near Landry-Walker High School at 1200 L.B. Landry Avenue. It ends at McDonough Playground at 1500 Teche St. Look for times and dates as the event approaches.
N ot “ To o L at e ”
Aiges’ Jamaican Me Breakfast Club releases new material. When Scott Aiges moved to New Orleans in 1988, he planned on staying for two years, but ended up staying for 30. Before moving to Denver in early 2019, Aiges was the Times-Picayune music writer, band manager for the Continental Drifters, Astral Project and others. Mayor Ray Nagin appointed Aiges to the newly created department of Music Business Development; after Katrina he was Director of Programs, Marketing and Communications at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. On his 50th birthday Aiges bought himself an electric guitar. “One night I was hacking around with the Tom Petty song “Refugee” and it came out with this reggae lit to it. For some reason I thought it would be super hilarious to do the
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cheesiest, most ridiculous, new wave one-hit-wonder songs… but reggae. I was always a Marley freak but never a particular fan of new wave. I just figured anybody that was our age at that time knows those songs.” Thinking it would be a laugh he formed a band—Jamaican Me Breakfast Club—made a record and started playing gigs. As he says, “it took off more than I ever expected.” Aiges was originally planning to be the singer until his wife and kids asked when he was “going to get a real singer.” The bass player suggested Rueben Williams, who manages Tab Benoit, Samantha Fish and others. Williams turned out to be a really good singer and he signed on for the first record which was released in fall 2017.
Jamaican Me Breakfast Club played Jazz Fest, Bayou Boogaloo, Gretna Heritage Festival, the Best of the Beat Awards and a series of gigs at Tipitina’s. With Williams busy managing various projects, Aiges decided to shake up the band by adding a new singer and several guest singers. The first single “Too Late” incorporates Eddie Cornelius’ “Too Late to Turn Back Now”
and “Treat Her Like A Lady,” and ends with Bacharach’s “Walk On By.” It’s catchy and makes you smile with the familiarity of the tunes. The plan is to release five singles and then release the entire thing, Says Aiges, “the new record is an amalgamation of a lot of different players. The first single has Jon Cleary on keyboards, Eric Heigle on drums, Pat Casey on bass. On the next single Rob Savoy is playing bass with Russ Broussard on drums; it’s kind of evolved into a Steely Dan-type studio project.” He says playing Jazz Fest last year was a “life highlight” and says, “we are going to do our annual Tuesday between the Jazz Fest weekends at Vaughan’s Lounge; this will be our fourth year doing that show and it’s a gas.” —Paul Sanchez
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Photo by Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee
Super Sunday
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M y M u si c
Beth Lauren Cohen, a.k.a. Lady Lavender, has been playing gigs at Poor Boys, Santos, Sidney’s Saloon and was selected to perform at BUKU this year. “I moved down here from California when I got into the Music Industry Studies program at Loyola. It changed my life. There was a great scene back where I’m from but very few female DJs doing what I wanted to be doing. There are so many female DJs I’m inspired by nowadays. Tristan Dufrene is an amazing New Orleans DJ. She reads a room really well and I enjoy performing with her—she just played the Fillmore with Mannie Fresh. Legatron Prime—she’s a great local party DJ, incorporates
BRIEF
a lot of Hip Hop, does a weekly at Dragon’s Den. Really good stuff. If you aren’t familiar with electronic music, catch Otto perform. He is the master of what we call ‘Open Format DJing,’ which is basically just playing a bunch of different genres in one set. He’ll go from R&B to Bass Music to Hip Hop to House Music, within 30 minutes. He’ll convert non-believers into believers. It’s wild that I’m playing BUKU. I literally woke up one day and had a regular old booking email that said ‘BUKU’ in the subject line and I assumed it was fake, that I was getting spammed but no, it was legit and they were asking me to do a back-to-back set with my close friend Austin, a.k.a. Edgar
Allan Po’ Boy. We performed together this summer out at the Southside Arts Center in Baton Rouge. The space was very DIY, very rave-y. No AC. Just hot, sweaty dance floors. It was bond forming. Since then, we’ve co-created a collective called ‘For The Record’ that curates local underground dance events around the city. DJ Heelturn is also playing for the first time this year at BUKU. He’s holding it down for the scene. Bouffant Bouffant, he’s veteran; he’s played BUKU for a couple of years now, we all love him. You could say my aesthetic is
—Sabrina Stone
N OTE S
Robert “Barefootin” Parker
Ticket prices range from $125.00 to $75.00. Food and drink is free once inside the festival.
Showtime documentary series Murder in The Bayou. Robert Parker’s oldest eight The festival concludes with the children are planning a tribute to popular Stella! shouting contest. It their father. The tribute will take draws participants from around place at the Wisdom Hall, 1356 Tennessee Williams & the world who take turns yelling St. Bernard Ave., on Saturday New Orleans Literary the name “Stella,” ...a tribute March 7, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Festival to the Tennessee Williams’ A The Tennessee Williams & Streetcar Named Desire, the play Top Taco New Orleans Literary Festival and movie set in the author’s Top Taco returns for its fourth is a five-day festival (March 25 favorite city, New Orleans. year on March 19, 2020. This year’s through 29) created to honor More information and complete event will feature over 30 restau- the March 26 birthday of beloved schedule are at tennesseewilrants including House of Blues, writer and the festival’s “patron liams.net. Johnny Sanchez, Justine, Casa saint,” Tennessee Williams. Borrega, Nacho Mama’s and Velvet The festival includes writing Louisiana CajunCactus. Over 50 participating workshops and master classes Zydeco Festival spirits include Avion, Casamigos, led by noted authors. One such The New Orleans Jazz and Don Julio, Modelo Especial, Who discussion, “The Captivating Heritage Foundation’s 14th Dat Vodka and many others. Women of the Crescent City” Annual Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco The festival takes place again at includes photographer Cheryl Festival takes place in Armstrong Woldenberg Park on the riverGerber, Mardi Gras Indian Park on March 28 and March 29. front in downtown New Orleans. Cherice Harrison-Nelson, and Besides the music, the festival Entertainment by New writer Katy Reckdahl. Also, will offer local art and food Orleans bands includes Otra with author Ethan Brown discusses including seafood and of course, Sam Price, Muevelo with Margie the process of writing and crawfish. This year, on March Perez and Armando Leduc Y reporting on the Jeff Davis 8 27, the Foundation will host a Salsa Royale. case that culminated in the 2019 free indoor concert made for
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informed by my parents, but in an unusual way. I love fashion, I love dancing, I love ice skating— my mom was an ice skater, my dad played hockey. They met on the ice and so I’m into that high energy, Jock Jams, ’90s music. All the tracks that I pick are tracks that I want to dance to or tracks that make me want to move my body.”
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dancing at the George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center located at 1225 N. Rampart Street. The music lineup is as follows: Saturday, March 28 11 a.m. - Jeffrey Broussard & the Creole Cowboys 12:45 p.m. - Rosie Ledet 2:30 p.m. - Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers 4:15 p.m. - Sean Ardoin 5:45 p.m. - Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas Sunday, March 29 11 a.m. - Sunpie & the Louisiana Sunspots 12:45 p.m. - Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys 2:30 p.m. - Corey Ledet & His Zydeco Band 4:15 p.m. - Lil Nathan & the Zydeco Big Timers 5:45 p.m. - BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet For more information go to https://www.jazzandheritage.org/ cajun-zydeco O F F B E AT. C O M
Photo by RONNIE TREMBLAY
DJ Lady Lavender
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Sound Check
Award-winning author Maurice Carlos Ruffin is a native New Orleanian and a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop. He will speak at this year’s Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival (March 25-29) about his powerful debut novel, We Cast a Shadow. The book has received critical acclaim for its satirical depiction of a father trying to erase the blackness of his son in a racialized New Orleans of the not-too-distant future. We Cast a Shadow frequently alludes to the works of 20th century African American writers from Ralph Ellison to Toni Morrison. How does this book bring their conversations into the 21st century? Writers like Ellison, Morrison, Ernest Gaines and Alice Walker laid the foundation that writers like myself stand on. The issues related to white supremacy are largely the same, but now we
have things like social media, advanced medical technology, and widespread electronic surveillance, which I include in the book. Why do you think satire and humor are effective ways to address racism and inequality? I think it’s a form of resistance. The civil rights champions I’ve met or read up on have a certain undeniable strength. One aspect of that strength is ridicule. It takes a lot of courage to laugh at someone trying to oppress you. It’s a show of power. Each generation in the book has different views regarding self-respect versus humiliation as tools for survival in a racist world. Who, if anyone, has the
most effective approach? The youngest characters, like Araminta, have a great deal of self-respect. Self-respect is another term for love. It’s very important to love oneself in order to survive in the world. Your novel takes place several generations into the future. Do you feel the dystopian world of this book is inevitable, preventable, or already here?
I think it is preventable if we’re willing to live up to our ideals. Yet, I also think that many people are living in that dystopia right now. We have to stand up for the marginalized. In the tradition of Cervantes, Voltaire, and Toole, the narrator follows a quest that seems absurd from the outside, but has logic within their reasoning. If you were in the narrator’s place would you make the same choices? I hope not! I think the narrator provides a valuable lesson about the trouble with believing other people’s narratives about you. I think other characters like his wife, Penny, who is white, and their son, Nigel, have a more understandable approach to life. —Stacey Leigh Bridewell
S W EET T W EET S J & The Causeways @jandthecauseway Huge shoutout to all of the winners and nominees at this year’s Best of the Beat awards! We were so honored to not only to be nominated but also to perform at this prestigious event! Thank you to @offbeatmagazine John Papa Gros @JohnPapaGros It brings great joy to announce on April 17th my new record, Central City will be released. To celebrate enjoy the video of my new single “You Do It” which encapsulates the feeling of true love in New Orleans. Raj Smoove @Rajsmoove Huge thanks to @offbeatmagazine for the dope article on my new music video for “REST OF MY LIFE” prod by @s_8ighty directed by @ejaazammaad. #available on all #streaming platforms
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Ron White @Ron_White If you believe you’ll suddenly get your shit together at a certain age I can confirm it ain’t 60. Mia Borders @miaborders 11 years and counting. I’m always honored to play jazzfest. This year is twice as nice because jessemorrowbass and I will also be appearing in the Rhythmpourium tent. See y’all out there! I love you The Soul Rebels @SoulRebels Don’t feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat, fight and struggle for. #SoulRebels O F F B E AT. C O M
Photo COURTESY Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Five Questions with author Maurice Carlos Ruffin
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Sound Check
During this year’s BUKU Music + Art Project, which takes place March 20-22 at Mardi Gras World, rapper Stone Cold Jzzle makes his festival debut. Raised in the 7th Ward near the St. Bernard projects, he recently enjoyed some viral notoriety after his 2019 song “Water” was shared online by the LSU football squad and Odell Beckham, Jr. as well as rapper G Herbo. Now he’s getting ready to touch the biggest stage of his career thus far. Can you tell me about your start in music? Do you have memories of wanting to do it when you were young? Yes, I always wanted to do rap since I was three. I didn’t have the courage to do it until I went to college and I was going
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through some shit, facing eviction, girlfriend trouble. My friends from high school, they was doing music, so I just told them “Why don’t you bring the equipment down… I might just try to learn something.” That was around the time my world was coming to an end. It was an outlet for me. What would you say inspires you? I know that you said it’s an outlet for you but where do you want this to take you? In the long run, I want to go down as one of the greatest and hardest in history. I want to push this genre forward and I want to continue doing it with everything done in my way. What would you say are some of the things that make
you different from others making rap music right now? I would say my vulnerability. I’m experimental with my sound. Being vulnerable is important to me because you’re just putting yourself out there. I know that in the last couple of months you went viral a little bit. Can you walk me through what’s been going on with you? I went to Bonnaroo in the summer; I guess it started there. Right before I came back I started writing “Water” and I knew it was going to be a big song. I dropped “Water” and it’s just been kind of crazy, the last six, five months. I got 100,000 streams in like the last quarter of last year and this month, January 2020, I already
have about like 140,000 streams. Let’s talk about BUKU. Are you excited? Are you nervous? How are you feeling about it? I’m really excited because last year I was performing on the bench. Now, I got an actual stage. I can’t tell you how I’m going to do my magic trick. Most definitely, though, you should be looking for some stuff. —Amanda “Bonita” Mester
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Photo COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Five Questions with rapper Stone Cold Jzzle
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inmemoriam
Lucien Barbarin The name Lucien Barbarin elicits nothing but praise from his fellow musicians and all of those lucky enough to have heard him play trombone. “He was very special,” says trumpeter Gregg Stafford, who first performed with Barbarin back in 1972 when they were members of the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band. The always engaging trombonist and member of the legendary musical Barbarin family who gained further recognition performing and recording with pianist and vocalist Harry Connick Jr.’s band, died on January 30, 2020 at the age of 63. At the age of six, Lucien began his musical journey as a drummer hoping to follow in the footsteps of his great uncle, the renowned Paul Barbarin (1899-1969). “I was inspired by one of the great drummers who created New Orleans style drumming—that certain kind of beat that you hear drummers playing today,” Barbarin once said. “I must have been about seven or eight years old and we [he and his brother Charles] would play with the Onward Brass Band [then led by Paul Barbarin]. So that’s the first beat I can remember learning from my uncle.” Lucien, who was certainly widely known as a trombonist through his long and successful career, was still on drums when, as a teenager, he joined the Fairview, which was established by his elder cousin, the great guitarist/banjoist Danny Barker. Though Barbarin started playing brass instruments in elementary school, it wasn’t until the end of his tenure with the Fairview and when he began working with the Hurricane Brass Band that the trombone became his main ax. Barbarin’s first
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recording was with the Hurricane on its 1976 self-titled release. “We kinda came from the same people from before us like trombonists Frog [Waldren “Frog” Joseph] and Wendell Eugene,” says trombonist Freddie Lonzo. “We kind of fell from the same tree. He was very precise in the way he played his instrument—he was spot on.” “Lucien was very much a traditional trombonist because he came up in the style,” says Stafford echoing the thought. “He embodied every specific style of New Orleans trombone playing. He was it.” Naturally, Barker was a huge influence on Barbarin both in lessons offered and simply by Lucien observing the master. When he took up trombone, Barbarin remembered Barker’s advice that you would never go wrong if you stuck to the melody. He applied that piece of wisdom no matter what style of music he was playing. Barbarin’s discography reveals his diversity. Beyond Connick, Lucien blew his trombone on recordings by trumpeters Wynton
Marsalis, Nicholas Payton and Leroy Jones, the Marsalis family (A Jazz Celebration), the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the Palm Court Jazz Band and others. He also recorded as leader and performed with vibraphonist and bandleader Lionel Hampton and vocalist Dianne Reeves. On stage, Barbarin shared Barker’s flair for showmanship and humor. “Of course it’s in my genes,” Barbarin once said, adding that he picked up on Barker’s style. “I find myself doing some of the things he used to do,” he said with a laugh. “He liked to entertain people— not only the people in the audience; he would entertain the musicians onstage,” says Stafford. “That’s one of the reasons I enjoyed playing with Lucien because if you were playing with Lucien, you’d have a good time. He was very jovial.” Barbarin began blowing trombone in earnest when he was around 20 and started working on Bourbon Street with drumming great June Gardner. He realized that he could get more work and earn more money with the horn.
“I took a liking to it too,” Barbarin offered. Lonzo recalls a night with Gardner when he and Barbarin got to play together outside of a brass-band setting. “We had a great time—he was old-school cool.” The trombonist spent about five years working on Bourbon and shared stages with the likes of such notables as trumpeters Wallace Davenport and Teddy Riley; clarinetist Pud Brown; the Humphrey brothers’ trumpeter Percy and clarinetist Willie; and clarinetist Michael White. Lonzo and Stafford remind us that Barbarin was also a masterful tuba player. He blew the big horn with Stafford’s Tuxedo Brass Band, Teddy Riley’s Royal Brass Band, the Excelsior Brass Band, as well as on his own gigs. Though Barbarin traveled the world playing traditional jazz, he became more widely known during his tenure with Harry Connick Jr. He is heard blowing on the pianist’s 1991 album Blue Light, Red Light and he also often stepped out of the band as a featured soloist to wow the audience with his blowing and magnetic New Orleans charisma. “I like to explore with the music. I love to have fun with music,” Lucien Barbarin declared. He demonstrated that whenever he stepped on a bandstand, in the way he blew trombone or sang with a sparkle in his eye, and just the way he moved. He was too funny. “He’s going to be sorely missed especially by those who grew up with him,” says his old friend and musical partner Stafford. “He played until the end until he couldn’t play no more.” —Geraldine Wyckoff
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Photo courtesy of Mark Braud
(1956-2020)
Best of the Beat
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he 24th annual Best of the Beat Music Awards and Party was held on January 30, 2020 at the New Orleans Jazz Market. During the opening hour, the Alexey Marti Group played Latin jazz hotter than the appetizers, while people lined up down the block. We had lots of fresh-off-theGrammys styles and energy. There was Charlie Gabriel music at every moment; food of every genre; a room for getting your photo taken by master portraitist Gus Bennett; record giveaways from the New Orleans Record Press; and, of course, magazines. J & the Causeways—nominated for Best Emerging Artist—amped everyone up for the Awards with their performance, ripping solo after solo. Dancing was the only way to burn off the tiny bowls of King Cake, Saag Paneer, Ya Ka Mein, gumbo, tacos and pralines. The Soul Rebels were the year’s big winner, raking in awards for Best Brass Band, Best Music Video, Song of the Year, Album of the Year and Artist of the Year. Raj Smoove, as Best DJ, provided walk-up music for all of the award winners, and
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the Charlie Wooton Project featuring Arsène DeLay closed out the memorable evening with a rousing live performance. Grammywinning Lost Bayou Ramblers accepted their Best Cajun Artist award in a combination of native languages. “Thank you, so much for the love. We can’t wait to keep giving it back. On va continuer!” they said. Fellow Grammy winner PJ Morton—named Songwriter of the Year and tied with John Boutté for Best Male Vocalist—was as grateful to win within his community as he was to earn recognition from the Recording Academy. “To be acknowledged for being a songwriter is just really important to me,” he told the packed house as he accepted his award. The most quietly spectacular moment of the evening was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band Tribute to Lifetime Achievement in Music award-winner Charlie Gabriel, featuring the incomparable Meghan Swartz, Louis Ford, Craig Klein, Shannon Powell, Mark Braud, Mark Brooks and Charlie Gabriel himself. Check the digital version of this story for a full gallery of the 2019 Best of the Beat Music Awards! O F F B E AT. C O M
PHOTOGRAPHS BY Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee
The Soul Rebels
PHOTOGRAPHS BY: KIM WELSH,TOP LEFT; Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee, TOP LEFT, TOP RIGHT, BOTTOM RIGHT; WILLOW HALEY, BOTTOM LEFT; Tiffany Anderson, Bottom Middle;
Music Awards Artist of the Year
The Soul Rebels
Album of the Year
The Soul Rebels: Poetry in Motion (Mack Avenue) Best Emerging Artist
Sierra Green & the Soul Machine Song of the Year
“Slide Back” written by Marcus Hubbard
Best R&B/Funk Album
Tank and the Bangas: Green Balloon (Verve Forecast)
Best Traditional Jazz Album
Best Zydeco Album
Best Contemporary Jazz Artist
Best Roots Rock Artist
Tuba Skinny: Some Kind-A-Shake (Independent)
Best Rock Artist
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Nicholas Payton
Best Rock Album
Anders Osborne: Buddha and the Blues (Back on Dumaine) Best Rap / Hip-Hop / Bounce Artist
Best Contemporary Jazz Album
Best Brass Band
Best Blues Album
Best Rap / Hip-Hop / Bounce Artist Album
Best Cajun Artist
Best R&B/Funk Artist
Best Traditional Jazz Artist
Samantha Fish
Samantha Fish: Kill or Be Kind (Rounder) Galactic
Pell: Gravity (PayDay Records)
The Soul Rebels
Lost Bayou Ramblers
Best Zydeco Artist
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers
Alexey Marti Group
Dwayne Dopsie
Paul Sanchez
Best Roots Rock Album
Paul Sanchez: I’m a song, I’m a story, I’m a ghost (Independent)
Jon Batiste: Chronology of a Dream – Live at the Village Vanguard (Verve) Best Country/Folk/
Pell
Best Blues Performer
Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers: Bon Ton (Louisiana Red Hot Records)
Raj Smoove
Singer-Songwriter Artist
Leyla McCalla
Best Country/Folk/ Singer-Songwriter Album
Leyla McCalla: The Capitalist Blues (Jazz Village)
PJ Morton
Trombone Shorty
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Members of Tuba Skinny Preservation Hall All-Stars
Best Gospel Group
McDonogh #35 High School Gospel Choir Best Cover Band
Bag Of Donuts
Songwriter of the Year (Allen Toussaint Award)
PJ Morton
Sierra Green & The Soul Machine Best Bass Player
Best Trombonist
Best DJ
Best Guitarist
Best Tuba/ Sousaphonist
Best Other Instrument
Best Piano / Keyboardist
Best Music Video
George Porter, Jr. Samantha Fish
Best Drummer
Stanton Moore
Best Saxophonist
Aurora Nealand
Best Female Vocalist
Best Clarinetist
Best Male Vocalist (Tie)
Best Trumpeter
Erica Falls
John Boutté PJ Morton
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Pell and mom
Dr. Michael White Shamarr Allen
Troy Andrews
Matt Perrine
Jon Cleary
Best Accordionist
Chubby Carrier
Raj Smoove
Johnny Sansone (harmonica) The Soul Rebels: Good Time (Feat. Big Freedia, Denisia and Passport P) Video by Chris Haney with Greenhouse Collective
Best Violin / Fiddle Player
Amanda Shaw
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY: Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee, TOP LEFT:; WilloW HALEY, Top RIGHT, Bottom Left, Bottom Right
John Boutté
J & The Causeways
Veronica Downs-Dorsey, with her daughter Veronique Dorsey and Rene Helton Charlie Wooten
The Soul Rebels
Business Awards PHOTOGRAPHS BY: TIFFANY ANDERSON, TOP RIGHT; WILLOW HALEY, TOP right, Bottom Left, KIM WELSH, BOTTOm RIGHT
Best Club
Tipitina’s
Best Radio Station
WWOZ
Best Large Festival
Buku Music & Art Project
Best Festival Outside New Orleans
T-Bois Blues Festival
Best Neighborhood Festival
New Orleans Cigar Box Festival OF F B E AT.C OM
Best Recording Studio
Best Booking Agency
Record Label of the Year
Best Manager
Louisiana Red Hot Records
Tavia Osbey (MidCitizen Entertainment)
Producer of the Year
Best Music Attorney
Best Record Store
Best Club Owner or Manager
Marigny Studios
Jimmy Horn Peaches
Best Instrument Store
Webb’s Bywater Music
Best Studio Sound Engineer
Eric Heigle
White Oak Productions
Edgar “Dino” Gankendorff
Cheryl Emmer (Spotted Cat / Café Negril) Best Concert Promoter
Hep Cat Entertainment
Musician Resource Award
Sync-Up Conference
Music Business of the Year
MidCitizen Entertainment Community Music Award
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iana Hux is a force of nature, a longstemmed rose studded with thorns that draw blood. A gifted performance artist, she frequently sheds skins and has appeared in many different guises, in both her home state of Texas and her spiritual home of New Orleans, where she released her first record, Story, just before Katrina, and put down permanent roots in 2016. As a properly starchy Mary Poppins, Hux delights kids at birthday parties. As the booty-shaking MC Sweet Tea, she leads her Tastee Hotz dancers in feminist rabble-rousers like “Why Don’t Saint Sensations Get Paid?” In “A Day Late and a Dollar Shot,” an immersive Hux production staged at the New Quorum in 2019, she was a bourbon-swilling Storyville denizen who knows how to play all the angles. And when she steps up to the mic with Malevitus, she’s a high priestess of rock and roll who calls down our collective demons in an ecstatic exorcism. “Read my lips: ‘Apocalypse.’ ” Malevitus has never sounded weirder or more beautiful. Hux cuts right to the chase on “Golden Toy Soldiers,” the opening track on Malevitus, the band’s by Cree McCree stunning debut CD, which foreshadows all the landmines ahead: climate change, societal breakdown, like, that’s the band name! Malevitus!” families torn apart by war, death and incarceration. It also throws The name translates roughly as “bad life,” as befits a band that looks down the musical gauntlet: hard-driving rock laced with rap, psychethrough a glass darkly. (It also bequeathed them an old Malevitus delia and snotty punk ’tude, that crackles with enough kinetic energy family photo for the album cover.) But the fledgling group still lacked to make us dance through the apocalypse on our own graves. a drummer, and didn’t need to look far. Cambre was already playing Malevitus may pivot on Hux’s searing narratives, but it’s her crack in Rough 7 with Mike Andrepont, also of the Morning 40s and Happy team of musicians that spurs us to celebrate while we incinerate as Talk Band, who jumped right in. the world goes up in flames. Three years later, Andrepont jumped out to move to New York, Rob Cambre’s guitar annotates the “clicks in the Big Machine” of on the cusp of finishing the record. But they completed the final “Toy Soldiers,” and the dead-of-the-night shivers in “Night of the track (“Light Years”), which Andrepont nailed in one take, and found Dog,” while his trademark supernatural solos have never sounded a new terrific drummer: Jeff Massey, who also replaced Andrepont weirder or more beautiful. Longtime Hux collaborator Marcus in Happy Talk. Bronson provides ample ballast with both his bass and vocals, “Not only did Jeff come to a lot of gigs, he was playing close propelled by the fire-stoked engine of drummer Mike Andrepont, attention to what was happening musically,” says Cambre. “And we who gives Malevitus its heartbeat. This tight-knit unit really hit its stride in the studio, where the group didn’t have to talk him into it. It was almost like the call he was waiting to get.” co-created the album, first at Studio in the Country and later at “We loved Mike and hated to see him go,” adds Hux. “But this Embassy Studio. But Malevitus didn’t coalesce overnight, and the origin project is definitely moving forward and we’ve fully embraced Jeff story dates back to Hux’s pre-Katrina New Orleans days. as our drummer, not just a fill-in guy. The d.b.a. gig was a real break“I’d had a big success here with my burlesque rapping act, and a lot of people took Story with them when they evacuated for Katrina,” through. I was like wow! You had all this in reserve!” The whole band killed at its d.b.a. debut in early December, where recalls Hux, who formed the Headbands in Austin but yearned to the group hit with all sirens wailing on “Fire Department,” and amped return to New Orleans, where Bronson and Cambre were among it up with “Rapscallion,” when Hux stripped down to a black fringed her closest friends. She first came back in 2010 to work on new material with Bronson, which premiered as Animal Ball, a performance mini-dress and fish-nets and let loose on her tambourine. And the dance floor filled up, like it always does, for “Sugar & Salt,” one of the piece with dancers, at that year’s Voodoo Fest. Several years later, best songs ever written about addiction. Cambre helped lure her back for good. As good as the album is, for the full Malevitus experience you need “I’d always been dying to work with Rob,” says Hux. They sealed the to see them live. In these days of escalating madness, purging the deal on the banks of the Bayou St. John, where Cambre christened insanity on the dance floor is the only sane thing to do. At least you’ll the band at Greek Fest. get the last laugh. O “Tiana mentioned her early ancestors were Greek, and the family Malevitus plays at the Circle Bar on March 7 and at d.b.a. on March 29. name they came over with was Malevitus,” recalls Cambre. “And I’m
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Photo by MICHAEL DOMINICI
Celebrate While We Incinerate
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MyNameIsJohnMichael playing at the first Foburg Festival at Maison.
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efore the Foo Fighters made the Preservation Hall Jazz Band frequent collaborators; before Arcade Fire’s Win Butler became a courtside staple at Pelicans games; before New Orleans became a chic destination for rockers both mainstream and obscure, there was Foburg. The Foburg Festival, which first debuted ten years ago this March, was a South by Southwest-type event in which a single wristband gave festival-goers access to a variety of venues on Frenchmen Street featuring local and national indie rock bands. The Revivalists were on the bill, as were Glasgow and Alexis Marceaux, acts that would eventually morph into Sweet Crude. Givers, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Meschiya Lake, Helen Gillet, Kristen Diable, and Flow Tribe also performed at the inaugural festival. And those weren’t even the biggest draws at the time. Foburg was the crowning achievement of the New Orleans Indie Rock Collective, a group of musicians, managers, and promoters who pooled their expertise to help foster the burgeoning New Orleans indie rock scene. Wait, you may be asking yourself, what New Orleans indie rock scene? Perhaps we should back up a bit. New Orleans has a vibrant rock and roll history. From the Normals to the Cold, to the Radiators to Cowboy Mouth, to Morning 40 Federation, indie rock artists of all kinds have always been a part of the city’s music scene; if not part of the narrative promoted to tourists. But in the years following Hurricane Katrina, young rock musicians throughout the city were playing music that was nontraditional by both New Orleans and larger rock and roll standards. Which is another way of saying indie rock began having a moment in the city. “Bands like Rotary Downs and the Bally Who? were playing Saturn Bar and the Bywater scene,” says Collective member Mark Heck, “and the college kids like Antenna Inn and the City Life were going to Carrollton Station and the Uptown bars.” “No one was really connecting the dots,” adds fellow Collective member Nick Thomas. Still, the disparate bands were finding success filling larger and larger venues, and the Collective saw potential in uniting indie rock acts across the city. “Other types of music had support and infrastructure that was built into the fabric of New Orleans through culture and tourism,” says Thomas, “indie rock did not have that.” As a result, the New Orleans Indie Rock Collective (often abbreviated as “NOIRC”) formed to mingle the disparate scenes and make New Orleans a legitimate indie rock destination. The group included Michael Girardot of Big Rock Candy Mountain and eventually the Revivalists, the City Life manager Mark Heck, Republic talent manager Nick Thomas and digital promoter Rachel Puckett. “Our mission was to promote, expose, and help New Orleans indie rock musicians and community members however we could,” says Girardot, “everything we did was towards that goal.” NOIRC began producing sampler CDs featuring a shockingly diverse collection of local indie rock. There were four CDs in total with styles ranging from the abrasive bar band rock of Happy Talk
Indie Rock’s 10-Year Anniversary New Orleans rock artists have always been a part of the city’s music scene.
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Band to the electronic pop of Buttons to the indie folk of Loren Murrell to the quirky Talking Heads-inspired rock of Glasgow. The CDs were pre-Spotify playlist ways to showcase local talent that would not be found on typical New Orleans music compilations. NOIRC’s efforts eventually led to the first of three Foburgs, which was the physical manifestation of the desire to unite the disparate scenes. The initial lineup was an emblematic snapshot of the time. Alongside the acts already mentioned were popular local indie rock acts such as Sun Hotel, Caddywhompus, MyNameIsJohnMichael, Silent Cinema, the Local Skank, and the debut show of Vox and the Hound (full disclosure: the writer of this article is the lead guitarist of Vox and the Hound). “Foburg was focused on tying our indie rock scene to the larger national indie rock scene,” says Girardot, “it was placed on the weekend right before South by Southwest so we could get all the bands coming through on their way to Austin. It really made a lot of good connections between national artists, promoters, and booking agents and their local counterparts.” NOIRC eventually folded and stopped producing the festival. The scene as its fans knew it sputtered out, as all scenes do. But its legacy can be seen throughout New Orleans. Bands such as Revivalists and Hurray for the Riff Raff have achieved national fame, and local favorites Sweet Crude are poised to join them. Even outside of the wildly successful acts, many alumni of that scene eventually worked their way into the larger local music tapestry, bringing a little bit of that nontraditional attitude with them. New Orleans is special because it is insular, but the scene (and NOIRC) helped provide an ecosystem for music-industry institutions still running today. “We eventually had to decide if we were going to turn this into a profitable business or not” says Giarardot, “we chose to pass the baton, which left room for Community Records to come in and be a really great local DIY record label and for MidCitizen to come in and be a great local management company. It’s really cool to see all this stuff grow after we stopped. I like to think we laid some of the groundwork for that.” O Vox and the Hound anniversary show Saturday, April 18 at Carrollton Station with Alexis and the Samurai. O F F B E AT. C O M
Photo BY Joshua Brasted
by Rory Callais
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in a more official capacity, as ’m sitting in the back seat of Director. Upbeat Academy Executive Upbeat’s current Lead Director Matthew Zarba’s car, Instructor Charles Corpening riding along with him as he picks says Zarba’s true contributions up a student at NOCCA. “Hey to the organization derive from Mr. Z,” the student says as he gets his ability to delegate as well as in the front passenger seat. It’s a his devotion. “He always credits glimpse into the inner workings himself with finding people of Upbeat, which provides free who know more than him, but after-school music instruction he is really the brain behind all classes to middle school and high that is Upbeat.” school students. More specifically, As for the organization itself, instructors teach kids hip-hop Corpening says its value “is in and electronic music production its ability to reach populations techniques; class sizes typically that are not normally reached range from five to eight students. by Amanda “Bonita” Mester with traditional music. We don’t We’re on the way to the require students to have some George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center, the historic building on North Rampart Street which stellar GPA to get into the program, or take an audition or anything is now an education and community center that also houses the New like that; we go to the people and we can reach a lot of different kinds of students.” Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation’s Heritage School of Music. He continues, “I believe that in the current zeitgeist of music There, Upbeat Academy—which was founded in 2013—conducts culture, if I can be a little cliché, you have to have a certain repreits business in a classroom setting, albeit a classroom set up more as sentation of electronic music and mainly hip-hop elements. A lot of a lab. Computers running programs like Ableton line two of the four people who try to teach hip-hop teach it in very quote-un-quote walls, while various music stands, keyboards and other instruments high-academic settings and don’t have the right respect for it that it pepper the space. Zarba—who says he sees his role at Upbeat as a kind of “rap principal”—remains involved in classes, sitting in the back deserves. I think our students can tell we’re doing it from a place of while instructors handle the nuts and bolts of various lessons ranging authenticity.” Though Corpening is largely responsible for teaching kids’ lessons from how to sample the sound of a tweeting bird to adding risers to on a daily basis, he says it’s Mr. Z who’s responsible not only for an EDM beat. inspiring the kids to actualize their true potential, but also how to The classroom is but one of several locations in which Upbeat remain unflappable in the less-than-easy music industry. Academy executes its mission. The organization works closely with “There could be a fire on his head—he’s hilarious, always funny— Covenant House, Travis Hill School, McDonogh 35 Senior High School, Son of a Saint and other educational and community-focused but he understands how to keep a room calm and how to move organizations through satellite programs. Whether Upbeat Academy is through any obstacle,” Corpening tells me. “I look at him and he’s the coolest dude in the room at all times.” teaching in the classroom or in the field, the goal is the same: to give Being an Upbeat Academy student offers kids an opportunity to students a free music education that is accessible and hands-on. “The students who make it to our Monday and Wednesday classes perform on one of the biggest stages in New Orleans: The BUKU Music + Art Project. Upbeat is a direct beneficiary of partial ticket get a lot of personal attention,” Zarba tells me as we’re driving to proceeds from BUKU, which takes place March 20-22 at Mardi Gras class. “In a perfect world, we’d have 15 students who were with us World. There, Upbeat students perform a showcase where they can consistently…but it’s open enrollment and we try our best to triage show off the skills they’ve been honing under the tutelage of Zarba, it and have students feel like they’re in it within two to three classes. Corpening and Upbeat’s various guest instructors. Ultimately, though, The goal is student proficiency with as little involvement from us as it’s an opportunity for the kids to prove that they can do it all on their possible.” Zarba began his relationship with Upbeat Academy as a volunteer, own. “At the end of the day, I’m just unlocking the gym,” Zarba says. “I teaching students about lyric writing and vocal performance. At the time, he was working elsewhere as an English teacher and would visit leave them room to create. This is creative self-expression; it’s challenging, intimidating, but also Upbeat during after-school hours. Eventually, his skills as a performer a very big confidence booster.” O and educator merged when he was asked to join the Upbeat team
Mr. Z
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PHOTOGRAPH BY GUS BENNETT
Matthew Zarba is Upbeat Academy’s unflappable rap principal.
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The Iceman Special makes musical magic with a cross-generational collaboration and family ties by John Wirt
PHOTOGRAPHS BY NoĂŠ Cugny
From left to right: Hunter Romero, Charlie Murry, Will Murry, Steve Staples
On a recent Sunday night at House of Blues, good
vibrations radiated through the room, even though the evening’s headlining act, Arizona jam band Spafford, had yet to take the stage. Although being mostly ignored is the fate of most opening acts, on this night, the rippling, multi-generational throng on the venue’s Music Hall floor reveled in the songs and sounds emanating from the opener, the Iceman Special. And because headliner Spafford’s instruments and equipment crowded the Iceman Special to the front of the stage, the bond between the New Orleans band and the collectively grooving audience grew even stronger. As shown again by the Iceman Special’s recent tour with the nationally known Spafford, jam band audiences in the United States have embraced the New Orleans band.They do so even though, in contrast to Spafford’s improvisatory, blank-canvas approach to performing, the Iceman Special usually plays faithful renditions of its original songs.Those songs aren’t long either, typically in the three-minute range.The group’s stylistic reach, on the other hand, sweeps across prog and psychedelic rock, metal, pop, reggae and even disco.The band’s next New Orleans appearance is March 27 at Hogs For The Cause on the UNO Lakefront Arena grounds. The Iceman Special’s January appearance at House of Blues was the final date of a five-show tour with Spafford that included Houston, Austin and Dallas. On stage in New Orleans, the band would have preferred more time on stage, but its members know that a 45-minute to hour-long set is the normal allotment for an opening act. “It went really well,” Iceman Special guitarist Steve Staples says of the House of Blues show. “A lot of our fans showed up. A bunch of people I knew were right in the front.That made it more fun for me. Sometimes I do get nervous, but I wasn’t particularly nervous because the crowd responded right away.That helped me and the rest of the guys feel like, all right, we’re at home here. We can let go.” The band’s audience let go, too, says singer-guitarist Will Murry, who performs barefoot on stage. “We had a mosh pit going there for a little while. We promote a little ruckus in our crowds.” “When we played at the Maple Leaf last year,” Staples adds, “it was so packed that, toward the end of the show, Charlie (Will Murry’s bass-playing brother) jumped off the stage into the crowd; they crowd-surfed him to the back of the room and then back up front to the stage.” Building a community of fans was an early goal for the Iceman Special, but it had to happen naturally, says Will Murry. “When we’d been a band for only a year, there would be 100, 200 people at our shows,” he recalls. “We weren’t even good yet,” drummer Hunter Romero adds, “but we still knew how to get people out to parties and make everybody feel welcome.That was our focus in the first two years. Now we have some passionate fans who feel like they’re in the band. We’re friends with our fans and our music represents them.” Unlike the ready-for-fun crowd at House of Blues, the audience a few nights earlier at the Spafford-Iceman Special tour date in Houston needed warming up. At first, Staples says, “they weren’t ready to commit. But by the end, they were all dancing.The more they drink, the better we sound.” Echoing Spafford fans’ positive reaction to the Iceman Special,
the band’s tour with San Diego jam-rock-funk-soul band Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe engaged that band’s audience, too. Charlie Murry appreciates the widespread acceptance the Iceman Special has found in the jam band world. “Whether we play that type of music or not, it’s an awesome scene,” he says. A band of seasoned musicians that wields enviable chops, the Iceman Special sometimes ventures into improvisatory terrain. It prefers, however, to play its original songs and occasional instrumentals as written. “But that’s not to say,” Will Murry cautions, “that all of our shows are the same. We curate the songs and write set lists that make each performance different.” In the nearly five years since the Iceman Special formed in New Orleans, the band progressively fostered a local following that fills venues such as House of Blues and the Maple Leaf Bar. It was a different story five years ago, when the unknown Iceman Special couldn’t get a gig. With no bookings, the band staged its own shows for audiences consisting of their friends, Will Murry remembers. “In the past two years, when I started seeing bigger crowds, I realized I didn’t know everyone at the shows,” he says. “Before that, I’d know every person there. Our audience grew exponentially, almost month to month. It seems like each show in New Orleans gets bigger.” No OK Boomer!
Like its fans, the Iceman Special spans generations—Staples, the band’s oldest member, is 68-years-old. His day job is International Vintage Guitars, the musical instrument store he founded in 1992. Brothers Charlie and Will Murry are 29 and 30 respectively. At 27, drummer Hunter Romero is the group’s junior member. Despite the more than 35-year age difference between Staples and his millennial bandmates, there’s no generation gap, musically or socially. “I don’t think anybody else who’s Steve’s age can do what he’s doing,” Will says. “He goes on tour and road-dogs it just like the rest of us.” “He’s our secret weapon,” Charlie agrees. “But it’s not even a secret. With his wisdom and knowledge of music, the industry and instruments, Steve is a great person to have on our side. On the road, one of my favorite things to do is watch him break down one of our guitars and fix it.” Romero, a musician who’s performed with older musicians since childhood, appreciates Staples’ openness. “Steve embraced what we were bringing to him. In a man his age, that’s something that I’ve never seen before. He really took it in and, not only absorbed it, but wanted to learn more. He always wants to learn about current music that inspired us.” Romero comes to the Iceman Special after years of playing Cajun music, zydeco and blues with his noted uncle, Lafayette singer, guitarist and accordionist Roddie Romero, as well as his grandparents. “That’s my musical upbringing, so it never felt that different when Steve came aboard,” he says. After hearing his young bandmates compliment him, the gray-bearded Staples inspired a laugh from them, saying “well, we all get along so well because I’m so immature.” Staples and the Murry brothers actually share a long history. All three musicians are from Oakdale, Louisiana, a small town in Allen Parish about 200 miles from New Orleans.The Staples and Murry families have been neighbors and friends since 1917. Staples’ mother and the Murrys’ grandmother were best friends. “Their uncle is one of my best friends and I’ve been close
“In the past two years, when I started seeing bigger crowds, I realized I didn’t know everyone at the shows. Before that, I’d know every person there.”
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friends with their dad, Bill, since he was ten-years-old,” Staples says. “So, when I hooked with them, a bond already existed. It’s like a big family.” Born 13 months apart, the Murry brothers moved to New Orleans to be part of the local music scene.They’d visited the city often during their childhood. “We were always coming here as kids,” Will Murry says. “If you live in Louisiana, you go to New Orleans.” The Murrys’ supportive parents often attend Iceman Special performances.Their retired mother even follows the band from show to show, like Grateful Dead fans of decades ago. “Our parents think of it as a vacation,” Will Murry says. “They travel sometimes when they want to get away from the house. I guess that’s one thing we can’t write music about, having horrible parents.” “We had a great upbringing,” Charlie Murry agrees. “We’re grateful for our lives and it shows in our music. We come from love and that’s what we’re here to express.” Staples’ history includes living in New Orleans when he was a child and teenager. During his high school years in the mid-1960s, he performed with the popular British invasion-inspired garage-rock band the Gaunga Dyns.The group recorded singles at Cosimo Matassa’s studio that made it to the national pop charts.
came into our own with this album, exploring more and focused more on the arrangements.” Will Murry, having reluctantly assumed the role of lead vocalist, is relieved that all three of his bandmates contribute backing vocals.The band creates its broad instrumental palette in part through Staples’ and Will Murry’s battery of guitar effects pedals. Murry’s pedal board holds ten pedals and Staples’ numbers 14, all of which he uses in every show.The pedals’ effects include organ, mellotron, overdrive, delay, gain, fuzz and, of course, wah-wah, that still mind-blowing effect that Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck popularized in the 1960s. “Will is brilliant at rhythm guitar with the wah-wah pedal,” Staples says. A guitarist heavily influenced by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Staples especially loves his pitch-shifter. “It makes the note I’m playing shoot up an octave. It’s dramatic, like a scream.” Making it work
The Iceman Special’s breaks include an introduction by Alex Bowen, senior talent buyer at Live Nation Entertainment in New Orleans, to Madison House, the national booking agency and management company whose clients include Spafford and other jam bands. In the 18 months Madison House has been booking the band’s tours, Staples says, “they’ve gotten us in really good places, in front of really good audiences.”Their main Madison Louisiana roots, collective spirit House agent, Jordan Carriere, happens to be a Lafayette native with connecThe Iceman Special grew out of Will and Charlie Murry’s Americana tions to Staples’ family in Oakdale. duo, HollyRock.The Murry brothers connected with Staples after the Touring, despite the personal and financial sacrifices that come with being brothers’ parents suggested they contact an old family friend from Oakdale who lived in New Orleans, and check out his business, International Vintage away from home for weeks and months, is among the Iceman Specials’ favorite things. Often appearing in Texas, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama, the Guitars. In the summer of 2015, the fourth piece of the Iceman Special group travels as much as possible, spending as long as three to six weeks fell into place when Charlie Murry met Romero through a mutual friend. on the road. Recent shows include an Acura-sponsored performance at the “Pretty much in five minutes, Charlie and I say, ‘Oh, look. Drums and bass.’ Sundance Film Festival. “When we’re on the road,” Staples says, “something The three-piece HollyRock subsequently expanded into original-music happens to us. We come together and stuff starts happening. We’re on a foursome the Iceman Special. “We were trying to make this weird funk, psychedelic band,” Will Murry says of the band’s early ambitions. “We had a mission. By the second or third day, it starts popping.That’s when we’re at our best.” As fun as touring is, playing a hometown show after a tour is especially couple of rehearsals and it really started clicking.” rewarding, Charlie Murry says. “Our family comes and the compressed energy The band’s distinctive name was sort of a fluke. Staples says, “the guys hits New Orleans.” don’t like to tell people this because it sounds so weird, but a very good The Iceman Special is dedicated to sustaining its musical dream, in part, friend of Will, Charlie and Hunter works in a daiquiri shop in Lake Charles, where we played the first gig.Their friend’s nickname was The Iceman. He Charlie Murry says, because it is not easy. “We all love it so much that, at this point, it’s just bigger than us,” he says. “None of us are going anywhere. Being invented a drink called the Iceman Special, and since we needed a band name pretty quickly we just decided to use that—it sounded good when there with three other people who love something that we collectively have created, that’s where I want to be.” Will Murry echoes his brother’s sentiyou said it out loud and it just stuck.” ments. “This is one of the more successful ventures I’ve ever had in my life,” At first, the Iceman Special tagged itself “swamp-funk,” but keeping any label stuck to this free-ranging band is a challenge. “We do modern music he says. “And it doesn’t hurt that it’s something I’m passionate about. It keeps that comes from deep Louisiana roots,” Staples says. “But we’re not tied to me going.The chemistry that I get from this, I can’t not do it.” Staples chose the Iceman Special over his 1960s band, the Gaunga Dyns, anything.” In the egalitarian Iceman Special, lead singer Will Murry doesn’t elevate even after the Gaunga Dyns staged a decades-in-the-making reunion at New himself to the position of front man or leader. “A lot of people think Steve Orleans’ Ponderosa Stomp roots music festival a few years back “That was one of those great moments on stage, and I had a lot of passion for it,” he is the front man,” he says. “Other people think it’s a combination of the says. “But I discovered that I couldn’t give the Gaunga Dyns the time it needed dynamic duo, Hunter and Charlie. All four of us are in the spotlight at and also give this band the time it needed. It was one or the other.” certain times.” “For me,” Staples says, “it’s one of those situations where Staples values the cross-generational brotherhood he’s found in the the sum is greater than all of the parts. When we’re together, something Iceman Special. “We really love and care about each other,” he says. “That’s happens. It’s magical.” so good. Because I know lots of bands that are just bands.They get together The collective spirit also illuminates the band’s songwriting. Charlie and play and that’s it.They don’t hang out together.They don’t spend time Murry writes most of the lyrics, but songwriting work is shared by with each other’s families. But this band has that.The other thing is the music everyone, he says, and everyone gets credit. “Every part makes the song. itself. It’s challenging and so interesting to me. I have many opportunities to Even though I write lyrics for a song, it’s just a poem on paper. I don’t be creative in this band.” know how it’s supposed to sound. When I give it to Will, he sings it in Staples hopes that the time, work and talent that he, Romero and a completely different way than it sounded in my head. And the song the Murry brothers bring to their band will eventually allow the group’s wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t have Steve’s guitar solo in it.” members to support themselves solely through music. “That would be the The musical progress the band made in the past few years can be heard on its self-titled album debut. Although the songs last just a few dream for me,” he says. “And I want to play Red Rocks.” minutes, they feature changing tempos and dynamics and multiple sections. The Iceman Special performs Friday, March 27 at Hogs for a Cause at UNO Lakefront Arena grounds. O Moving beyond the normal verse, chorus format, Will Murry says, “we
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offeats AMERICAN Port of Call: 838 Esplanade Ave., 523-0120 BARBECUE The Joint: 701 Mazant St., 949-3232 COFFEE HOUSES Café du Monde: 800 Decatur St., 525-4544, 56 Dreyfous Dr., 635-8033 CREOLE/CAJUN Cochon: 930 Tchoupitoulas St., 588-2123 Cornet: 700 Bourbon St., 523-1485 Galatoire’s: 209 Bourbon St., 525-2021 Gumbo Shop: 630 St. Peter St., 525-1486 New Orleans Creole Cookery: 508 Toulouse St., 524-9632 FINE DINING Commander’s Palace: 1403 Washington Ave., 899-8221 Josephine Estelle: Ace Hotel, 600 Carondelet St., 930-3070 Justine: 225 Chartres St., 218-8833 Mr. B’s Bistro: 201 Royal St. 523-2078 Upperline Restaurant: 1413 Upperline St., 891-7794 FRENCH Café Degas: 3127 Esplanade Ave., 945-5635
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La Crepe Nanou: 1410 Robert St., 8992670 GERMAN Bratz Y’all: 617-B Piety St., 301-3222 GROCERY STORES Breaux Mart: 3233 Magazine St., 262-6017; 2904 Severn Ave. Metarie, 885-5565; 9647 Jefferson Hwy. River Ridge, 7378146; 315 E Judge Perez, Chalmette, INDIAN Nirvana: 4308 Magazine St., 894-9797 JAPANESE/THAI/CHINESE Bao & Noodle: 2700 Chartres St., 272-0004 Mikimoto: 3301 S Carrollton Ave., 488-1881 Sukho Thai: 4519 Magazine St., 373-6471; 2200 Royal St., 948-9309 Wasabi: 900 Frenchmen St., 943-9433 LOUISIANA / SOUTHERN Balise Tavern: 640 Carondelet St., 459-4449 Dooky Chase’s Restraunt: 2301 Orleans Ave., 821-0535 La Petite Grocery: 4238 Magazine St., 8913377 MEDITERRANEAN Mona’s Café: 504 Frenchmen St., 949-4115
MEXICAN/CARIBBEAN/SPANISH Barú Bistro & Tapas: 3700 Magazine St., 895-2225 El Gato Negro: 81 French Market Place, 5259846; 300 Harrison Ave., 488-0107; 800 S Peters St., 309-8804 Juan’s Flying Burrito: 2018 Magazine St., 569-0000 MUSIC ON THE MENU 30/90: 520 Frenchmen St., 949-2576 Banks Street Bar & Grill: 4401 Banks St., 486-0258 Buffa’s: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038 Café Negril: 606 Frenchmen St., 229-4236 Carnaval Lounge: 2227 St. Claude Ave., 265-8865 Chickie Wah Wah: 2828 Canal St., 304-4714 Gattuso’s: 435 Huey P Long Ave., Gretna, 368-1114 House of Blues: 225 Decatur St., 412-8068 Howlin’ Wolf’s Wolf Den: 907 S. Peters St., 529-5844 Le Bon Temps Roule: 4801 Magazine St., 895-8117 Maison: 508 Frenchmen St., 289-5648 Mid City Lanes Rock ‘N’ Bowl: 4133 S. Carrollton Ave., 482-3133 Palm Court: 1204 Decatur St., 525-0200 Rivershack Tavern: 3449 River Rd., 834-4938 Southport Hall: 200 Monticello Ave., 835-2903 Snug Harbor: 626 Frenchmen St., 949-0696 Three Muses: 536 Frenchmen St., 298-8746
NEIGHBORHOOD JOINTS Cake Café: 2440 Chartres St., 943-0010 Dat Dog: 601 Frenchmen St., 309-3362; 5030 Freret St., 899-6883; 3336 Magazine St., 324-2226 Junction: 3021 St. Claude Ave., 272-0205 Lucy’s Retired Surfers Bar & Restaurant: 701 Tchoupitoulas St., 523-8995 Parkway Bakery and Tavern: 538 Hagan Ave., 482-3047 Piece of Meat: 3301 Bienville St., 372-2289 Sammy’s Food Services: 3000 Elysian Fields Ave., 948-7361 Tracey’s: 2604 Magazine St., 897-5413 Ye Olde College Inn: 3000 S. Carrollton Ave., 866-3683 PIZZA Midway Pizza: 4725 Freret St., 322-2815 Pizza Delicious: 617 Piety St., 676-8482 Slice Pizzeria: 1513 St. Charles Ave., 525-7437 Theo’s Pizza: 4218 Magazine St., 894-8554; 4024 Canal St., 302-1133; 1212 S Clearview, 733-3803 SEAFOOD Briquette: 701 S Peters St., 302-7496 Deanie’s Seafood: 841 Iberville St., 581-1316; 1713 Lake Ave. Metairie, 834-1225 VIETNAMESE Namese: 4077 Tulane Ave., 483-8899 WEE HOURS Buffa’s Restaurant & Lounge: 1001 Esplanade Ave., 949-0038
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diningout herb-flecked roasted tomatoes. Likewise, the entree selections are rustic presentations. The perfectly cooked roasted pork shoulder with fennel and orange was a highlight; the braised brown exterior revealed a forktender pink interior set over a delicious risotto cake drizzled with pan drippings and really hit the spot. Lightly breaded sweet Gulf shrimp served on skewers with a side of garlicrosemary dipping sauce was another highlight, and a great example of elevated simplicity. Other enticing options include veal saltimbocca, chicken diavolo for two, oven-roasted daily fish draped in diced chilis and lemon essence, and a roasted bone-in ribeye. Half-dozen side dishes are available, including the deeply satisfying carrots in agrodolce sauce, and the most delicious focaccia I’ve ever had. A familystyle “Feed Me” menu is available with optional wine pairings. The mix ranging from the Meters to Milky Chance, and an unobtrusive, portions at Gianna are designed understated approach to service. to offer the perfect amount for those that want to enjoy a Dining options begin with variety of dishes either to share antipasti offerings which include or in a multiple course format. panelle—chickpea fritters with Allen Bee Farms honey, marinated Desserts are not to be missed and include specialty items such olives, tuna stuffed peppers, oysters and artichoke gratin and a as the amazing tartufo with delicious eggplant caponata. Hand- amarena cherries, chocolate amaretti cake with hazelnut crafted pasta selections include toffee and espresso whipped rigatoni with pistachio pesto, Calabrian peppers, ricotta; lasagna cream, and pistachio cheesecake. The bar features signature with beef ragu layered with fontina drinks made with exotic Italian béchamel; and their signature liqueurs and the wine selectortellini in brodo: all speak to tions highlight regional varietals the soul of Gianna. Sweet potato from the motherland. Like all of gnocchi served with an unctuous pork ragu benefited from addition Donald Link’s restaurants, Gianna is a beautifully conceived and of spicy strands of arugula. The creamy polenta with lamb sausage perfectly executed concept and a most welcomed addition to New gravy was a knockout. On my Orleans’ vibrant dining scene. O most recent visit, the lemon700 Magazine Street (504) ricotta ravioli served with roasted 399-0816, Sunday - Thursday tomatoes offered a pleasant contrast of zesty flavors ballasted 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. by savory notes provided by the
Gianna Restaurant
photo courtesy GIANNA RESTUARANT
Review by Michael Dominici At Donald Link’s latest restaurant Gianna, chef/ partner Rebecca Wilcomb pays homage to her roots by honoring her Grandmother Giannina Chieregati’s culinary heritage in Veneto, Italy. A big part of Wilcomb’s approach lies in her passion; not only for the food she prepares but to a more visceral overarching narrative, connecting with the lineage of families, their recipes and stories to the communities that grow the food. Gianna’s “forager,” Ashley Locklear, is an essential element of the philosophy of connection to the regional farmers and foragers spanning a 250-mile radius. Farmers and foragers are listed on their website, including their background stories. The Good Food Project, Isabelle’s Orange Orchard and Veggi Farmers Cooperative are
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just a sampling of organic, ethical vendors going above and beyond with a more holistic outlook on food pathways. For chef Wilcomb, those farm-to-table relationships result in optimum freshness, flavor, and seasonal inspiration. Along with that philosophy, Wilcomb’s approach is characterized by dishes derived from deep dives into vintage cookbooks and family recipes that make for the singular, unique dining experience created at Gianna. A grand-scale restaurant with an open-face kitchen, the atmosphere at Gianna derives from a large expanse of wheat beige tones in a softly lit, welcoming dining room with a large bar as the centerpiece adorned by lavishly hand-crafted floor tiles. The bar is surrounded by a sea of comfortably spaced tables. Outdoor dining is also available. The chill atmosphere is enhanced by a well-curated music
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reviews CDs reviewed are available now at Louisiana Music Factory 421 Frenchmen Street in the Marigny 504-586-1094 or LouisianaMusicFactory.com
Letting Go Michael Doucet avec Lâcher Prise Lâcher Prise (Compass Records)
BeauSoleil’s fiddlin’ frontman Michael Doucet admits he’s at the point in his life where he can do whatever the hell he wants, hence Lâcher Prise, an intriguing solo project with such kindred spirits as Sarah Quintana (guitar/vocals) and Chad Viator (guitar). Translating as “let it go,” the envelopepushing set symbolizes total freedom and portrays Doucet as a consummate artist with a musical palette that’s radically different from anything he’s done with BeauSoleil. Doucet wrote six of the ten selections with only the rip-snorting “Marie Catin” resembling BeauSoleil’s trademark sound. The rest will likely be surprising. Boozoo Chavis’ zydeco staple “Lula Lula Don’t You Go to Bingo” becomes a barreling, fiddle-scorching garage band rocker. At the other end of
the spectrum is Doucet’s “Cajun Gypsy,” a multi-movement Cajun chamber concerto performed with Turtle Island String Quartet. Not far behind is “Abandonné” featuring a gorgeous arrangement of feathery guitar picking, lilting fiddle lines and ethereal female vocals. Some originals are in English. The haunting “Walking on a Mardi Gras Day” conjures images of a dejected soul plodding along amidst a chaosfilled crowd on a foggy, drizzling day. Though “Water, Water” has deceivingly amusing lines, it’s really a thought-provoking “environmental wake-up call.” At song’s end, Doucet delivers the ultimate zinger: “American reign drowning out the French.” Indeed, the song selection is varied. There’s “He’s Got All the Whiskey” from Louisiana’s iconic Bobby Charles and “Bad Woman” from calypso pianist Lionel Belasco. A traditional tune from the Lomax Archives “Chère Emelie” sounds how it may have in medieval France. Thematically, it’s conceptually deep but it’s all proof that letting go leads to wondrous things. —Dan Willging
Susanne Ortner Trio Last Stop Sehnsucht (Independent)
Susanne Ortner is one of the many emigres who’ve arrived in New Orleans recently to
enliven the traditional music scene. Originally from Germany via Pittsburgh, she played fine traditional jazz, klezmer and Caribbean clarinet and tenor sax before arriving in town in 2017. In the last year or so she’s gone head over heels for Brazilian choro, a musical cousin of our rag and New Orleans
jazz. This type of crossover of open-minded traditional players embracing tangential music’s (Charlie Halloran and Colin Myers are two others) is a heartening development. Joining her are James Singleton, the acoustic bassist with 40 years of playing with the top New Orleans musicians; and another recent arrival, the guitarist Nahum Zdybel. A very reserved fellow, Nahum is an unheralded wizard, who like Singleton can play it all. The album is comprised of six early Brazilian pieces, five New Orleans jazz standards, a Venezuelan waltz by the wonderful Lionel Belasco, and an Ortner original. The Brazilian
pieces are unorthodox; choro is not ordinarily played with this lineup. Ortner’s tone is always impeccable and she has mastered much of the Brazilian choro vocabulary; she pulls out all the stops on the propulsive “Santa Morena.” Zdybel alternates between Cuban habanera comping and more traditional Brazilian rhythm, and solos flawlessly. The three pay close attention to tasteful counterpoint, timbre and dynamics. The New Orleans pieces are more conventional but still yield surprises. Zdybel plays astonishing counter-rhythm on Bechet’s rarely-heard “Chant in the Night,” and goes into a triplet frenzy on Morton’s “The Pearls.” In fact, the album’s finest moments are when Zdybel blasts us with an unhinged bit of rhythmic whimsy. So much traditional jazz aspires to perfect solos and recreation from 1932; this is much more exciting stuff. —Tom McDermott
Sam Doores Sam Doores (New West)
“Dust off this old piano (pronounced ‘piana’), because I’m too broke to leave Louisiana” is just one of the great lines you’ll hear listening to the joys, laments and reflections on the past that populate the first self-titled album from New Orleans-based singer, songwriter
When submitting CDs for consideration, please send two copies to OffBeat Reviews, 421 Frenchmen Street, Suite 200, New Orleans, LA 70116
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and multi-instrumentalist Sam Doores. Doores has a long and varied history. Due to his work with Hurray for the Riff Raff, the Tumbleweeds and the Deslondes, his music is often pigeonholed in the folk/country
genre. But this album exposes another side of his musical personality. Recorded over several years in Berlin with copacetic producer and project instigator Anders “Ormen” Christopherson as well as an international cast of co-conspirators, the album uses strings, vintage organs, marimbas, vibraphones and even an autoharp to create a moody, psychedelic vibe. Doores has fashioned an intimate, personal album that uses the studio as an instrument. But the songs are always the focus. “Wish You Well,” a jaunty kiss-off to an ex, includes the above-mentioned line,
Best Emerging Artist Sierra Green & the Soul Machine Sierra Green & the Soul Machine (Independent)
It’s party time with vocalist Sierra Green & the Soul Machine who keeps things jumpin’ for the majority of the album. Green, a New Orleans native who was recently honored with OffBeat’s Best Emerging Artist award, bursts with gritty enthusiasm as she digs into some old-school soul shouting in front of an equally energized band complete with the essential horns—sax, trumpet and trombone. It’s become somewhat of a rarity that a working band carries all three instruments and the blowers punctuate Green’s driving vocals as well accentuating the rhythm section of piano/keyboards, bass and drums. What sets this band apart—along with Green’s passionate delivery—is that all of the material comes from the pen of bassist Mike Perez. It’s solid writing and refreshing that a soul ensemble goes beyond covers of the classics. After seven cuts of up-tempo party-down cuts, a change of mood benefits the album with Green layin’ back on her vocals and keyboardist Will Rast moving to the piano on the bluesy “Pieces of You.” It’s easy to understand the appeal of Sierra Green & the Soul Machine to audiences out to have some fun at the Frenchmen Street clubs. A bit more subtlety, which perhaps exists at live shows, might have gone a long way in adding another dimension to this package. —Geraldine Wyckoff
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and features members of the inventive local trad jazz combo Tuba Skinny. They also appear on the passionate love song “Must Be Somethin’.” On the 1950s girl-group inspired “Other Side of Town,” Doores trades lines with his old bandmate Alynda Lee Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff. The album also explores how old relationships can haunt as well as inform our present lives. “Windmills” exposes the travails of the working man in middle America and “This Ain’t a Sad Song” proclaims that just because “I ain’t glad that you’re gone…it ain’t bad and it ain’t wrong.” Sam Doores is a personal statement that is accessible to everyone because of the universal sentiments it contains. —Jay Mazza
Stoo Odom Indefensible Too Long to Chew Music (Independent)
There’s a fine linguistic line between “indefensible” and “indispensable,” and Stoo Odom likes to work that edge. On his first solo album, the nimble-fingered bassman unveils his considerable talents as a singer-songwriter accompanied solely by his upright bass and the occasional hissing Sleezak and obscure Japanese effects pedal. Anchored by its not-quitetitular track “Indispensable,” a jazzy, jaunty little number that swings with clever Cole
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Porter-style wordplay (“you’re irreplaceable, you’re so embraceable”), Indefensible reveals a skewed and screwy sensibility that segues from drowning in an ocean of “Seaworthy” tears to celebrating “Raw Stinking Beauty.” “I Ain’t In Love No More,” the ultimate kiss-off song, catalogues a litany of woes (“I live alone with my smartphone and a broken-ass computer”) before brashly insisting “I never never never never never never never never never never think about you.” It also invokes a recurring gastronomic motif, which reaches apotheosis in “Fish Sauce Blues.” That raspy spoken-word piece, delivered to beats drummed on the body of his bass, conflates trad blues tropes with Vietnamese food and includes this sly double entendre: “My baby up and left me, she don’t wanna pho me anymore.” A fixture on the local scene since 2013, when he moved back to his childhood home of New Orleans after a long stint in San Francisco, Odom rocked out on electric bass with R. Scully’s Rough 7 and currently plucks his standup with Sleazeball Orchestra and other collaborators. Partly inspired by his work with avant-psych rockers from Acid Temple Mothers and the Boredoms in Japan, where he’ll be touring in March, Indefensible establishes Odom as a singular voice in an almost suis generis genre: standup bass songster. —Cree McCree
Naughty Professor Everyday Shredder (Independent)
Identify, the last album from New Orleans’ premier jazz-funk band Naughty Professor, was a sprawling, adventurous tour-deforce, which featured a who’s who of vocalists and MCs. Their latest effort, Everyday Shredder, is an instrumental EP that clocks in at a mere 29 minutes. O F F B E AT. C O M
that the band is still growing and developing their deeply personal sound. Without the help of the ubiquitous search engine that shall not be named, or a deep immersion into Japanese anime, it would have been impossible to figure out the meaning of two of the song titles. “Oroku Saki” is the name of a villain in the Super Mutant Ninja Turtles series, while “Masenko” is an energy blast But those five songs contain weapon used on another show. universes. Being unfamiliar with the villain The six-piece group, which in question, the song that bears formed as a group of Loyola his name evokes a somewhat University students almost ten mild character as far as evildoers years ago, has tread similar go. The song opens with a instrumental territory in the past, luscious guitar progression and but this recording demonstrates some hardly aggressive drum
Glorious Technicolor Lawrence Sieberth Musique Visuelle: Music for Piano Trio and Orchestra (Musik Blöc)
Lawrence Sieberth’s Musique Visuelle: Music for Piano Trio and Orchestra is a gargantuan endeavor, rich with emotion and densely layered. Calling it cinematic would be too easy, but since its title invites us to envision the music, I think it’s appropriate. The album traverses a landscape of experiences so expansive they could only play out on the silver screen. The multicultural musical influences cue the listener to envision France, Brazil, Africa, or Spain in the sleek, exotic way of a James Bond film or the Riviera of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. It’s not a literal representation of one place or another, but rather the stylized idea of a life of excitement, mystery, passion and glamour. It’s an atmosphere of deep emotions. A stream- of-consciousness of moments appearing and disappearing the same way a chase scene might take Cary Grant through the kitchen of a hotel, across a dance floor, and then speeding along a highway against the glitter of the Mediterranean. The composition, execution, and engineering that went into its production took the album on its own journey from New Orleans to New York to Nashville and back again. The fact that it’s polished, brilliantly executed, and cohesive is a testament to the peak skills of all of the artists involved. Musique Visuelle is a world of sound in glorious Technicolor. —Stacey Leigh Bridewell
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work before the wonderful horn section kicks in with more ear candy. The Naughty Professor horn section has become something of a calling card for the group, stepping out in support with numerous other bands. On this tune, they play the standard role and let the guitar take the song in varied directions. On other cuts, particularly “Fiends,” the horns are more in front, driving the tune’s structure with inventive section work and strong soloing, while the rhythm section percolates a driving beat. Throughout this EP, Naughty Professor keeps the listener on alert for rapid musical shifts that despite the band’s funky New Orleans roots are more in keeping with great progressive jazz and jazz fusion. —Jay Mazza
Keeping things largely acoustic—unlike his more traditional, more “cool” debut Weird World, the subtle tones of guitarist Chris Alford dominate rather than the piano—Quinn and his cohorts create a sound that can surprise you with its sudden complexity, if not quite ferocity. On postcards like “Homesick” and the title track, placidity gradually turns into mild chaos: Quinn and drummer Brad Webb’s rhythm section undercurrent roils, Alford’s guitar churns like storm clouds about to roll in, and Sam Taylor’s sax divebombs like hungry scavenger birds. The lone cover slows “Scarborough Fair” to a crawl in order to unspool all the anguish from the famous melancholy melody. And the last track, “Remnants,” ends with a sudden tape stop, as if someone suddenly remembered they’d left something urgent behind. You know, the way most uneasy vacations end. —Robert Fontenot
Quinn Sternberg Mind Beach (Independent)
The beach is not the first setting you think of when it comes to jazz, not even the smooth, folk-inspired kind offered up by double bassist Quinn Sternberg and his quartet. Yet a beach of the mind is exactly what they offer—quiet solitude that allows you to watch the world go by. Make no mistake: this is not “lite jazz” and it does not approach “yacht rock.” Like the beach, this is a complex microcosm, not just a womb of gentle white noise.
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Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis The Music of Wayne Shorter (Blue Engine Records)
There’s no doubt about it that Wayne Shorter’s often quite lengthy solos stand as the apexes of this fine album recorded live in 2015 during the legend’s three-night residency at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center. Certainly the excellent musicians who fill the Orchestra and
contribute to the arrangements of Shorter’s material selected from decades of his works as a leader and sideman are a strong element to the success of this collaboration. Yet, as is apparent from the audience’s reaction, the listeners in the room are holding their collaborative breaths in anticipation and appreciation of Shorter’s genius. Even the spaces Shorter leaves between notes and his purposeful stuttering on the
opening of the aptly-named “Contemplation,” recorded in 1963 with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, elicit laughter of delight from members of the band. Shorter’s breathy tenor embraces such humanistic qualities of warmth, sorrow and finally joy. “Armageddon,” from the saxophonist’s 1964 album Night Dream explodes at the onset and then the always exploratory Shorter hard bops it, it could be
Loose and Lively Mike Zito & Friends Rock & Roll: A Tribute to Chuck Berry (Ruf Records)
You can never have too much Chuck Berry in your collection. But a quick glance at the credits of this tribute album would make you wonder what you’re in for, with 20 hotshot guitar guests on as many songs. Fortunately though, leader Mike Zito (formerly of the Royal Southern Brotherhood) pitches it the right way, making it a loose and lively rock ’n’ roll session instead of a shredfest. Most of the tracks are kept around the same length as Berry’s original, which means the guitarists have to say their bit and get out fast. And it doesn’t hurt that Zito’s regular rhythm section sounds hopped-up throughout, with the opening “St. Louis Blues”—a relatively obscure Berry arrangement from the mid-’60s—getting a kick from his grandson Charles Berry III’s guitar. The one guitarist who shreds all over the place is predictably Joe Bonamassa, though he at least picks an appropriate song (the slow blues “Wee Wee Hours”) to do it on. More typical is Anders Osborne, who resists the temptation to go wild on “Memphis” and does tasteful slide bits instead. Likewise, “Havana Moon” sounds tailor-made for Sonny Landreth’s late-night tones. Joanna Connor’s firebrand style is always fun to hear, but even she keeps her guitar exclamations short and pointed on “Rock & Roll Music,” which has a vocal trade-off to match. And it’s refreshing to finally hear a female voice on one of Berry’s high-school songs, Ally Venable on “School Days.” The convincer is, of all things, “My Ding-a-Ling”—that’s right, the least loved of all Berry’s hits, and the song he stole from Dave Bartholomew. With Norwegian guitarist Kid Andersen guesting, they give it a raucous bar-band treatment (you’ll recall that Berry’s version was solo with sing-along) that picks up on the song’s goofy spirits. It had me grinning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chuck was doing the same. —Brett Milano
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said, like nobody else can. Strong backing by drummer Ali Jackson and pianist Dan Nimmer, who play exceptionally throughout, forward the motion. The album exits on the earliest of the saxophonist’s selections, “Mama G,” that was first heard on pianist Wynton Kelly’s 1959 release Kelly Great. Shorter’s blowing makes it sound as if he wrote it yesterday rather than over 60 years ago. But then that’s the strength of The Music of Wayne Shorter. His compositions and tenor and soprano work continue to radiate creative freshness.
on drums. Witek wrote and arranged the songs on this album, some bursting with vitality, others ebbing into moody sentiment. “Illumination” and “Dead Man’s Dance” open the album with energy, tunes like “Love Sunflower” and “Red Water” take us to more introspective places, “Rynek” showcases Witek’s throaty bass, and “Jozia” leaves us on a dirgy waltz lead by Byron’s klezmer clarinet. —Stacey Leigh Bridewell
—Geraldine Wyckoff
The Electric Arch Out of Range (Independent)
Tom Witek The V.Tet-Octagami (Independent)
On his first album, The V.TetOctagami, bassist Tom Witek taps into one of the best assets New Orleans’ musical community has to offer—its pool of top-notch young talent. What a miracle of a thing that in this city, with the right amount of connectionmaking and dues-paying, you can put together a talented group of musicians such as this and utilize them to fulfill your artistic expression. And what a band! Witek has Branden Lewis on trumpet, Calvin Johnson on soprano and tenor saxophone, Byron Asher on clarinet/tenor saxophone, Evan Oberla on trombone, Georgi Petrov on electric guitar, Michael Torregano Jr. on piano, and Trenton O’Neal
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Nikolai Tesla knew what he was doing. So does James Marler, leader of the fascinating New Orleans project The Electric Arch, which makes music that approximates the soundtrack to some particularly great Tesla coil visuals a la Frankenstein. Tesla’s electric arc is the lightning-like flow of electric current between two electrodes which occurs when electricity jumps from one electrode to another. The connection made from the jump creates a crackling arc of visible electrons. Marler’s Electric Arch is a fascinating solo project on which he and producer Matthew Cloutier essentially create all the music (with several contributions from session players). It’s an enveloping sound that is at once in the moment and suggestive of past influences. MARCH 2020
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I used to marvel at Marler’s indie rock band Rotary Downs, which was a band rooted in a New Orleans identity that had nothing to do with what most people expect to hear from musicians in this city. I used to imagine them coming out of a Brooklyn loft, a Boston garage or a basement in Manchester, England. The band was merely prophetic, though, as the New Millennium inhabitors of New Orleans bring with them a host of decidedly non-New Orleans soundscapes. One of Marler’s influences is immediately apparent on the opening track, “Crisps & Crackers,” an oblique tale accompanied by voice-led-beats that recall some of the more ingenious rock rhythms conjured by the late Rick Ocasek of the Cars. The keyboarddominated sound is layered in much the same way that Radiators keyboardist Ed Volker assembles his fascinating solo discs at his home studio in Bayou St. John. The instrumental component of Out of Range is startlingly effulgent, crackling along on shimmering dreams like “Postcard to Celeste,” “Las Ramblas,” “Granada,” “Moving to the Islands” and “Lost City.” Are we in New Orleans, or the Costa Brava? I can’t tell, the light is too bright, the melodies dancing along just out of reach. But it’s a satisfying listen. —John Swenson
The New Mastersounds featuring Lamar Williams Jr. Shake It (Color Red Records)
Even for a Leeds, Englandbased group dedicated to keeping classic soul-jazz an ongoing proposition, Jazz Fest faves the New Mastersounds really emphasize their pure-soul bona fides. It’s a focus only made clearer by this release, a full-length collab with jam-band royalty Lamar Williams Jr., son of the Allmans’ dear departed
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ately drop a perfect Meters rip with “Layin’Low.” Coolheaded enough for jazz, conscious enough for soul, and kinetic enough for any NOLA stage, the New Mastersounds are just that: neo-classique roots music for thinkers and dancers. See y’all at the House of Blues come May.
bassist Lamar Sr.; together, they jettison a lot of the jamming, keep the song structures simple, and accentuate the redemptive quality of soul in their lyrics and general attitude. When they suggest “Let’s Go Back,” it’s not about saving a relationship or even revisiting “way back when” when soul was king. This is a universal call. “What about mediation? What happened to the middle ground?” Lamar pleads. This is not to denigrate the Mastersounds’ considerable chops. It’s just that most of the group’s jazz coloration is half-hidden in the first-rate brass section and the soloing— new addition Joe Tatton’s long Hammond workout on “Layin’ Low” and his torrid faceoffs with the horns on “Live Life Free” would make Jimmy Smith proud. But the soul bleeds through every time, even on the helpfully titled instrumental “On The Up (SKA),” where the skank is light enough to allow Eddie Jackson to go full-on action jazz with his spooky, trembling leads. And as for that Fest residency, it’s fully earned; the rhythm section, anchored by Simon Allen’s kit, cuts a big swath of funk through all the soul-jazz noodling, nimble enough to go breakneck a la early solo Curtis Mayfield on “Livin ’Life” but also James Brown juking on the turnarounds, rigid enough for hip-hop on “Too Late to Worry” but able to immedi-
not Kenner’s original. It was the one recorded in 1965 by an East L.A. band led by Frankie Garcia called Cannibal & the Headhunters. Garcia’s iconic rendition of this song is the title track of this terrific collection of East L.A. Hispanic rock originally released by Rampart Records. —Robert Fontenot The scene was incredibly rich and Minky Records has reissued these enduring sides for posterity. The Headhunters’ rendition nearly buries Garcia’s powerful voice under a Spector-ish wall of sound, but he is up to the task. The hook, though, is the incredible chorus that opens the narrative as Garcia and the Headhunters bellow NA, na-nana-NA, na-na-na-NA-na-na-NA, na-na-NA, na-na-na-NAHHHH. Various Artists The effect of this chorus over Land of 1000 Dances: The Rampart the relentless grinding stone of Records 58th Anniversary Complete a rhythm track is astounding, Singles Collection powerful enough to convince (Minky Records) the Beatles to tap Cannibal & Chris Kenner was musical the Headhunters as the opening Ice Nine. Few characters band for their legendary second channeled the wild, ecstatic American tour. vision of Cosimo Matassa’s This classic is the lynch piece J&M dream better than this of the four-CD set, 79 tracks legendary madman of New including all the Cannibal & the Orleans R&B and rock ’n’ roll. Headhunters hits as well as When the Beatles kidnapped tracks by the Atlantics, featuring the charts their only serious a young Barry White; a great British rival was the Dave Clark cover of Stevie Wonder’s “La Five, a band touched directly La La La La” by the Blendells; by Kenner’s magic with their and “Hector Parts 1 & 2,” a cover of “I Like It Like That,” Village Callers instrumental which was pretty much the included on the soundtrack to blueprint for the band’s sound. Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood. But the ultimate expression of The handsome booklet also Kenner’s oceanic genius was includes essays by Los Angeles “Land of 1000 Dances.” After poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez, Kenner dropped this classic in historian Don Waller and 1962 every high school band archival photos of Cannibal & in New Orleans had to play it. the Headhunters, including previThe best-known version to this ously unpublished snapshots day is Wilson Pickett’s version, with the Beatles. The package is which raced into the pop a treasure for rock ’n’ roll fans charts and made an indelible and anyone interested in the mark on American pop music in origins of East L.A. Chicano rock 1967. But the version that the scene. Wicked Pickett covered was —John Swenson O F F B E AT. C O M
Kevin Anthony & G-Town Eh Ha Ha: A Tribute to the Original Cajun Fiddle of Harry Choates (Independent)
Given his defining rendition of “Jole Blon,” a national Top 10 hit in 1946, iconic swing fiddler Harry Choates will always be a patron saint of Cajun music. Decades later, fiddler Kevin Anthony caught the Choates bug and always imagined that someday he would record a Choates tribute. Eventually, that dream came to fruition and Anthony booked Houston’s Sugarhill Studios—formerly Gold Star Studios—where the legend recorded his immortal signature song. Anthony enlisted Lost Bayou Ramblers’ Louis Michot as a producer, another smart move since the fellow fiddler also appreciates the intricacies of Choates’ deceivingly complicated fiddling. In the course of these dozen tracks, Anthony & G-Town cover Cajun and western swing chestnuts from the Choates repertoire like “Jole Blon,” “Louisiana Boogie” and “Right Key But the Wrong Keyhole.” While Anthony sings with an exuberant Choates spirit, his warm-toned fiddling drives the arrangements. “Harry Choates Blues” and “Good Rockin’ Tonight” sport spacious grooves with plenty of freewheeling fiddle, electric and steel guitar rides propelled by pulsing doghouse bass and shuffling drums. And speaking of “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” that’s actually
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Houstonian Roy Brown’s 1948 jump blues hit that has been recorded by Wynonie Harris, Elvis, Commander Cody and countless others. More importantly, it hints at how multi-faceted Choates really was beyond his typical Cajun/ western swing fare. The sound quality is amazingly clear, and with the reverbed vocals, the ambiance has a live dancehall vibe. Obviously, it must have been a blast in the studio. Besides producing, Michot jumped in and sang and fiddled on “Poor Hobo” and “Hip et Tayo.” A honky-tonk delight recalling the historic era where Cajun and western swing once intersected, now repaved by Anthony & G-Town. —Dan Willging
The Tomb of Nick Cage Cryptids and Creatures (Independent)
The Tomb of Nick Cage bills itself as a horror-rock, new-wave, metal, deathrock band—can’t argue with that. Horror-hardcore bands White Zombie and GWAR seem to be obvious influences for singer and synth player Kym Trailz; likewise the punk rock-inspired all-female band L7. Cryptids and Creatures—the second album from Trailz and the New Orleans band named after the pyramid-shaped tomb actor Nicholas Cage owns in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1— MARCH 2020
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presents a razor-sharp rock unit that often, but not always, performs songs about monsters, massacres and other mayhem. Cryptids and Creatures shows Trailz’s songwriting skills have grown since the Tomb of Nick Cage’s debut, The Pharaoh of New Orleans. And Trailz’s bandmates—guitarists Taylor Suarez and Aaron Maguire, bassist Sean Mooney and drummer Edward Joubert— wield brutally effective hard-rock chops. The album’s production, however, may not capture the breadth of Tomb of Nick Cage’s sonic power. On record, this band should roar like 1970s-era Black Sabbath. The album opens hard with lead screamer Trailz raging through the relentless “Crucible.” Canine howling and slicing guitar color the horrific “Rougarou.” There’s mock terror in “Night
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of the Lamprey,” a song about an invasion of blood-sucking, primitive fish. Slaughter happens again on “Nail Gun Massacre,” which features simulated siren screams and buckets of sludgy guitar distortion. Dark though Cryptids and Creatures is, Trailz chose to give “Bikini Atoll,” her homage to the Micronesian islands where the United States tested 23 nuclear bombs, an acoustic arrangement that’s as close to pop as the album gets. There’s another surprise in the final track, “Crop Circles.” Its upbeat and melodic finale shows that the Tomb of Nick Cage is too versatile to be typecast as strictly horror-rock. —John Wirt
Franco Ambrosetti Quintet Long Waves (Unit)
New Orleans music fans
are well aware of guitarist John Scofield, the great jazz and funk conceptualist best known around these par ts for the incendiary Piety Street sessions. But Scofield’s range is well beyond any single genre, and his contribution to this straight-ahead session shows how exciting his playing can be in a more traditional format. Scofield is a key par t of an outstanding quintet organized
by trumpeter Franco Ambrosetti, whose warm, expressive playing sets the tone for the album. Ambrosetti is joined here by his longtime associate Scott Colby on bass along with the great drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Uri Caine. One of Ambrosetti’s main influences is pre-fusion Miles Davis and he includes a couple of classics associated with this period of Davis’ career, “On Green Dolphin Street” and “Old Folks.” “Old Folks” is one of the album’s highlights. Caine’s beautiful accompaniment to Ambrosetti’s trumpet underscores the outstanding communication these players have for each other. Scofield and DeJohnette share a special rappor t throughout that bears close listening. —John Swenson
express 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-newlistings 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
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 28 30/90: Kettle Black (SS) 2p, Sleazeball Orchestra (JV) 5p, Smoke N Bones (FK) 8p, DJ Fresh (VR) 10p, Deltaphonic (FK) 11p Ace Hotel (Lobby): Brass and Beats: Kings of Brass and Raj Smoove (BB) 8:30p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Brass and Beats: Kings of Brass and Raj Smoove (BB) 10:30p Buffa’s: Meryl Zimmerman (JV) 6p, Greg Schatz (VR) 9p Café Negril: Shawn Williams (VR) 2p, Dana Abbott Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Dusty Santamaria (ID) 6p, Vedas, Paris Avenue, Lip Candy, Dustin Cole (RK) 9p d.b.a.: Russell Welch’s Wood Floor Trio (JV) 4p, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses (JV) 7p, Good Enough For Good Times feat. members of Galactic and special guest (VR) 11p House of Blues (Foundation Room): Jake Landry and the Right Lane Bandits (FO) 7p House of Blues: the Prince Experience (FK) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ladies Night with DJ Teddy (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 5p,Van Hudson (FO) 9p Snug Harbor: Dr. Michael White and Original Liberty Jazz Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, Soul Brass Band (JV) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Poguetry feat. Spider Stacy, Cait O’Riordan and Lost Bayou Ramblers (VR) 9p SATURDAY FEBRUARY 29 30/90: Jonathan Bauer Project (JV) 11a, Organami (JV) 2p, Retrofit (SO) 5p, New Orleans Johnnys (RK) 8p, DJ Dot Dunnie OF F B E AT.C OM
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
(VR) 10p, Big Easy Brawlers (BB) 11p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Edgeslayer: C00CHI3 Album Release Party (VR) 10p Buffa’s: Saturday Jazz Brunch (JV) 11a, Russell Welch Hot Trio (JV) 6p, Hunter Burgamy (JV) 9p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (VR) 2p, Jamey St. Pierre Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Anne Elise Hastings and her Revolving Cast of Characters (FO) 6p, CirqueLesque (VR) 9p d.b.a.:Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: Chris Thomas King (BL) 6:30p House of Blues: Strangelove:The Depeche Mode Experience (RK) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Brooks Hubbard (FO) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Keva Holiday (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 5p, Piper Jones Band (FO) 9p New Orleans Creole Cookery: the Ed Barrett Trio (JV) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe:Will Smith and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Jon Cleary Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p,Vegas Cola Band (JV) 10p Three Muses: Eric Merchant (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p SUNDAY MARCH 1 30/90: Saint Mercedes (SS) 11a, Andy Dykema (RR) 2p, Carolyn Broussard (FO) 5p,T’Canaille (KJ) 9p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, the Pfister Sisters (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Jazz Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Sierra Green (SO) 2p, CobraSoul
Find complete listings at offbeat.com—when you’re out, use offbeat.com/mobile for full listings on any cell phone.
(JV) 6p,Vegas Cola Band (JV) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Greg Speck and Don Williams (LT) 6p, Gina Leslie Sundays (FO) 10p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (JV) 6p Fillmore: Drag Divas Brunch (VR) 10:30a Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Kajun’s Pub: Karaoke (KR) 5p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ambush Reggar Band (RE) 4p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p,TBC Brass Band (BB) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: the Garden of Joy (JV) 2p, Robin Barnes and the FiyaBirds (JV) 7p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p MONDAY MARCH 2 30/90: Dapper Dandies (JV) 5p, Gene Harding’s New Orleans Super Jam (VR) 9p Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Charlie Halloran and the Calypsonians (JV) 7:30p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay and Charlie Wooton (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, Soul Project NOLA (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Ken Swartz and the Palace of Sin (BL) 6p, Comic Strip (CO) 9:30p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: James Williams (VR) 6p, Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Irvin Mayfield (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub:Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 10p Three Muses: Monty Banks (JV) 5p, Meschiya Lake (JV) 8p TUESDAY MARCH 3 30/90: Set Up Kings (RB) 5p, Kennedy and the M.O.T.H (RK) 9p Ace Hotel (Lobby):Tech Tuesdays: Hack Night (VR) 7p Buffa’s:Tacos,Tequila and Tiaras with Vanessa Carr (VR) 7p Café Negril: Marla Dixon Band (VR) 7p, Dimondick Gorilla and the Swingin’ Vines (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Carmela Rappazzo with Nahum Zdybel (JV) 6p, check website (VR) 9p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p,Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Ellis Marsalis Center For Music: the Groove Masters feat. Herlin Riley, Jason Marsalis and Shannon Powell (JV) 6p House of Blues (Foundation Room): Christien Bold (JV) 6p House of Blues (the Parish): Aqueous (RK) 7p
Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Lani B. Supreme (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Z2SOLO (VR) 5p, Stuart Coles’ Straight Ahead Jam Session (VR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub: Hugh Morrison (FO) 8:30p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Rhythm Stompers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (VR) 5p, Salvatore Geloso (JV) 8p WEDNESDAY MARCH 4 30/90: Bywater Skanks (VR) 5p, Colin Davis and Night People (SO) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys):Think Less Hear More (VR) 8:30p Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Jesse Morrow (JV) 7:30p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (VR) 6p, the Catahoulas (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Live Jazz Group (JV) 6p, Carnaval Lounge Jazz Jam (JV) 9p d.b.a.:Tin Men (BL) 7p,Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Kermit Ruffins (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Angie’s Karaoke (KR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Lars Edegran and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra (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 Muses: Andre Bohren (CL) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 8p THURSDAY MARCH 5 30/90:Tony Lee Thomas (FO) 5p, Smoke N Bones (FK) 9p, DJ Fresh (VR) 10p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Harlequeen presents Honor Thy Mother (VR) 9p Buffa’s: Rebecca Leigh and Harry Mayronne (JV) 5p,Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand (JV) 8p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Cumberland County (FO) 6p,Tristan Gianola, Alexandra Scott, Butte, Light Set (ID) 9p d.b.a.: Jon Cleary (PI) 7p, Deltaphonic (FK) 10p House of Blues: Pop Smoke (HH) 7p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Jazz Playhouse: Brass-A-Holics (BB) 8:30p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Mario MARCH 2020
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express Abney (JV) 9p Kerry Irish Pub:Vincent Marini (FO) 8:30p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Leroy Jones and Katja Toivola with Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas (ZY) 8p Snug Harbor: Jeff Gardner Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sal Geloso Band (JV) 2p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses:Tom McDermott (PI) 5p, Mia Borders (FK) 8p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p FRIDAY MARCH 6 30/90: Mikayla Braun (SO) 2p, Jonathan Bauer Project (MJ) 5p, New Orleans Johnnys (RK) 8p, DJ Trill Skill (VR) 10p, Gene’s Music Machine (FK) 11p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Pass the Peas: Khris Royal and Dark Matter (FK) 7:30p, (Lobby): Cue’d Up with G-Cue, B2B (VR) 9p Buffa’s: Davis Rogan (VR) 6p, Mike Doussan (VR) 9p Café Negril: Shawn Williams (VR) 2p, Dana Abbott Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Margie Perez (SO) 6p, Light Sound, Phantom Fiction (ID) 9p d.b.a.: Russell Welch’s Wood Floor Trio (JV) 4p, Swinging Gypsies (JV) 6p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Christian Simeon (SS) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ladies Night with DJ Teddy (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p Kerry Irish Pub:Tim Robertson (FO) 5p, Beth Patterson (FO) 9p One Eyed Jacks: DJ Soul Sister presents Soulful Takeover (FK) 10p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Kevin Louis and Ronell Johnson with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis with Ellis Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 6p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 10p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, Esther Rose (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Save Our Brass Culture Foundation Presents Brass Fest Kick-Off Party feat. Big 6 Brass Band, Mama Digdowns Brass Band, Josh Mosier (VR) 10p SATURDAY MARCH 7 30/90: Sleazeball Orchestra (JV) 11a, Kettle Black (SS) 2p, Rebel Roadside (BL) 5p, Big Mike and the R&B Kings (RB) 8p, DJ Torch (VR) 10p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (FK) 11p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): AfroXotica with Andrea Peoples (AF) 9p Buffa’s: Kris Tokarski (JV) 11a, Beth Patterson (FO) 6p, Christopher Boye and friends CDrelease party (VR) 9p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 2p, Jamey St. Pierre Band (VR) 6p, Another Day In Paradise (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Alex McMurray (RK) 6p, Sedna Hemlock Presents Beds are Burning: A Benefit for Australia (VR) 9p d.b.a.:Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, Little Freddie King
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(BL) 11p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): James Supercave (ID) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Porch): Xavier Wulf (HH) 7p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Keva Holiday (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub:Will Dickerson (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Gregg Stafford and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Riverboat Louis Armstrong:Water Seed (FK) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Category 6 (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Johnny Sansone and Johnny Burgin (BL) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Antoine Diel and Arsene DeLay (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, the Catahoulas (JV) 10p Three Muses: Eric Merchant (JV) 5p, Davis Rogan (VR) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p SUNDAY MARCH 8 30/90: Simone Maya (FO) 11a, Set Up Kings (RB) 2p, Carolyn Broussard (FO) 5p,T’Canaille (KJ) 9p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Larry Scala feat. Meryl Zimmerman (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Jazz Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Sierra Green (SO) 2p, Ecirb Muller’s Twisted Dixie (JV) 6p,Vegas Cola Band (JV) 10p Carnaval Lounge:Will and the Foxhounds (PO) 6p, Gina Leslie Sundays (FO) 10p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (JV) 6p, John Sinclair, the Carlo Ditta Trio (VR) 10p Fillmore: Drag Divas Brunch (VR) 10:30a House of Blues: Overkill (ME) 6p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ambush Reggar Band (RE) 4p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p,TBC Brass Band (BB) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8p Maple Leaf: Sam Price and the True Believers (RK) 10p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Leroy Jones and Tom Fischer with Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Geoff Clapp Trio with Peter Martin and Reuben Rogers (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Aurora Nealand and the Reed Minders (JV) 2p, Robin Barnes and the FiyaBirds (JV) 7p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p MONDAY MARCH 9 30/90: Margie Perez (SO) 5p, New Orleans Super Jam presented by Gene Harding (VR) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys):Too Trill Trivia with Eric and Terri (VR) 6p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay and Charlie Wooton (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, Soul Project NOLA (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Helen Rose (JV) 6p, Comic Strip (CO) 9:30p
d.b.a.: John Boutte (PI) 7p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: James Williams (VR) 6p, Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Irvin Mayfield (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p One Eyed Jacks: Blind Texas Marlin (VR) 10p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Michael Watson and the Alchemy (JV) 10p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p,Washboard Rodeo (JV) 8p TUESDAY MARCH 10 30/90: Mem Shannon and the Membership Band (BL) 5p, Ed Wills and Blues4Sale (BL) 9p Ace Hotel (Lobby):Tech Tuesdays: Hack Night (VR) 7p Buffa’s:Ted Hefko (VR) 7p Café Negril: Marla Dixon Band (VR) 7p, Dimondick Gorilla and the Swingin’ Vines (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Debbie Davis and Josh Paxton (JV) 6p,Transiberian Nightmare Drag (VR) 9p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p,Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kajun’s Pub: Karaoke (KR) 5p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Lani B. Supreme (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Z2SOLO (VR) 5p, Stuart Coles’ Straight Ahead Jam Session (VR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub:Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Stanton Moore Trio (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Ken Swartz (BL) 5p, Kris Tokarski (JV) 8p Tipitina’s: Soulfly,Toxic Holocaust, Sergio Michel, Systemhouse 33 (VR) 8:30p WEDNESDAY MARCH 11 30/90: Andy J. Forest (BL) 5p, Big Mike and the R&B Kings (RB) 9p Ace Hotel: Free Nationals (FK) 7p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (VR) 6p, the Catahoulas (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Leslie Cooper with Harry Mayronne (JV) 6p, Mighty Brother (ID) 9p d.b.a.:Tin Men (RK) 7p,Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Heartworm, Mia Day, Sweetheart (ID) 9p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Kermit Ruffins (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Angie’s Karaoke (KR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Lafayette Square:Wednesday at the Square feat. Flow Tribe, Dave Jordan and the NIA (VR) 5p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Lars Edegran and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra (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 Muses: Andre Bohren (CL) 5p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 8p THURSDAY MARCH 12 30/90:Tony Lee Thomas (SO) 5p, Smoke N Bones (FK) 9p, DJ Fresh (VR) 10p Ace Hotel (Lobby): the Finest in Funk with AJ Hall (FK) 7p Buffa’s: Berthena (VR) 5p,Tom McDermott and Marla Dixon (JV) 8p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Michael Pearce and Thomas Walker (BL) 6p, Gal Holiday, Cactus Thief (RR) 9p d.b.a.: Julie Odell, the Electric Arch (ID) 10p Fillmore: G Herbo, King Von, Lil Loaded, Shaun Sloan, Pretty Savage (HH) 7p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Mario Abney (JV) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8:30p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours with the Two’s feat. Ruby Rendrag and Suki Kuehn (VR) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Duke Heitger and Tim Laughlin with Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie (ZY) 8p Snug Harbor: Rene Marie with Victor Atkins Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sal Geloso Band (JV) 2p, Miss Sophie Lee (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses:Tom McDermott (PI) 5p, Arsene DeLay (VR) 8p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p FRIDAY MARCH 13 30/90: Shark Attack (RK) 2p, Sleazeball Orchestra (JV) 5p, Raw Deal (FK) 8p, DJ Torch (VR) 10p, Deltaphonic (FK) 11p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Pass the Peas: Khris Royal and Dark Matter (FK) 7:30p; (Lobby): 1Social presents the Little Big Room (VR) 9p Buffa’s: Dave Jordan (RR) 6p, the Tanglers (BU) 9p Café Negril: Shawn Williams (VR) 2p, Dana Abbott Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Lynn Drury (RK) 6p, Gettin It Album-release party (ID) 9p d.b.a.: Russell Welch’s Wood Floor Trio (JV) 4p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 6p Fillmore: Hippie Sabotage, Ilo Ilo (EL) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ladies Night with DJ Teddy (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p Kerry Irish Pub: Denise Marie (FO) 5p, Paintbox with Dave James and Tim Robertson (FO) 9p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Kevin Louis and Craig Klein with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Quiana Lynell (JV) 8 & 10p O F F B E AT. C O M
express Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, Dr. Brice Miller’s BukuNOLA (JV) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p SATURDAY MARCH 14 30/90: Jonathan Bauer Project (MJ) 11a, Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires (SS) 2p, Organami (JV) 5p, Mofongo (LT) 8p, DJ Dot Dunnie (VR) 10p, Big Mike and the R&B Kings (RB) 11p Ace Hotel (Lobby): DJ Soul Sister (FK) 11:30p Buffa’s:Warren Battiste (JV) 11a, Freddie Blue and the Friendship Circle (VR) 6p, John Sinclair,Tom Worrell and friends (VR) 9p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 2p, Jamey St. Pierre Band (RK) 6p, the Catahoulas (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Jamie Lynn Vessels (RK) 6p, Tiny Dinosaur and the Gravity Wells, Charles Irwin,They Hate Change (ID) 9p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: Gregg Stafford and his Jazz Hounds (TJ) 6:30p Fillmore: Brendan Schaub (CO) 7p House of Blues: Blue October (RK) 8p Howlin’ Wolf: Shuli Egar (CO) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Keva Holiday (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub:Vali Talbot (FO) 5p, the One Tailed Three (FO) 9p Music Box Village: Min Tanaka, Quintron’s Weather Warlock (DN) 5:30p New Orleans Creole Cookery: the Ed Barrett Trio (JV) 6p One Eyed Jacks: Eric Lindell, the Natural Mystics, Anson Funderburgh (VR) 9p Palm Court Jazz Cafe:Tom Sancton and Louis Ford with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Bonerama (JV) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Lynne Arriale (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, James Martin Band (JV) 10p Three Muses: Eric Merchant (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Funk Me, I’m Irish! with Big Sam’s Funky Nation and Joshua Starkman, Denisia, Casme (VR) 10p SUNDAY MARCH 15 30/90: Miss Mojo (FK) 11a,Truman Holland and the Back Porch Review (SS) 2p,Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires (SS) 5p, Chris Klein and the Boulevards (BL) 9p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Molly Reeves and friends (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Jazz Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Sierra Green (SO) 2p, Ecirb Muller’s Twisted Dixie (JV) 6p,Vegas Cola Band (JV) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Pfister Sisters (JV) 6p, Gina Leslie Sundays (FO) 10p Civic Theatre: Silverstein (VR) 7:30p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Joe Marcinek Band (VR) 10p Fillmore: Cole Swindell, Hardy and Trea Landon (CW) 7p French Market: St. Joseph’s Day Celebration (VR) 12p OF F B E AT.C OM
Gasa Gasa: Mauskovic Dance Band, Mystery Zone Records, Disko Obscura (VR) 9p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle Jazz Quartet (JV) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ambush Reggar Band (RE) 4p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p,TBC Brass Band (BB) 8p Kerry Irish Pub:Traditional Irish Session (FO) 5p, Patrick Cooper (FO) 8p Palm Court Jazz Cafe:Tom Fischer and Clive Wilson with Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Ryan Foret and Foret Tradition (KJ) 4p Saenger Theatre: Ali Wong (CO) 7p Snug Harbor: Meghan Stewart (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: call club (JV) 2p, Robin Barnes and the FiyaBirds (JV) 7p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p MONDAY MARCH 16 30/90: Dapper Dandies (JV) 5p, New Orleans Super Jam presented by Gene Harding (VR) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Movement Mondays WHIV Live Radio Broadcast with Chinua (VR) 5p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay and Charlie Wooton (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, Soul Project NOLA (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Coliseum Street (RK) 6p, Comic Strip (CO) 9:30p d.b.a.: John Boutte (PI) 7p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: James Williams (VR) 6p, Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Irvin Mayfield (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Denise Marie (VR) 8:30p One Eyed Jacks: Dirty Rotten Snake in the Grass (VR) 9p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Hot Club of New Orleans (JV) 10p Starlight:Tony Lee Thomas (BL) 5p, Ugetsu (JV) 8p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p Three Muses: Monty Banks (JV) 5p, Gal Holiday (CW) 8p TUESDAY MARCH 17 30/90: Set Up Kings (RB) 5p, Kennedy and the M.O.T.H (RK) 9p Ace Hotel (Lobby):Tech Tuesdays: Hack Night and GDG New Orleans Meetup (VR) 7p Café Negril: Marla Dixon Band (VR) 7p, Dimondick Gorilla and the Swingin’ Vines (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: check website (VR) 6p, the Whyos (IR) 9p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p,Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Lani B. Supreme (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Z2SOLO MARCH 2020
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express (VR) 5p, Stuart Coles’ Straight Ahead Jam Session (VR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub: St. Patrick’s Day feat. Hugh Morrison (IR) 12:30p, Crescent and Clover Celtic Band (IR) 3:30p, Rites of Passage (IR) 7:30p Snug Harbor: Jeff Coffin Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Sam Cammarata (VR) 5p WEDNESDAY MARCH 18 30/90: Bywater Skanks (VR) 5p, Colin Davis and Night People (SO) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Psychedelic Society of New Orleans (VR) 7p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (VR) 6p, the Catahoulas (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: KatieCat and Cain Bossa Nova Love (LT) 6p, Misti Gaither’s Spotlight Project (VR) 8:30p Civic Theatre: Eric Johnson (VR) 8p d.b.a.:Tin Men (RK) 7p,Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Kermit Ruffins (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Angie’s Karaoke (KR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub:Will Dickerson (FO) 8:30p Lafayette Square:Wednesday at the Square feat.Tab Benoit, New Orleans Johnnys (VR) 5p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Lars Edegran and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Jerry Embree Swing Band (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra (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 Muses: Leslie Martin (JV) 5p, Schatzy (JV) 8p Tipitina’s:WTUL Presents the Tulbux feat. Colorblock, Midriff,Tattered Rabbit (VR) 9p THURSDAY MARCH 19 30/90:Tony Lee Thomas (SO) 5p, Soul Project (FK) 9p, DJ Trill Skill (VR) 10p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Four Five Times Swing Night (SI) 9p Buffa’s: Kris Tokarski Trio (JV) 5p,Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand (JV) 8p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Conor Donohue (FO) 6p, Shawn Williams and Dana Abbott (RK) 9p d.b.a.: Jon Cleary (PI) 7p, Little Freddie King (BL) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Porch): A Hundred Drums, Dalek One, Sir Shlothy, Black Swan (EL) 10p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Mario Abney (JV) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (FK) 11p
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MARCH 2020
Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours feat. the Dirty Rain Revelers (VR) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Duke Heitger and Tim Laughlin with Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Chubby Carrier and Bayou Swamp Band (ZY) 8p Snug Harbor: Larry Sieberth Quartet CDrelease party (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sal Geloso Band (JV) 2p, the Garden of Joy (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses:Tom McDermott (PI) 5p,Teddy Lamson (SS) 8p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p FRIDAY MARCH 20 30/90: Jonathan Bauer Project (MJ) 2p, Jon Roniger and the Good For Nothin’ Band (JV) 5p, Smoke N Bones (FK) 8p, DJ Dot Dunnie (VR) 10p, Hotline (PO) 11p Ace Hotel (Lobby): Archive with Felice Gee (VR) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Pass the Peas: Khris Royal and Dark Matter (FK) 7:30p Buffa’s: Cindy Scott’s Mining for Magic (JV) 6p, Hannah KB Band (VR) 9p Café Negril: Shawn Williams (VR) 2p, Dana Abbott Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Lilli Lewis Project (BL) 6p, Muevelo, Amigos do Samba (LT) 9p d.b.a.: Russell Welch’s Wood Floor Trio (JV) 4p, Cedric Watson and Bijou Creole, the Daiquiri Queens (KJ) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Rhett Price (HH) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ladies Night with DJ Teddy (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p Kerry Irish Pub:Tim Robertson (FO) 5p, Paul Ferguson (FO) 9p Mardi Gras World: Buku Music and Art Project (VR) 2p Snug Harbor: Cyrille Aimee (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings (JV) 6p, Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band (JV) 10p Three Muses: Royal Roses (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p SATURDAY MARCH 21 30/90: Sleazeball Orchestra (JV) 11a, Retrofit (SO) 2p, Simple Sound Retreat (PO) 5p, Sam Price and the True Believers (RK) 8p, DJ Torch (VR) 10p, Big Easy Brawlers (BB) 11p Abita Springs Town Hall: Abita Springs Opry feat. Steve Anderson Group, Crispin Schroeder, Driskill Mountain Boys,Vintage Jazz (VR) 7p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): La Noche Caliente with Muevelo and Mambo Orleans (LT) 9p Buffa’s:Warren Battiste (JV) 11a, Carmella Rappazzo (JV) 6p, Marina Orchestra (VR) 9p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 2p, Jamey St. Pierre Band (RK) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge:Ted Hefko (FO) 6p, Caleb Caudle,Wild Ponies (FO) 9p d.b.a.:Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: Pontchartrain Film Festival Screening: A Tuba To Cuba (JV) 6p
Howlin’ Wolf: Caramel Curves 12th Anniversary (VR) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Keva Holiday (VR) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 5p, Hurricane Refugees (FO) 9p Mardi Gras World: Buku Music and Art Project (VR) 2p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Snug Harbor: Cyrille Aimee (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Russell Welch Band (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses: Eric Merchant (JV) 5p, call club (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p SUNDAY MARCH 22 30/90:Whitney Alouisious (FK) 11a, Set Up Kings (RB) 2p,Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires (SS) 5p,T’Canaille (KJ) 9p Abita Springs Trailhead Museum: Abita Springs Busker Festival feat. Esther Rose Band, Bad Penny Pleasuremakers, Nick Shoulders and Okay Crawdad, James McClaskey and his Rhythm Band, Sam Doores Band,Tuba Skinny (VR) 12p Ace Hotel: Ellay2ellay with Foreigner, Helikonia, Chinua, Pr_ck (VR) TBA Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Little Coquette Jazz Band (JV) 4p, Steve Pistorius Jazz Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Sierra Green (SO) 2p, Ecirb Muller’s Twisted Dixie (JV) 6p,Vegas Cola Band (JV) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Matt Hill (BL) 6p, Gina Leslie Sundays (FO) 10p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (JV) 6p, Big Dummy feat. Rob Wagner (VR) 10p Fillmore: Drag Divas Brunch (VR) 10:30a Generations Hall: Nuit de la Musique feat. Jason Neville Funky Soul Band, Big Chief John and Original Wild Tchoupitoulas, Rockin Dopsie Jr., Pascal Valcasara Quartet (VR) 5p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle Jazz Quartet (JV) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ambush Reggar Band (RE) 4p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p,TBC Brass Band (BB) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Beth Patterson (FO) 8p Snug Harbor: Cindy Scott Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Giselle Anguizola and the Swinging Gypsies (JV) 2p, Robin Barnes and the FiyaBirds (JV) 7p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p MONDAY MARCH 23 30/90: Margie Perez (SO) 5p, New Orleans Super Jam presented by Gene Harding (VR) 9p Ace Hotel (Lobby): Simple Play Networking Happy Hour (VR) 5p Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay and Charlie Wooton (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p
Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, Soul Project NOLA (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Helen Rose (JV) 6p, Comic Strip (CO) 9:30p House of Blues: Lords of Acid (EL) 6:30p Jazz Playhouse: Gerald French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band (JV) 8p Kajun’s Pub: Karaoke (KR) 5p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: James Williams (VR) 6p, Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Irvin Mayfield (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, Michael Watson and the Alchemy (JV) 10p Three Muses: Bart Ramsey (JV) 5p,Teddy Lamson and Julie Odell (ID) 8p TUESDAY MARCH 24 30/90: Mem Shannon and the Membership Band (BL) 5p, Ed Wills and Blues4Sale (BL) 9p Ace Hotel (Lobby):Tech Tuesdays: Hack Night (VR) 7p Buffa’s: Leslie Cooper and Harry Mayronne (JV) 7p Café Negril: Marla Dixon Band (VR) 7p, Dimondick Gorilla and the Swingin’ Vines (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Real Rob (VR) 6p, Transiberian Nightmare Drag (VR) 9p d.b.a.: Dinosaurchestra (JV) 7p,Treme Brass Band (BB) 10p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Beast (CO) 8:30p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Lani B. Supreme (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Z2SOLO (VR) 5p, Stuart Coles’ Straight Ahead Jam Session (VR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub: Hugh Morrison (FO) 8:30p One Eyed Jacks: Post Animal,TWEN (VR) 8p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Greg Stafford and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Latin Night (LT) 7p Snug Harbor: New Orleans Guitar Masters feat. Jimmy Robinson, John Rankin and Cranston Clements (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Starlight: Marty Peters (JV) 5p, Orphaned In Storyville (JV) 8p, Gina Leslie (FO) 10p Three Muses: Keith Burnstein (SS) 8p WEDNESDAY MARCH 25 30/90: Andy J. Forest (BL) 5p, Big Mike and the R&B Kings (RB) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): SONO presents Shape of Jazz to Come with Harriet Tubman (JV) 9p Bacchanal: Raphael Bas (JV) 12p, Jesse Morrow (JV) 7:30p Buffa’s: Open Mic Night with Nattie Sanchez (SS) 7p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (VR) 6p, the Catahoulas (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Stoo Odom and guests (JV) 6p, Anne Elise Hastings and her Revolving Cast of Characters (FO) 9p O F F B E AT. C O M
express d.b.a.:Tin Men (RK) 7p,Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters (BL) 10p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Kermit Ruffins (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Angie’s Karaoke (KR) 7p Kerry Irish Pub:Vincent Marini (FO) 8:30p Lafayette Square:Wednesday at the Square feat. Marc Broussard, Erica Falls (VR) 5p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Lars Edegran and Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Boogie Men (SI) 8p Snug Harbor: Uptown Jazz Orchestra (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 Muses: Mia Borders (FK) 5p, Joy Patterson and Matt Bell (JV) 8p THURSDAY MARCH 26 30/90:Tony Lee Thomas (FO) 5p, Soul Project (FK) 9p, DJ Fresh (VR) 10p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Diamondbolt Collection Launch with special guests Buffa’s:Tender Moments with Andre Bohren and Harry Hardin (CL) 5p,Tom McDermott and Marla Dixon (JV) 8p Café Negril: Claude Bryant and the All-Stars (VR) 6p, Sierra Green and the Soul Machine (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Dick Johnson and the Big Willies (BL) 6p, New Orleans Klezmer AllStars (KZ) 9p d.b.a.: Jon Cleary (PI) 7p, Khris Royal and Dark Matter (FK) 10p House of Blues (the Parish): Father (HH) 7p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Comedy Gumbeaux (CO) 8:30p Howlin’ Wolf (the Porch):WTUL Rock On Survival Marathon feat. Quarx, Hydra Plane, Soulgaze, Loudness War (ID) 8p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Mario Abney (JV) 9p Kerry Irish Pub: Chip Wilson (FO) 8:30p Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels (FK) 11p Ogden Museum of Southern Art: Ogden After Hours feat. Deltaphonic (FK) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Duke Heitger and Tim Laughlin with Crescent City Joymakers (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Jeffrey Broussard and Creole Cowboys (ZY) 8p Snug Harbor: Michelle Welchons Presents Orchidea (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Sal Geloso Band (JV) 2p,Tom Saunders and the Hot Cats (JV) 6p, Jumbo Shrimp (JV) 10p Three Muses:Tom McDermott (PI) 5p, Arsene DeLay (VR) 8p Tipitina’s:Yonder Mountain String Band (VR) 9p Vaughan’s Lounge: Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet (FK) 10:30p FRIDAY MARCH 27 30/90: Ainsley Matich and the Broken Blues (RK) 2p, Sleazeball Orchestra (JV) 5p, Smoke N Bones (FK) 8p, DJ Trill Skill (VR) 10p, Deltaphonic (RR) 11p Ace Hotel (Lobby): Raj Smoove presents the OF F B E AT.C OM
Greatest Playlist (VR) 9p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Pass the Peas: Khris Royal and Dark Matter (FK) 7:30p Buffa’s: Michael Burkart’s Les Syncopators De Bayou Jazz Trio (JV) 6p, Spogga Hash (VR) 9p Café Negril: Shawn Williams (VR) 2p, Dana Abbott Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Arsene DeLay (RK) 6p, check website (VR) 9p d.b.a.: Russell Welch’s Wood Floor Trio (JV) 4p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Big Sam’s Funky Nation (FK) 10p Dmac’s: Dirty Rain Revelers (FO) 6p, Chapel Hart (CW) 9p House of Blues: Koe Wetzel (CW) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ladies Night with DJ Teddy (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p Kerry Irish Pub: Patrick Cooper (FO) 5p,Will Dickerson and friends (FO) 9p Music Box Village: Pinettes Brass Band (BB) 6p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Mark Braud and Craig Klein with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: the Topcats (VR) 9:30p Snug Harbor: Jason Marsalis with Ellis Marsalis (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (JV) 6p, Soul Brass Band (JV) 10p Three Muses: Matt Johnson (JV) 5:30p, Doro Wat Jazz Band (JV) 9p SATURDAY MARCH 28 30/90: Jonathan Bauer Project (MJ) 11a, Organami (JV) 2p,Ted Hefko and the Thousandaires (SS) 5p, Mofongo (LT) 8p, DJ Dot Dunnie (VR) 10p, Big Easy Brawlers (BB) 11p Ace Hotel (Lobby): Lobby: DJ RQ Away presents Happy Feelins (VR) 11:30p Ace Hotel (Three Keys): Sierra Green (SO) 9p Buffa’s:Warren Battiste (JV) 11a, Cole Williams (FK) 6p, Jamie Bernstein and Dave Easley (JV) 9p Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk (FK) 2p, Jamey St. Pierre Band (VR) 6p, Higher Heights (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Alex Bosworth (ID) 6p, Silas Omega, Nick Midas, B Creative, Roo, Whipcream, Billsberry Flowboy (HH) 9p d.b.a.:Tuba Skinny (JV) 7p, Soul Rebels (BB) 11p Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall: Ingrid Lucia (JV) 6:30p Dmac’s:Walter “Wolfman” Washington (BL) 9p Gasa Gasa: Sam Price and the True Believers, Float Like a Buffalo, Retrofit (FK) 10p House of Blues: Chrisette Michelle (RB) 8p Howlin’ Wolf (the Den):Veronica Stanton and Will Payne Harrison (SS) 10p Howlin’ Wolf: Leanne Morgan (CO) 8p Jazz Playhouse: the Assunto Dukes:Tribute to Frank and Freddie Assunto (JV) 8:30p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Keva Holiday (VR) 8p MARCH 2020
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express Kerry Irish Pub: Dave Hickey (FO) 5p,Terry McDermott and Justin Molaison (FO) 9p Mahalia Jackson Theater: New Orleans Ballet Association presents the Houston Ballet (DN) 8p One Eyed Jacks: Eyope, People Museum (VR) 9p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Clive Wilson,Tom Sancton and Louis Ford with Palm Court Jazz Band (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl:Vance Orange (VR) 9:30p Saenger Theatre:Trevor Noah (CO) 7p Smoothie King Center: Nick Cannon (HH) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Amina Figerova Sextet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Jazz Band Ballers (JV) 2p, Panorama Jazz Band (JV) 6p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 10p Starlight: Ashley Beach and the Odd Ditties (FO) 5p, Anais St. John (JV) 8p, Orphaned In Storyville (JV) 11p Three Muses: Eric Merchant (JV) 5p, Debbie Davis (JV) 6p, Shotgun Jazz Band (JV) 9p Tipitina’s: Low End Theory Players Present A Tribute to Outkast (VR) 10p SUNDAY MARCH 29 30/90: Carmen Glaze (RB) 11a,Truman Holland and the Back Porch Review (SS) 2p, Carolyn Broussard (FO) 5p,T’Canaille (KJ) 9p Buffa’s: Some Like It Hot! (TJ) 10:30a, Steve Pistorius Jazz Quartet (JV) 7p Café Negril: Sierra Green (SO) 2p, Ecirb Muller’s Twisted Dixie (JV) 6p,Vegas Cola Band (JV) 10p
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Carnaval Lounge: John Ewart and Monty Banks (JV) 6p, Gina Leslie Sundays (FO) 10p Contemporary Arts Center: Dancing Grounds Presents Dance for Social Change Festival (DN) 2p d.b.a.: Palmetto Bugs Stompers (SI) 6p, Malevitus (RK) 10p Fillmore: Drag Divas Brunch (VR) 10:30a Howlin’ Wolf (the Den): Hot 8 Brass Band (BB) 11p Jazz Playhouse: Germaine Bazzle Jazz Quartet (JV) 8p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Ambush Reggar Band (RE) 4p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: DJ Sugar Ray (VR) 4:20p,TBC Brass Band (BB) 8p Kerry Irish Pub:Will Dickerson (FO) 8p Palm Court Jazz Cafe: Mark Braud with Sunday Night Swingsters (TJ) 7p Rock ‘n’ Bowl: Dale Watson, Chapel Hart Band (CW) 8p Santos: Black Mass, Hanged Man, Recluse (ME) 9p Snug Harbor: James Singleton Quartet (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Rhythm Stompers (JV) 2p, Robin Barnes and the FiyaBirds (JV) 7p, Pat Casey and the New Sound (JV) 10p Three Muses: Raphael et Pascale (JV) 5p, the Clementines (JV) 8p UNO Lakefront Arena:TobyMac (HH) 7p MONDAY MARCH 30 30/90: Dapper Dandies (JV) 5p, New Orleans Super Jam presented by Gene Harding (VR) 9p
Buffa’s: Arsene DeLay and Charlie Wooton (VR) 5p, Antoine Diel (VR) 8p Café Negril: Noggin (VR) 6p, Soul Project NOLA (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: Cristina Vane (FO) 6p, Comic Strip (CO) 9:30p d.b.a.: John Boutte (JV) 7p Kajun’s Pub: Karaoke (KR) 5p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: James Williams (VR) 6p, Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers (JV) 7p, Irvin Mayfield (JV) 8p Kerry Irish Pub: Denise Marie (FO) 8:30p Snug Harbor: Charmaine Neville Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Royal Street Winding Boys (JV) 2p, Dominick Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars (JV) 6p, New Orleans Swing Consensus (JV) 10p Starlight: Bremner Duthie (JV) 4p, Lulu and the Broadsides (RB) 7p, Jazz Vipers (JV) 10p TUESDAY MARCH 31 30/90: Set Up Kings (RB) 5p, Kennedy and the M.O.T.H (RK) 9p Buffa’s: Josh Starkman Have a Great Day Tonight (VR) 7p Café Negril: Marla Dixon Band (VR) 7p, Dimondick Gorilla and the Swingin’ Vines (VR) 10p Carnaval Lounge: St. Roch Syncopators (TJ) 6p, Catie Rodgers’ Swing Orchestra (JV) 9p Kermit’s 9th Ward Juke Joint: Lani B. Supreme (JV) 6p Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge: Stuart Coles’ Straight Ahead Jam Session (VR) 9p
Kerry Irish Pub: Hugh Morrison (FO) 8:30p Snug Harbor:Victor Goines with Beloit High Jazz Band (JV) 8 & 10p Spotted Cat: Andy J. Forest (JV) 2p, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns (JV) 6p, Smoking Time Jazz Club (JV) 10p Three Muses: Gary Negbaur (JV) 5p, Salvatore Geloso (JV) 8p FESTIVALS March 21 The Rock n Rouge Festival in Lafayette Square celebrates women’s empowerment with live music and food. TheRockAndRouge.com March 27-28 The annual Hogs for the Cause benefit outside UNO’s Lakefront Arena features live music and a barbecue competition. HogsForTheCause.org March 28-29 The Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Festival at Armstrong Park includes live Cajun and zydeco music, regional cuisine and an arts market. JazzAndHeritage.org/CajunZydeco SPECIAL EVENTS Ongoing The New Orleans Jazz Museum at the Old U.S. Mint presents “Noel Rockmore & Emilie Rhys: New Orleans Jazz Painting Retrospective.”
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native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram comes from the land of Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker and Skip James. Just turned 21, this young man with the blues respects his music’s past even as he shapes its future. Chicago’s Alligator Records released Kingfish, Ingram’s justifiably confident album debut, last year. Produced and co-written by Grammy winner Tom Hambridge, Kingfish earned the singer-guitarist a Grammy nomination for best traditional blues album. In an Alligator Records press release, the label’s president and founder, Bruce Iglauer, says Ingram and the longrunning blues label are a natural fit. “Kingfish is one of the most exciting and passionate Appearing far and wide in his teens, his bookings included the young artists I’ve seen in many years,” Iglauer says. “He’s creating Crescent City Blues & Barbecue Festival, the Chicago Blues new music that feels like blues, but doesn’t copy what’s already Festival and the Beale Street Music Festival. Ingram’s early been done. You can hear that raw Delta honesty in his playing supporters included Bootsy Collins—the funk star who shared and singing. His guitar work is technically dazzling, but it’s all about the teen blues artist’s music videos, saying “this is how a child the emotions of the song and moving the audience.” can influence others.” His fame grew with appearances on The Ingram recorded Kingfish in Nashville with Hambridge, the Rachael Ray Show and The Steve Harvey Show and the Netflix producer, songwriter and drummer best known for his Grammy- series Luke Cage. On stage, he appeared with Buddy Guy, the winning productions with Louisiana-born blues star Buddy Guy. Tedeschi Trucks Band, Robert Randolph and Guitar Shorty. The 83-year-old, eight-time Grammy-winning Guy makes a Ingram returns to New Orleans on March 28 for a perforguest appearance on Kingfish. He’s also given Ingram his blessing. mance at Hogs For The Cause Music & Barbecue Festival on the “Kingfish is the next explosion of the blues,” Guy says. Another UNO Lakefront Arena grounds. Grammy winner, Keb’ Mo’, contributes guitar and vocals to How did you react to news about your recent Grammy Kingfish. nomination? Ingram comes from a musical family that includes many gospel It was crazy at first. I didn’t think it would come this early. But musicians and a country music star, Charley Pride, his mother it just inspired me and let me know I have to go harder on the Princess Pride’s first cousin. When Ingram was eight- years-old, next couple of records, and the record after that and the record the Muddy Waters documentary, Can’t Be Satisfied, made a after that. huge impression on him. He soon enrolled in the Delta Blues For your album debut, Kingfish, you collaborated with Museum’s Arts and Education program, studying there with producer and drummer Tom Hambridge. He’s produced Richard “Daddy Rich” Crisman and Bill “Howl-N-Madd” Perry. By albums for Buddy Guy, Kenny Neal, Johnny Winter, James his tenth year, Ingram had begun performing at such Clarksdale Cotton and many more. What did Hambridge contribute blues venues as the Delta Blues Room, Ground Zero Blues Club to your music? and Red’s Lounge. He definitely brought seniority to the project, but with fresh At 14, Ingram met Michelle Obama at the White House, ideas and different ways of writing songs. We both fed off each where he performed for the National Arts and other in the songwriting process. I was very blessed to by John Wirt get to work with him. Humanity Youth Program Award Ceremony.
Christone‘‘Kingfish’’Ingram
Photo BY rory doyle
talks back
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backtalk Alligator Records released Kingfish in May, 2019. How did you hook up with Bruce Iglauer and his label in Chicago? I’d been knowing Bruce Iglauer for a while, but the record fell into his lap. He liked what he heard and reached out to us. The album is filled with original songs, most of them co-written by you. Is songwriting very important to you at this pivotal stage of your career? In order to have longevity, you have to have your own songs. Kingfish is the start of my having my own songs. I’m getting back into writing more songs now, but it takes real life experiences and such. You turned 21 on January 19. Did you perform in dozens of juke joints and bars while you were underage? Oh, yes. From age ten to 20. Juke joints, dive bars, the whole nine yards—but where I come from, that’s a normal thing. The guys who are old and gray now, that’s what they were doing back when they were kids. It wasn’t an out of the box thing. Here in Mississippi, way before my generation, the people who came before me always did that. But it’s something I assume that everybody else around the world can’t do. I’m impressed that the Muddy Waters documentary you watched on public television, when you were merely eightyears-old, made such a big impact on you. Around that time, I was more church-influenced than anything. I didn’t get into blues until around age eight, because it was all around me then. My dad showed me a Muddy Waters documentary and, around that time, I lived right next door to a blues band. So, I was exposed to the blues and music in church. As for the documentary, do you recall what struck you about Muddy Waters? It was a sound that I had never heard before—just a powerful, captivating sound that caught my ear. It was heavy. I just knew, whatever it was, I liked it. And to find out that Muddy Waters was one of the hometown boys, a hometown hero, that meant a lot to me. Blues music is an older form of music, but you’re so young. Did you reject modern music—rap, hip-hop, rhythm and blues, dance, pop, rock—in favor of blues? I didn’t reject it, but I got more into it when I was older. Before, I was just listening to older music, like ’70s funk, anything before the 2010s. But then I started getting into more music of my generation, because I figured that would be one of the ways I can reach more young people. We can mix all the traditions that we’re known for with some of the newer stuff, to break boundaries. When did you begin studying at the Delta Blues Museum? That was right at the time my dad showed me the Muddy Waters documentary. After he showed that to me, he took me to the museum to show me a little bit more (about blues history).
And that’s when a lady told my dad about the program because, I guess, my dad was telling her I was into music. They got me signed up for the program. You studied with Richard “Daddy Rich” Crisman and Bill “Howl-N-Mad” Perry at the museum. Good teachers? Oh, yes. They taught me the basics of the blues and guitar. And Mr. Perry gave me the name “Kingfish.” We’d study blues standards and, every now and then, they’d put the instruments away and have us read. We had to learn the history before we dived deep into the music we were learning. It was a great time. When did you decide to be a professional musician? I don’t think I actually decided. When I played my first paying gig, it just kind of fell on me. A guy called my mom and was, like, “If he’s ready, we would love to have him for this show.” So, I started playing in the juke joints. The more I played in the bars and developed my skills, the more I would know that, yeah, maybe I can be a professional. Buddy Guy is one of the guest stars on your album. When did you meet him? I opened for Buddy a couple of years ago in Virginia. And then I sat in with him for the first time and then I sat in two more times after that. That’s how we got acquainted. Buddy was the one who reached out in the first place [about being a guest on the album]. He was interested in doing it. Even though you’ve been a professional musician for years now, you’re still a young person in the business. Have old pros Buddy Guy and Keb’ Mo’ given you some advice? I wouldn’t call it a cliché, but they’d pretty much say keep your head on straight and stay away from the sharks and the bad people. We talk more on the personal level sometimes, especially with Keb’, but also with Mr. Guy. Because of all the wisdom that they both have, I’ve learned a lot from both of them. Many young musicians are into flash, noise, velocity. But you’re not. That was me at a point in time, but I learned to slow it down. People have different ways of expressing themselves, but I just think that if it comes from the heart, it’ll be authentic. You have gospel musicians in your family. Has that music influenced you? Most definitely. We always have gospel things in our songs. We think that gospel and blues are not really much different. Have things changed for you since the release of your debut album? Oh, yeah—especially since the Grammy nomination. A lot people are reaching out to us for shows and more opportunities. We’re just going to continue to build. O Christone “Kingfish” Ingram performs March 28 at Hogs for the Cause on the UNO Lakefront Arena grounds.
When I played my first paying gig, it just kind of fell on me. A guy called my mom and was, like, “If he’s ready, we would love to have him for this show.” So, I started playing in the juke joints.The more I played in the bars and developed my skills, the more I would know that, yeah, maybe I can be a professional.
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