THU., SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
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New Orleans Rolls On
by Kevin Whitehead
New Orleans' most recent round of hurricane scares — and interview clips of evacuees declaring this time they're really not coming back — make you fear anew for its future. Many of the musicians who carry the city's heartbeat never really returned after Katrina. The diaspora of émigrés (including a few musicians reviewed here) stretches from Texas into Georgia. Still, returnees and exiles alike continue to preserve and extend the city's musical traditions. And they still come home to play.
Preservation Hall at 726 St. Peter in the French Quarter perseveres as the watchtower of New Orleans jazz, but even there the music has been quietly modernized: a mixed band of locally reared and Scandinavian talent I caught there one night last December played music that smacked less of Storyville in the 1910s than NYC's 52nd Street in the '40s: consecutive solos, not collective improvising; a reed man who favored tenor saxophone over a clarinet he hardly touched; and trombonist Freddie Lonzo sneaking bebop quotes into his solos.
Even the Hall's record label is tweaking the formulas — and not always by design. The producers of the new Joe Lastie and the Lastie Family Gospel say Preservation Hall Jazz Band drummer Joe Lastie hijacked his own trad-jazz recording session by bringing along a brace of family (including drummin' cousin Herlin Riley) who turned the date into a gospel rave-up with aunt Betty Ann leading the choir. Meanwhile, Rev. Leon Vaughan gets otherweirdly Garth Hudson timbres and loopy phrases out of the Hammond organ; the date would be worth hearing for him alone. It's especially nice to hear organ back a three-horn (trumpet/trombone/tenor) New Orleans front line, on "Do Lord" and "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" — the real anthem of NOLA jazz.
Studio chatter, run-throughs while the tape is rolling, and numbers that fade in and out speak to how quickly it all fell together, but the joyous spirit steamrolls any imperfections: count on New Orleaneans to turn even a worship service into a party. "Lead Me Savior" sounds like it comes straight from the choir loft; the congregation's rousing exit hymn is a charming "Walk Through the Streets of the City" sung to "Red River Valley."
Preservation Hall band banjo player Carl LeBlanc is a singing, storytelling one-man band on New Orleans' Seventh Ward Griot. LeBlanc had come to traditional jazz from funk and rock, and the most striking track is a cover of Elton John's "Madman Across the Water." LeBlanc makes you hear what a good vehicle for Hendrix it might have been without your ever mistaking him for Jimi; his slashing electric guitar is as crudely effective as Neil Young's is in the movie Dead Man. "Super Sunday" updates 19th-century vocal chants and Congo Square drum circles for a new gathering of tribes at the Superdome.
If only it were all that strong. LeBlanc tells a story to tie Sun Ra to Preservation Hall banjo player Narvin Kimball, via the oldie "You Can Depend on Me," but his delivery of the song itself lacks punch. Ditto his vocalise version of Louis Armstrong's 1928 "West End Blues" trumpet solo. LeBlanc does a good Jackie Wilson impression on "Lonely Teardrops," but much of the album sounds like a rummage through someone's old LP crate: Little Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her," knockoffs of Taj Mahal ("Indian Love Song") and Hall and Oates ("You're Number One"), slo-mo old school rapping ("Stop the Violence").
Preservation Hall trumpeter Leroy Jones was already showing off a modernized Dixieland style in the '90s on City of Sounds, by a mixed Gulf Coast/Danish octet. (Don't ask me why Scandinavians have a special knack for traditional jazz.) They get the old feel-good flavor despite messing with the ingredients: (mostly) two-beat rhythm from a four-piece rhythm section, swing-era melodic and harmonic language in the solos, hints of Ellington in the refined backdrops, and a few well-worn melodic figures. ("Holy Roller" shows Jones' appreciation for cornetist Nat Adderley's pithy soul jazz.) The standout soloists are Jones himself, with his peachy-juicy trumpet sound, and liquid-toned clarinetist Jørgen Svare, who sounds like a fan of Ellington's Russell Procope.
Ex-Jazz Messenger Donald Harrison tweaks the New Orleans formula another way on gigs and albums going back to 1991's Indian Blues with Dr. John on piano. Having inherited his father's mantle as a Mardi Gras Indian chief — I'll never forget his stepping on stage at Chicago's Symphony Center in eight-foot by five-foot feathered regalia — Harrison takes those parade rhythms and chants seriously. For his Spirits of Congo Square billed to the New Orleans Legacy Ensemble he taps numerous homegrown jazz celebs —Nicholas Payton, Marlon Jordan, Delfeayo Marsalis and Victor Goines are among the other horns — to play a mix of New Orleans and modern jazz tunes ("Just a Closer Walk," "Oleo," Monk's "Bye-Ya"). The decisive role is played by drummer Adonis Rose, who animates those street beats, driving the band with syncopated snare patterns: myriad variations on the delayed-second-beat habañera rhythm Gottschalk brought back from Cuba before the Civil War.
Harrison's alto lines and tone are sleek and searing; unlike the city's old-timers he uses very little vibrato. His charts are likewise built to move. He keeps the Dixieish pile-ups to a minimum, the horns melded in attractive solo-booting support. Not that New Orleans musicians need to parade local influences. On Jeff Albert's quartet album One, released three weeks before Katrina hit in 2005, his singing trombone, traces of Cuban and march rhythms, horn conversations and a drummer who likes to dig between the beats all speak to New Orleans roots. But the context is thoroughly modernist. Albert's closer in spirit to free jazzer Roswell Rudd than Freddie Lonzo, and alto and tenor saxophonist Ray Moore has a scalding tone and ear for modern scales. Bassist Edwin Livingston dances around ex-New York drummer Dave Cappello, who's blossomed in the last decade, down by the levees. New Orleans does that to people. That's why folks keep coming back.
Preservation Hall at 726 St. Peter in the French Quarter perseveres as the watchtower of New Orleans jazz, but even there the music has been quietly modernized: a mixed band of locally reared and Scandinavian talent I caught there one night last December played music that smacked less of Storyville in the 1910s than NYC's 52nd Street in the '40s: consecutive solos, not collective improvising; a reed man who favored tenor saxophone over a clarinet he hardly touched; and trombonist Freddie Lonzo sneaking bebop quotes into his solos.
Even the Hall's record label is tweaking the formulas — and not always by design. The producers of the new Joe Lastie and the Lastie Family Gospel say Preservation Hall Jazz Band drummer Joe Lastie hijacked his own trad-jazz recording session by bringing along a brace of family (including drummin' cousin Herlin Riley) who turned the date into a gospel rave-up with aunt Betty Ann leading the choir. Meanwhile, Rev. Leon Vaughan gets otherweirdly Garth Hudson timbres and loopy phrases out of the Hammond organ; the date would be worth hearing for him alone. It's especially nice to hear organ back a three-horn (trumpet/trombone/tenor) New Orleans front line, on "Do Lord" and "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" — the real anthem of NOLA jazz.
Studio chatter, run-throughs while the tape is rolling, and numbers that fade in and out speak to how quickly it all fell together, but the joyous spirit steamrolls any imperfections: count on New Orleaneans to turn even a worship service into a party. "Lead Me Savior" sounds like it comes straight from the choir loft; the congregation's rousing exit hymn is a charming "Walk Through the Streets of the City" sung to "Red River Valley."
Preservation Hall band banjo player Carl LeBlanc is a singing, storytelling one-man band on New Orleans' Seventh Ward Griot. LeBlanc had come to traditional jazz from funk and rock, and the most striking track is a cover of Elton John's "Madman Across the Water." LeBlanc makes you hear what a good vehicle for Hendrix it might have been without your ever mistaking him for Jimi; his slashing electric guitar is as crudely effective as Neil Young's is in the movie Dead Man. "Super Sunday" updates 19th-century vocal chants and Congo Square drum circles for a new gathering of tribes at the Superdome.
If only it were all that strong. LeBlanc tells a story to tie Sun Ra to Preservation Hall banjo player Narvin Kimball, via the oldie "You Can Depend on Me," but his delivery of the song itself lacks punch. Ditto his vocalise version of Louis Armstrong's 1928 "West End Blues" trumpet solo. LeBlanc does a good Jackie Wilson impression on "Lonely Teardrops," but much of the album sounds like a rummage through someone's old LP crate: Little Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her," knockoffs of Taj Mahal ("Indian Love Song") and Hall and Oates ("You're Number One"), slo-mo old school rapping ("Stop the Violence").
Preservation Hall trumpeter Leroy Jones was already showing off a modernized Dixieland style in the '90s on City of Sounds, by a mixed Gulf Coast/Danish octet. (Don't ask me why Scandinavians have a special knack for traditional jazz.) They get the old feel-good flavor despite messing with the ingredients: (mostly) two-beat rhythm from a four-piece rhythm section, swing-era melodic and harmonic language in the solos, hints of Ellington in the refined backdrops, and a few well-worn melodic figures. ("Holy Roller" shows Jones' appreciation for cornetist Nat Adderley's pithy soul jazz.) The standout soloists are Jones himself, with his peachy-juicy trumpet sound, and liquid-toned clarinetist Jørgen Svare, who sounds like a fan of Ellington's Russell Procope.
Ex-Jazz Messenger Donald Harrison tweaks the New Orleans formula another way on gigs and albums going back to 1991's Indian Blues with Dr. John on piano. Having inherited his father's mantle as a Mardi Gras Indian chief — I'll never forget his stepping on stage at Chicago's Symphony Center in eight-foot by five-foot feathered regalia — Harrison takes those parade rhythms and chants seriously. For his Spirits of Congo Square billed to the New Orleans Legacy Ensemble he taps numerous homegrown jazz celebs —Nicholas Payton, Marlon Jordan, Delfeayo Marsalis and Victor Goines are among the other horns — to play a mix of New Orleans and modern jazz tunes ("Just a Closer Walk," "Oleo," Monk's "Bye-Ya"). The decisive role is played by drummer Adonis Rose, who animates those street beats, driving the band with syncopated snare patterns: myriad variations on the delayed-second-beat habañera rhythm Gottschalk brought back from Cuba before the Civil War.
Harrison's alto lines and tone are sleek and searing; unlike the city's old-timers he uses very little vibrato. His charts are likewise built to move. He keeps the Dixieish pile-ups to a minimum, the horns melded in attractive solo-booting support. Not that New Orleans musicians need to parade local influences. On Jeff Albert's quartet album One, released three weeks before Katrina hit in 2005, his singing trombone, traces of Cuban and march rhythms, horn conversations and a drummer who likes to dig between the beats all speak to New Orleans roots. But the context is thoroughly modernist. Albert's closer in spirit to free jazzer Roswell Rudd than Freddie Lonzo, and alto and tenor saxophonist Ray Moore has a scalding tone and ear for modern scales. Bassist Edwin Livingston dances around ex-New York drummer Dave Cappello, who's blossomed in the last decade, down by the levees. New Orleans does that to people. That's why folks keep coming back.
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