Etta James and Sonny Landreth on the same day … I’m in heaven.  And thanks to Mid City Stevie and his legendary First Sunday of Jazz Fest Mystery Street Crawfish Boil, so is my tummy. Now for all you folks who wonder why all the fuss about these tiny little lobsterettes, below is a pictorial of the process of boilin da bugs.

Number One:  Unwrap a big bag of the little lovelies, throw them in a pot of cold water with some salt and keep them from escaping.

Number Two:  Add spices, stir and boil              

Number Three:  Serve and Devour

  Number Four: Relax

And where else but New Orleans could you be eating crawfish with your friends and wave to Lawrence Fishburne walking by or have Alan Touissant honk his horn at you as he leaves the Fest?   Well nowhere really. So thanks Stevie and see all y’all next weekend.

Day 2 of the Fest was a classic example of the diversity of American music and the amazing sampler plate of that music that JazzFest has become.  In one day I listened to iconic Nawlins “girl group” The Dixie Cups, classic New Orleans funk from Big Sam’s Funky Nation and Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk,  The Rebirth Brass Band with Kermit Ruffins sitting in, roadhouse blues from Lil Buck Sinegal, local rapper 5th Ward Weebie, delta slide powerhouse from John Mooney, classic jazz impressions from the NOCCA Jazz Ensemble  ( New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, or NOCCA, is a professional arts training center for secondary school-age children: this was the most extraordinary collection of talent in one place I have ever seen: never mind that they are all under 17) and James Taylor, with Kermit Ruffins sitting in  ..  yet another display of the great musical gumbo that exists here. 

Special shoutout to Leah Chase in the Jazz Tent.  Leah is the daughter of famous New Orleans restauranteurs Dooky Chase, Jr. , who once led a big band, and his wife and her maternal namesake. Leah Chase, who survives Dooky and is one of the best known chef’s in New Orleans, now runs  the landmark restaruaunt which bears Dookys name.  Leah the Singer (as she is called in NO to distinguish her from her moms) has the voice of a young Ella, can sing love ballads and big band swing  songs equally well and is the type of performer you’d expect to see on tour with Frank Sinatra or Mel Torme ….. oh right …. well you CAN see her in NOLA.

Let me just say this  …  while performing next door in the blues tent, Lil Buck Sinegal was in the middle of a blistering blues guitar solo when a piercing, prolonged vocal high note from the adjoining jazz tent could be heard OVER his band.  Buck smiled, turned to his band and, shaking his head and smiling,  mouthed one silent word …  “Leah”.

And then came Erykah Badu.  I was totally enthralled by this womans music …. art …performance ….whatever.  Calling it singing is like saying Einstein did math or Picasso painted.  Think a 50’s beat poety reading with Ferlinghetti meets Coltrane.  Tina Turner and Gil Scott-Heron.  Bob Dylan and Nina Simone.   One song was a rap on valium, another a funky dance beat with synthesizers and sound boards. One an Afro-Madonna type vogue and another a straight no chaser Monk jazz riff.  All with Erykah singing, talking, whispering, growling, screaming sometimes even pantomiming.

It was funky, soulful, jazzy, hip, cool, fresh, with it, now  ……  indescribable, one of a kind. As I was leaving the set I saw a friend who asked me how it was and I stopped, struggling for words and said ……it was the trippiest I thing I ever saw without acid.  And it was.

It’s JazzFest time in New Orleans and if you’ve never been to the Fest, well, as my buddy Eric Barefield of the Looziana Bar (not to be confused with Liuzzas At The Track Bar right next to the fairgrounds where the Fest is held) says, “we’ll that’s just a shame.”

40 years of music, food and friendship. Everyone from Bonnie Raitt to the Drive By Truckers,  the Neville Brothers to Tony Bennett.  (Yes THAT Tony Bennett! )  James Taylor to Erykah Badu, personal favorite of my son Seamus. Zydeco and blues and gospel and jazz and  well…you get the point. 

My personal favorite on the first day? Slide guitar blues man extroadinairre Roy Rogers with his Delta Rhtym Kings joined by piano diva Marica Ball …. the crowd went crazy when they jammed on the Willie Dixon classic “I’m Built for Comfort and Not for Speed”.

After the fest our neighborhood turns into one big block party and that’s really what our city is all about. Neil down the block did his annual slow cook bbq over pecan wood.  Allegheny Joe taking pics and the Hebrew Hammer passing out stogies .. thanks guys!  Jambalaya, crawfish and Connie across the street belting out tunes on her stereo …and taking requests! 

If you ever make just one trip to New Orleans in your life …and you really should …  make it to the Fest

I returned home last week from taking care of my dad following his stroke and found  that Johnny Donnels had passed .  Apparently he had been home one evening tossing a ball to his neighbor’s dogs when he tripped, fell and broke his hip.  Although surgery to repair the broken bone was successful he suffered a fatal heart attack while recovering in the hospital.  According to one account, he was with his great friend Matt Clark and his wife of 48 years, Joan, when he turned to Joan and said  “we’ve had a wonderful day haven’t we?”, then fell asleep for the last time.  

It’s a great story and one that Johnny would love telling, even it isn’t accurate, because Johhny loved telling stories.  “He was an Irish storyteller,” said Joan.

Johhny was a fixture in the French Quarter for over 50 years, with a gallery in the building where Pat O’Briens oepned (he loved pointing out the corner where the after hours roullete wheel stood) and Tenessee Williams wrote a little play called “The Card Game”. You might know it better as “A Streetcar Named Desire”.  His obituary in the Times Picayune called him a ” bon vivant renowned for his photos of the French Quarter and its colorful characters”.  He was all that and more.

 He loved sitting in his studio with the doors open and talking to everyone who came by. He especially liked telling them bad puns. I first encountered him that way 10 or 12 years ago and every time I came by he invited me to sit down and talked to me like a long lost brother.  Well son actually.  He loved it when I parked my Harley on the sidewalk in fornt of the shop, anything that was visually out of the ordianry pleased him immensely. And he seemed to know every artist who had ever been in the French Quarter. Sitting with him the phone would ring and it might be Kinky Friedman or Harry Anderson or Jerry Jeff Walker but he talked to them the same way he talked to stangers from Idaho or Vermont.

I guess he reminded me most of Will Rogers because he truly never seemed to meet a person he didn’t like.  He was the kindest man I knew and a great friend to everyone who came across his path.  I’m happy to say that mine did and I will miss him dearly.

Well today may be St . Patricks Day but that didn’t stop anyone in New Orleans from having a parade (or 5) this past weekend.  Mollys At the Market  had their traditional carriage parade on Friday night  and a good time was had by one and all, including some old friends we saw in the crowd.     

This parade was started years ago by pub owner Jim Monaghan and his son, the current owner and also named Jim, continues the tradition.  Mollys is also a stop on the Irish Channel St. Patricks Day Parade Rehearsal route.  (don’t ask)

After the parade the party continues in the street in front of Mollys and goes on well into the night. 

 The Irish Channel St. Patricks Day Club held it ’s parade on Saturday. The crowd their tends to be young and , uh, enthusiastic.   The big  throw in this parade is a cabbage …  which often leads to a problem or two.

     Saturday night also saw the traditional St. Joseph Days Parade   through the French Quarter hosted by The Italian American Marching Club.  Sunday held several more parades in the suburbs although rainy weather forced the traditional Super Sunday meeting of the Mardi Gras Indians until Sunday the 22nd.

And tonight is the Downtown Irish Club marching parade which is always held on St. Patricks Day. This group begins in the Bywater section of NEw Orleans and proceeds through the French Quarter, throwing beads and trading carnations for kisses.

I mean seriously   ….. would YOU kiss these guys?

Mardi Gras is all about walking around and costuming for the locals  ….  Royal Street, Chartres Street, the Marigny, everywhere but Bourbon Street.  Our stops to see good friends  this year included Pere Antoines Restaraunt at Royal and St Ann, Crescent City Cigars at Orleans behind the Cathedral, the McRaneys house on Royal St. for the Society of St. Ann walking parade, Mollys on Decatur, Road Kill on Decatur (whose owner John Dunn is always so gracious about letting Gayle use his Harley when she is in town …thanks John!!)  and of course Frenchmen Street.   Here’s what it looked like, with a few photos below and more on the right. 

Laborers in New Orleans in the late 19th Century often belonged to Benevolent Societies which were the first forms of insurance in the Black community.  For a small amount of dues, members received financial help when sick or financial aid when burying deceased members. During the same era, the city was divided into wards, and each ward had its own group or “Club.” Early in 1909, a group of laborers organized a club named “The Tramps,” which became a benevolent society called the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club in 1909. This year is, then, the 100th Anniversary of Zulu.

100 Years of Zulu

 

Flambeux

In Greek mythology, Endymion was a young man so handsome that Selene, the goddess of the moon, fell in love with him and asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth in so he would never leave her.  In typical Greek ironic tradition, Zeus granted her wish by putting Endymion into an eternal sleep: never dead, but never awake.

In New Orleans, the Krewe of Endymion is one of the “new” parade organizations which started in the 60’s and led a resurgence of interest in both the city of New Orleans and Mardi Gras.  Well known for having movie stars and rock musicians as their Grand Marshall (this years honoree was Kid Rock, who has a long relationship with the city through his friendship with Sidney Torres) , Endymion is also known as  the “people’s parade”. 

Nice Colors

Gettin Ready

People also came to Endymion’s parade to catch throws.  As the most generous club in Carnival, krewe memberslived up to their motto, “Throw until it hurts.” Literally, millions of beads, cups, doubloons and trinkets were tossed-then as now, no one goes home from an Endymion parade empty-handed.

Luck O' The Irish

 So thanks to Stevie, Mid City Tommy, Mikey Mike, The Hebrew Hammer and all the rest of the Murat Street Krewe for the lagniappe.  And a special thanks to Gayle for the photos, the beads and especially the spirit … she takes New Orleans with her wherever she goes!

This weekend saw parade after parade as a carnival season that before Katrina extended from 12th Night to Fat Tuesday is now compressed into a 10 day extravaganza of floats, flambeauxs, throws, kids  and adults who act like kids. Choctaw, Sparta, King Arthur, Cleopatra, Dionysius. New Orleans, Metarie and Slidell, West Bank and North Shore. All over greater New Orleans one krewe after another reminds us all that it’s far far better to give than receive. 

(photos courtesy of New Orleans Time Picayune)

Throws that is.  Medallions, cups, plush toys, candy, small toys and beads. Blinking beads, glass beads, ceramic beads, big beads, tangled beads, bags of beads .Oops. Sorry lady … didn’t mean to hit your toddler in the face with that big ole bag of beads. (you know how you can tell a nawlins native?  Bag burns on the face)

And for one group, the throw in biggest demand was … dog biscuits?  That’s right.  Sunday afternoon in the French Quarter the Mystic Krewe of Barkus  rolled with the 2009 theme of  The Retturn of The Bark Knight.  I think the pictures pretty much say it all.  

And for those of you unlucky enough to live someplace other than southern Louisiana you can check out the parades this weekend at the Times Picayune Parade Cam.  Bon temps roulez.

Ready for Take Off

This is NOT a joke. This picture was  on the front page  of The Times Picayune  on Jan 17. The accompanying article noted the pictured wildlife control officer fires blanks to clear birds out of critical airspace around Louis Armstrong International Airport.  “It’s enough to scare anybody,” he said of the bone-rattling boom.

Yes …. certainly anyone who happens to be boarding one of the 260 commercial jets that land and take off each day at MSY and looks out to see a man with a shotgun on the tarmac.

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