If asked whether he’s a “flute player” or a “flautist,” Eluard Burt is emphatic: “That’s like, ‘You live Uptown or you live in the Tremé?’ Uptown is very proper, Downtown we really don’t give a damn. That’s the way I approach the flute. I notice when I do hear other flute players, they’re so technically correct but they ain’t got no feelings.”
Feelings are everything to Burt, a New Orleans native who played R&B saxophone as a teenager with Chuck Willis in the 1950s, hung out with the original beatniks in Eisenhower-era San Francisco, mentored a whole generation of young players (including his own son, Bamboula 2000 percussionist Eric Burt, jazz drummer Shannon Powell, trumpeter James Andrews and Iris May Tango rapper/vocalist Yours Truly Chaddy), virtually invented the genre of jazz-poetry and finally, after many years, has released his first album, Gumbolia. On the disc, Burt covers George Gerhswin, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, contributes a couple of original flute instrumentals, and backs poetess Felice Guimont on two determinedly positive pieces, “Bright Spot” and “Each Other.” The supporting musicians include Eluard’s son, guitarist Harry Sterling, bassist Rodger Poché, percussionist Carlos Martinez and drummer Shannon Powell.
“I’m not concerned so much about being popular as I am about just being able to express my creativity,” Burt, the consummate Aquarian, explains during an interview at his Bywater home. “That’s what I’ve been doing since 1960 when I came back to New Orleans. I came back because the kids invaded North Beach—them damn beatniks—and the Panthers started closing in from over there in the jungles of Oakland and things weren’t, all of a sudden, as culturally flowing.
“A fungus just grew over all the good feelings that were coming out of the creative people there. Ella [Fitzgerald] was always in San Francisco, Milt Jackson was there. Johnny Mathis was going from joint to joint trying to get a job. All the writers were going to the Purple Onion on Thursday nights to listen to this comic called Lenny Bruce, who had no idea that he was influencing all these poets and writers. He didn’t really understand what he was releasing, because he was inspiring a lot of people. And the inspiration was to the spoken word.”
Raised in the St. Bernard Project before it was called by that name (Burt refers to the area as “Pilot Land”), Eluard Burt spent his summers swimming in Bayou St. John and avoiding the City Park police, who frowned upon black kids bathing in the raw: “Of course, we got caught a lot. I think I started doing poetry around the time I was 13 or 14. I discovered [Kahlil] Gibran and his work really felt good to me. I was always one of those who was writing—writing my thoughts as a child. Poetry was just getting to another form of expression—developing the flow, the rhythm. Being a natural artist and a natural musician.
“I was highly fascinated by the poetry involved in the early rock ‘n’ roll songs. If you sit down and read the lyrics, this was some amazing stuff these dudes were writing.
“I used to play tenor saxophone when I was 14, 15-years-old. I worked a lot with Chuck Willis when I was young. We did two or three recording sessions at Cosimo’s and one in Nashville. I used to hang out with the older musicians—Big Joe Turner, Freddie Domino—at the Dew Drop and the Robin Hood. I remember when there was a piano player with Guitar Slim who didn’t like rock ‘n’ roll or rhythm and blues. He used to always complain about having to play with this Guitar Slim fellow. We called him ‘Spider.’ When I leave to go in the military and come back to New Orleans, there’s somebody running around called Eddie Bo—the guy who said he didn’t like that rock ‘n’ roll stuff.
“I was in the Air Force, stationed in Alaska, with nothing to do and I looked in the music room and there was saxophones, clarinets and flutes. I huffed and I puffed for two or three months before I got a sound out of the flute. I left Alaska, went to Africa and came back through Tampa, Florida, my last year in the service. I used to play golf with a music teacher who graduated from Xavier University and lived in Tampa. I used to love golf. The music teacher told me, ‘I tell you what—I’ve got this flute you might like. Give me a bye bet on 17 for the flute.’ Okay, he lost the bye bet. Trying to be generous, now that I’ve got his money and his horn, I told him, ‘18, win or lose, forget it all—give me 12 lessons. If you win, I’ll give you back the flute.’ And he lost. That was 1957.
“After doing four years in the Air Force, I wound up in San Francisco. It was a boom, culturally, aesthetically—just wonderful. We’re talking about ’57, ’58, ’59. The word ‘beatnik’ came out of North Beach in correlation to the Russian sputnik. I think the Beats—the [Allen] Ginsberg group—had just arrived from New York. Bob Kaufman, a black New Orleans poet, coined the word, saying, ‘Here comes those damn beatniks!’ He was one of my good friends in North Beach at that time—Bob Kaufman and Jimmy Carter, who was also a poet from New Orleans “Jimmy Carter was the old man, the elder, who influenced Bob Kaufman and me. He refused to be published. He came out of UCLA in 1927, put his class ring in his ear and said that was because his education went in one ear and out the other. A very arrogant but sensible, meaningful person—a beautiful, beautiful soul. His mother was from the Seventh Ward and she called him Gabé Levert. He left here in 1917, 1918, and never came back. Nobody seems to know what happened to him.
“Bob Kaufman was another one like Jimmy. They weren’t really concerned with publishing. They were just concerned with being. I think this is what my attitude is about music.”
Being back in New Orleans after his sojourn in San Francisco, Eluard spent his Sundays on the lakefront, blowing the flute and jamming with drummers. Larry McKinley, the popular deejay, liked what he heard and invited Eluard and his troupe to perform live on WYLD.
The next step was public performances: “Around the corner from the Dew Drop was a pretty big restaurant called Vernon’s Steakhouse, just over from Hayes’ Chicken Shack. Vernon like the idea because our group was unusual—flute, congas and bass playing standard material—and decided to give us a chance and see what we could draw. The space was so large and so nice and since I have a more theatrical kind of mind, I couldn’t see all of that go to waste. Wouldn’t it be nice if you saw something that looked as good as the music sounded? Let’s be a little unusual, let’s recite some poetry with the music. I think my first group of dancers came from Cohen High School and the first piece I did was Omar Khayam’s Rubaiyat. I did the choreography and recited 35 of the verses. Then I discovered that my bass player was also a poet and he started reading—that was Maurice Martinez [the eminent Mardi Gras Indians scholar]. The rest is history. I haven’t changed since then.”
During the 1970s, Burt became a dedicated mentor to the young residents of Tremé, teaching African rhythms and dance: “All the throwaways in Tremé, I was trying to corral them all in St.Mark’s, against all the administrative rules and regulations. This is how I got to know people like Shannon Powell and James Andrews. If they grew up in Tremé, they know Mr. Burt. The dance group attracted the boys and I started using that as a tool to discipline the kids: ‘Okay, you want to come in here and watch the girls? You’ve got to play something. And when the rehearsal is over, if you follow her home and she gets home and calls me and says anything bad about you, I’m gonna put my foot in your ass—period.’ It worked out perfectly—having someone talk to these kids like they were human beings instead of things, not giving the kid credit for even having a mind.”
And how does the casual voyager get from Tremé and/or Pilot Land to the tasty, simmering province of Gumbolia? Allow Eluard Burt to lead the expedition: “In the beginning, Gumbolia was a piece of terminology I was using to identify my poetry shows, thinking in terms of making gumbo, which I like to do. When my son got a hold of it, it turned into a place to be. The tune that we’re calling ‘Gumbolia’ was originally titled ‘Down In The Nine.’ In reference to where is Gumbolia, it must be down in the Nine. I like that community, cultural connection. Of course, Tremé is going to get a little upset but we’re still going down in the Nine and get some Gumbolia. I pay close attention to what the younger people are saying and feeling. I think a lot of times if we listen, we can help our own creativity and help them understand their creativity. I always take a back seat and say, ‘Well, you know—whatcha wanna do?’ This time, I took the front seat. It’s all mine.”
