Minos the Saint
I loved your feature about one of my favorite Baton Rouge bands, Minos the Saint [May 2016]. John Wirt’s reporting of the band’s creative process was fascinating and the fact about how their keyboardist didn’t show the band his horn arrangements until they were debuted on stage was extremely interesting.
I also had the chance to write about the band for the Baton Rouge blog Jive Flamingo. My article took a different perspective as it focused on the band’s origins in Baton Rouge and how that created the musical gumbo that is Minos the Saint’s sound.
—James West, New Orleans, Louisiana
Euphonium
The following letter is in response to Jan Ramsey’s blog post “Anime Euphonium,” talking about a visit from Koitchiro Enomoto—the Editor in Chief of a Japanese music magazine, Band Life.
I love hearing stories like this about music lovers from around the world sharing their passion. It reminds me of how a Japanese jazz fan traveled all the way to New Orleans to buy a new trombone for a struggling musician in the excellent HBO series Treme.
The anime on the cover of Band Life is an incredible series called Sound! Euphonium. The graceful, lowkey drama and out of this world animation and art is truly amazing to behold. Not to mention how surprisingly progressive the story turns out.
—Branko Burcksen, San Francisco, California
Eagle Saloon
The following letter is in response to OffBeat’s news post “Eagle Saloon Initiative Announces First Phase of Historic Building’s Restoration.”
Seems a great idea to restore those music venues, good luck everyone; and it’s great we have Mr. McCusker and other media as watchdogs over the process. Luckily social media is here in these modern times, to blow the whistle when something’s fishy; for instance, will “preservation” of—say whiteplaster walls—be a priority, or are they going to “renovate” not restore? And there’s another thing, about local music clubs taking financial advantage of Louis Armstrong’s connection to New Orleans (which I hope, upon completion they don’t). I think it was Ken Burns who said the reason Satchmo rarely visited his birth City is because the local clubs would not allow his trombone player, the great Jack (“Big T”) Teagarden, to play with African-American musicians. Local lategreat sax man Albert Francis “Pud” Brown told me that story too, indirectly in the late ’80s, when I saw him returning from a Bourbon Street gig one night. A longtime friend of the Teagardens, Pud was so excited with a big smile of pride on his face, because—he told me—a club had finally allowed him to perform with the (all–African-American) house band. So, it seems, at least one of those structures should be something to honor Louis Armstrong, like an apology for the Jim Crow attitudes of his day; it can also serve as a reminder that vestiges still remain and—as are these monuments to jazz—a work in progress.
—Thomas Balzac, New Orleans, Louisiana
Not a Side Project
I just wanted to thank you for reviewing my band’s album. It means a lot to us that you did that. The review states the band is a side project to me. Rooftop Junkies is not a side project, I haven’t done any solo stuff for about 10 years.
—DJ Ragas, Rooftop Junkies, New Orleans, Louisiana
Corrections
Jennifer Odell’s Eat Street: The resurgence of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard as a prime food hub [June 2016] contained a few inaccuracies. Chef Crispin Pasia was misspelled as Pascia; the original Dryades Market was not called Dryades Street Market and it opened in 1849 not 1894. Primitivo opened several years after Casa Borrega not “shortly after” as mentioned in the feature. We regret the errors.
—Ed.
