Most New Orleans music lovers know her as Katrina Geenen, the smokey-voiced hostess for over 20 years of “Tudo Bem,” the Saturday afternoon Brazilian radio show broadcast on WWOZ. You’ve also probably read her periodic reviews of Brazilian sounds in OffBeat or perhaps viewed her hallucinatory tropical mandala drawings at local art galleries. Now, with the completion of her own album of Brazilian music—High & Low, it’s high time to reappraise Katrina as a serious recording artist. Or, as she’s been called in Brazil: “Katrina Genius. A blonde with brains.”

Although she once sang the songs of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan in San Diego bars 30 years ago, Katrina is better known to New Orleans bar patrons as a bartender. When December, 1998, turned into January, 1999, Katrina vacationed in Brazil, seeking out the country’s independent recording artists.

“The third or fourth day there, I met [singer/songwriter] Ryta de Cassia [formerly Peixoto] backstage at a concert and we liked each other right away. She invited me for lunch. They came and got me at my very cheap hotel. Ryta asked me what I was doing with my money and passport and return ticket: ‘You’re not leaving it there, are you?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not—I’m carrying everything with me on the street.’ And she said, ‘No, no, Katrina—why don’t you come to our house? We have this big house, we have a guest room. And we have all these friends who are independent musicians.’ So I ended up at their house in what they now call the Katrina Room.

“A couple of days after that, I met [songwriter] Mathilda Kóvak. Both Ryta and Mathilda said to me, separately, ‘You have a great speaking voice–you must be a good singer.’

“So one night at a party, we all got drunk and everyone was singing. It was my turn—Ryta said, ‘You have to sing now, Katrina.’ I went, ‘Oh Lord—what do I even remember the words to?’ So I sang an old blues. At a certain point, way later in the party, we were all snockered and Mathilda was under the table, kissing my feet, saying, ‘You’re the voice for my songs!’”

Once sobriety resumed, Kóvak stuck to her guns and insisted that Katrina record one of her English-language songs, several of which were composed in barrooms . Katrina chose “A Billion For Your Thoughts” and cut the song in 1999 at Carlos Fuchs’ Rio de Janeiro studio with Fuchs on the piano.

A year later, Katrina returned to Brazil and yet another party: “It was real late, everybody’s drunk again and Carlos puts on ‘A Billion For Your Thoughts.’ [Producer/composer] Paulo Baiano hears it and says, ‘You’re the voice—I have some songs for you!’ So Mathilda and Paulo huddled together for a minute and said, ‘Okay, Katrina, we’re going to make a CD.’ We recorded ten songs in three sessions the last two weeks I was in Brazil—I was running out of money and couldn’t stay any longer.”

Mathilda Kóvak, who has been referred to as the “tropical Dorothy Parker,” dubs Katrina’s music “Gothic Bossa Nova. A black and white bossa nova. A bossa nova with dark, black-humored lyrics and apocalyptic arrangements.” The musicians on High & Low include Scottish-Brazilian electric guitarist Lucinha Turnbull, Brazilian-Indian acoustic guitarist Dil Fonseca, Italian-Afro-Brazilian bassist Bruno Migliari and Baiano on piano and keyboards.

Sample the lyrics to “Small Tragedy,” written by Kóvak: “I don’t wanna suffer, I’d rather be a surfer.” The ballad “My Man Don’t Mind Man” explores topsy-turvy sexuality: “My man don’t mind that I don’t care for pearls, my man don’t mind when I look for other girls…” “Deconstructing Me” is a musical bow to French philosopher Jacques Derrida: “Don’t bother doing me wrong, I’m so busy deconstructing me.”

As for hearing Katrina Geenen’s album, listeners will have to be patient. Katrina’s Brazilian partners are attempting to land her a distribution deal. Because of a WWOZ rule that forbids its deejays from broadcasting their own music (although most of us can cite ’OZ deejays who certainly bend this mandate), Katrina can’t play her own Brazilian album on her own Brazilian radio show.

The next time you’re on the beach at Ipanema, admiring the tall, tan, young and lovelies in their dental floss thongs, you might be able to hear Katrina as you’re tuning into a Brazilian radio station, but don’t count on it. “Brazilian radio is pretty terrible,” Katrina confesses. “Most people I know, if they’re driving around in a car and they have a radio, they’re listening to classical stations. On the regular radio, every other song is American Top 40. As far as great Brazilian music 24 hours a day, it’s hard to find. The only Brazilians you hear are Gal Costa, Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil because they’re on the major labels.”

And if Katrina Geenen, Pennsylvania native, University of Texas graduate, Uptown denizen, somehow hits it big in the land of Carmen Miranda, what’s next on her agenda? “Tour Brazil! I’m dying to do that!”

Memorable Portraits

Long, long ago, in the late 1960s and early ’70s, whenever you waited in line at the Warehouse on Tchoupitoulas Street to see the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers (back when both Brothers were still breathing) and/or Canned Heat, you inevitably encountered young hippies selling copies of the Nola Express, the New Orleans underground newspaper published by Darlene Fife and her partner, poet Robert Head. New Orleans poet Dennis Formento and his Surregional Press have recently published Darlene Fife’s memoir of the period, Portraits From Memory: New Orleans In The Sixties, a volume that will provide edification and entertainment to all fans of New Orleans culture, whether or not they were actually alive during the ancient times when anti-war protestors paraded down St. Charles Avenue and Tulane students burned the ROTC Building and Kumi Maitreya (a local woman who believed she was the reincarnation of Buddha) and her followers, the Order of Maitreyans, strolled the French Quarter, chanting “OH EE AH” and distributing free LSD.

Among Darlene Fife’s curious recollections is a tirade against air conditioning: “Allen Ginsberg gave a talk in New Orleans in which he suggested, as something you can individually do to help the environment, turning off your air conditioner. Someone said you can’t live in New Orleans without an air conditioner. Ginsberg just laughed. We turned ours of that night and never turned it on again.” Of course, Fife and Head moved to the mountains of West Virginia shortly after taking their revolutionary stand against artificial cooling.

Booking the Jazz Fest

The deadline for applications to perform at the 33rd annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is November 1, 2001. Any musicians who wish to apply must send a full promo kit, including a recording of original material, bio and photo, to the following address: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 336 Camp Street, Suite 250, New Orleans, LA 70130, Attn: Music Production. Admittedly, the “original material” part is confusing. Many “rootsy” Louisiana musicians rarely play “original material,” especially traditional jazz musicians, brass band musicians, blues musicians, zydeco musicians and even the odd practitioner of hip-hop. Just “axe” Lil’ Romeo—his hit “My Baby” is “an adaptation” of an ancient Jackson Five song. At this stage in the development of popular music, the word “original” is all but meaningless.