HOPE WITHOUT DOPE

I just recently moved back to New Orleans. In a blackout from Chicago I drank my way down south. Not knowing why I came back. I picked up the OffBeat magazine, I sat down reading your article in Cooter Brown’s the other day. Miserable, depressed and tired, I read your interview with Ivan Neville. I am sober three days today; after reading that article it was what my eyes were reaching for. I have been struggling with sobriety for a while now. I just wanted to say thanks to you and Ivan for this awesome article. I wish you and Ivan all the luck; keep up the positive interviews. You allowed this reader to think there is hope without dope.

—Name withheld, New Orleans, LA

DEFACING OFFBEAT

Congrats to my friend Maurice Trosclair for winning the “Let’s deface Tim Laughlins’ OffBeat cover contest.” Great job, Mo. Lunch is on me. Give me a call when you’re not jogging in the Quarter.

Thanks to all who contributed, as well. I hope Jan [Ramsey] and the good folks at OffBeat aren’t upset with me at this contest. It’s nice to poke fun at one’s self on occasion. It was the next logical step in my self-promotion campaign. Clarinetfully yours.

—Tim Laughlin, New Orleans, LA

THE REAL ARISTOCRATS

How many of your reader know that on August 8, 1922, Louis Armstrong’s mother packed him a trout sandwich and waved him goodbye from New Orleans, as he set out to join the sublime King Oliver Creole Jazz Band?

I was just musing on it from the southern hills of Australia, and balancing the occasional despair I feel I at the treatment of American blacks by the likes of the ugly Edgar Ray Killen.

It may interest you to know that there are fellow travelers on the planet who are “white” and who believe that Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, Sidney Bechet, Erroll Garner, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Robert Johnson (need I go on?) who are the real aristocrats of this earth?

I think Louis Armstrong is as important as Aristotle, da Vinci, Shakespeare, Picasso—in fact I can think of no other genius who walked through this life in the way he did. What a privilege to hear his Hot Fives and Sevens, the Creole Jazz Band, Louis with Fletcher Henderson and Bessie Smith!

I’d love to visit New Orleans one day and walk the streets where Louis delivered coal, while working for the Karnofsky, and thinking about this beautiful boy playing cornet after hearing the likes of Oliver, Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard.
I’m a 57-year-old journalist who also has a passion for any good music (from the Beatles to Dylan, Gillian Welch to Led Zeppelin) and a special interest in 18th-century English literature, the films of Woody Allen, and American writers as diverse as Steinbeck, E.B. White and Hunter S. Thompson (some more aristocrats!).

If you share these passions but your politics are of the right (and you’re religious), there’s not much point.

Cheers from Downunder!

—Denis Le Neuf, Victoria, Australia

NO DECENT MUSIC IN MONTANA

In your May 2005 issue you had an article about the Michael Murphy documentary film Make It Funky. I was lucky enough to attend the filming of this documentary [concert at the Saenger Theater] during Jazz Fest 2004 and would love to know where I could get a tape or DVD of the performance. It was one of the highlights of Jazz Fest for me.

I love the magazine, but it makes me sick to read it, since we have virtually no decent live music in Billings, which is the nearest city of any size. I hope to make it back to New Orleans and Jazz Fest soon.

—Jaime E. Stevens, Columbus, MT

The New York and Los Angeles premieres of Michael Murphy’s film Make It Funky will be on September 9, 2005. A DVD will be released at the end of September.—Ed.

PROPS FOR LENNY

I enjoyed reading Bunny Matthews’ fine article on Ivan Neville. After hearing Ivan at the Big Easy awards I went and bought both his latest CD and the Neville Brothers newest CD because of Cyril’s ranting about what a good job Ivan did as producer. Ivan was very modest and said that it wasn’t him but a group effort. I must agree with Cyril. This is the best Neville Brothers CD ever. I also think Ivan made the difference. His unique vision of what the Nevilles are all about and his studio chops and talent brought out what I think is finally a studio CD that taps into the Nevilles and makes them sound as good as they sound live. The mixing is also really fine. I think it’s a great CD. It’s a proud representation of New Orleans’ best sounding as good as anything in the country.

With that said I would like to comment on Lenny McDaniel. The review of Lenny’s CD in the same article was nice. I would hope that in some future issue Mr. Matthews or one of your other fine writers would give Lenny his cover story. Lenny has had an amazing career. As a local in New Orleans in the ’60s as a child star, for 20 years in Los Angeles as a top songwriter and session musician playing with the likes of Stephen Stills and many other top national and international recording stars, and since his return to New Orleans ten years ago releasing a staggering seven CDs of his own original music. He is playing most of the instruments and his incredible voice is of course one of a kind which is represented by him being nominated year after year for best male vocalist in the OffBeat [Best Of The Beat] Awards.

Ivan is great and I’ve been a fan of his since the Allstar days but it would be wonderful to see Lenny get his props too. Some other people who come to mind that seem to be missing from cover stories are Juanita Brooks and the Brooks family—Mark and Detroit, George French, and Gary Brown.

Thanks for all your fine work and everything that you and OffBeat do to make our lives as musicians in New Orleans better.

—John Autin, Rabadash Records, New Orleans, LA

Gary Brown has been on the cover of OffBeat. Our November 2002 “Bourbon Street” issue featured Gary Brown, Dwayne Dopsie, Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen and Bryan Lee.—Ed.

AUSTRALIA LOVES NEW ORLEANS

Hi, I subscribe online to your magazine. My name is Mark DiMarzio. I am a guitar/piano player from Melbourne, Australia. I really love New Orleans music/culture. I came to New Orleans on vacation in 1994 and the music/food culture was fantastic and left a deep impression with me.

Keep up the good work. I am a real fan and love reading about all the New Orleans musicians and records.

—Mark DiMarzio, Melbourne, Australia

HOWLING

Went to Jazz Fest 2005 and howled at the moon! Thanks to OffBeat I knew where to go, what to see and who had great food. Please put me on your list of readers and new subscribers.

—Lou McDonald, Blasdell, NY

UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES

Just read your [Jan Ramsey] editorial and I want you to know how happy I was to hear someone else propound on the necessity for a really well put-together music tour. We at USA Hosts are always striving to put together new and exciting tours for our association and incentive travel groups. A good music tour is lacking in the public sector. I have been working with Barry Martyn to establish a criteria for such a tour for our company. He is a good historian as well as a player. I know there are others out there who have knowledge in other genre of music and it would be such a plus to have the availability of such tours from zydeco/Cajun to traditional and contemporary jazz and blues. We have wonderful sites that can be visited, such as Buddy Bolden’s house and Fats Domino’s house; these could be part of a bus tour with a good, knowledgeable guide aboard giving commentary, as places of interest are passed. We have the Old U.S. Mint exhibit as well as the Presbytere that can be included as stops and what about incorporating a recording studio and a performance at one of the many music venues? There are unlimited possibilities and the music community, the city and private companies like mine and publications like yours should all come together and make this type of project happen for the betterment of the city, the music community and the tourists who visit here because New Orleans has the “best” live music scene in the country.

—Linda Hall, USA Hosts, New Orleans, LA

Gray Line offers an “Off The Beaten Path” tour that exposes tourists to “Louis Armstrong’s childhood neighborhood,” Armstrong Park, Congo Square and “the remnants of Storyville.” Nancy Covey’s Festival Tours International has been offering music-oriented tours of Louisiana for over 20 years. —Ed.