April, undeniably New Orleans’ biggest musical month, comes in like a (jazz) lion and goes out like a (jazz) lion.
It gets its colorful start at the Contemporary Arts Center with trumpeter Michael Ray and neon artist Jerry Therio’s “A Tribute To the Haitian Vibration,” a “neon sound performance,” on April 2 and 3. (The month ends, of course, with the Jazz Festival.)
Ray, not your ordinary trumpeter, has been heavily (and heavenly?) influenced by years spent in Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Arkestra—where “Space Is the Place” and silver and gold lame robes and shining helmets are the band “uniform.” Like a moon reflecting the sun, Ray’s performances around town—at the CAC, Charlie B’s, and the Museum of the Americas—are more than a music show or jazz set. Costumes, dancing and free blowing with themes ranging from a tribute to Miles Davis, a Halloween voodoo night and this, his second tribute to Haitian influences, mark Ray’s performances, which are mood-lit by the pulsating neon forms created by Therio. Choreographer/dancer Ausettua Jackson will also perform for the CAC show.
Just got word that the second annual Uptown Street Festival will be held Saturday, April 3 at Lawrence Square on Napoleon and Magazine from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Second-line reggae is at the heart of this festival with headliner Cyril Neville and the Uptown Allstars and its satellite Endangered Species groups. Also tied in with the Endangered Species organization is one of this city’s hottest brass bands, the Soul Rebels. These guys are hip, as in hip-hop, with some strong musicians in that number and solid roots experience gained when they were known as the Olympia Junior…Check it.
Next up is the French Quarter Festival, April 16-18, which presents many styles of music, but traditional jazz, as it should be, reigns as king. Trad jazz comes out from the barrooms of Bourbon and onto the street, accessible to young and old, rich and poor alike. (Bring the kids.) There will also be traditional jazz in Jackson Square and also out at the Toulouse Street wharf.
For those still discovering or rediscovering traditional jazz, hearing this many groups back-to-back can be helpful in pinpointing one’s preferences—is it the clarinet solo that warms the heart, or the ensemble work that heats the feet? It helps in ascertaining who’s who and what’s what for quality decision-making for future music-entertainment activities. This musical information can also be helpful when making those crucial and expensive CD buying decisions.
Regulars at the French Quarter Festival that are “don’t miss” on my list include Danny Barker & His Jazzhounds, trumpeter Wallace Davenport’s band, and Michael White & the Liberty Jazz Band. On the more contemporary front, saxophonist Al Belleto usually makes one of his rare appearances as leader for this occasion. And for the big band sounds from the books of the Dorsey Brothers and Duke Ellington, Chuck Easterling and his orchestra set up on the stairs of the Wildlife & Fisheries Building, with fox-trotting, two-stepping, and lindy-hopping on the street below. Easterling will also headline at Snug Harbor on April 15, this time with a combo.
Speaking of Snug, there’s a name on this month’s calendar which has never been there before, and that name is Latteta (Theresa), performing April 1. The flautist/singer/songwriter, who is from Washington D.C. and now resides in New Orleans, has a background in jazz and classical music and also embraces a number of other genres, including African, Caribbean, pop, Latin and rock. For further insight you’ll have to be there…
Here’s a stop that might not ordinarily pop into the brain but could be just the thing one evening. On Friday and Saturday nights at the Windsor Court, pianist Mike Pellera brings in bassist Bill Huntington and drummer Hurley Blanchard, creating an excellent contemporary jazz trio. You don’t have to eat—just stop in for a drink from 7 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Pellera, who will be heard on guitarist Steve Masakowski’s upcoming Blue Note album, can be caught solo at the Windsor Court Tuesday through Thursday from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Friday and Saturday nights also finds Willie Metcalf at the piano at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon and St. Philip. (A great place to take visitors.) Metcalf is joined by vocalist Samirah Evans for sets of jazz classics from the likes of Billie Holiday, Cole Porter, Fats Waller…
On the Record…New Orleans native trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who scored Spike Lee’s film X, has developed the themes from that work and released The Malcolm X Jazz Suite (Columbia). There’s a moodiness that moves around the pieces, setting a tone and a time frame from “Blues for Malcolm” to the burning “Malcolm Makes Hajj.” Interestingly, Blanchard uses the same bassist and drummer—Tarus Mateen and Troy Davis—as heard on fellow New Orleanian Marlon Jordan’s latest, The Undaunted.
It might be that only a band as wide-open as the Dirty Dozen Brass Band would endeavor to record an album dedicated to pianist/composer Jelly Roll Morton without (except on one cut) a piano. But that’s just what these we’ll-do-it-like-we-wanna group of exceptionally talented and totally New Orleans musicians did on their new release Jelly (The Dirty Dozen Brass Band Plays Jelly Roll Morton).
Historian/musician Danny Barker (he not only knows it—he lived it) takes us into the mindset of the great Jelly Roll when he opens the album by quoting the legendary artist: “Jelly Roll said, ‘I created jazz and there’s no jazz but Jelly Roll’s jazz…'” The band picks it up on Jelly’s “Georgia Swing,” arranged by another New Orleanian, Wardell Quezerque. (Lots of local fingers are throughout the disc. Eddie Bo plays that aforementioned tune with piano, “Mr. Ray Jay/Dead Man Blues,” George French joins the Dozen on “Milenburg Joys” and Big Chief Smiley Ricks and Kenyatta Simon add percussion on “Jungle Blues.”) Jelly’s material sounds natural in the hands and horns of the Dirty Dozen—it has found yet another home.
In Print…A compelling quote was written in a Village Voice article by noted jazz critic Gary Giddins. The topic was the “extraordinary response” to tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s (now-Grammy-winning) album Lush Life. Beyond the album’s “high musical achievement,” Giddins chalks up the reaction to a void in the recorded tenor saxophone field, writing: “…Sonny Rollins persistently fails to record on a level commensurate with his genius; Wayne Shorter circles the lost isle of Atlantis; Branford Marsalis, who probably couldn’t have claimed the mantle yet anyway, stopped trying; and David Murray operates mostly in the cold of culthood.”
This line of thinking sure made me put finger to temple and say, “Hmmm…”
