BIRTHDAY

It was refreshing to read a researched article on 100-year-old Lionel Ferbos. I liked it so much I reprinted 200 copies and distributed them for his Palm Court birthday party. He deserves all this and more. Sorry he wasn’t on your July cover.

—Sue Hall, New Orleans, LA

FRENCHMEN VS. BOURBON

As a professional musician who works both on Frenchmen Street as well as Bourbon Street, I must respond to the ongoing subject of Frenchmen versus Bourbon.

Bourbon Street generally guarantees a pay scale by the set ranging from $15 to $30 for each 45 to 60 minute performance. Frenchmen Street is generally based on 20 percent of the bar. If you don’t have a good turnout, you don’t make much money as opposed to Bourbon Street, which guarantees payment.

This results in a tip jar economy, which reduces musicians to literally begging. This is unfair to both the patrons and musicians. No one wants to be pressured into a gratuity nor do the musicians want to force them into reaching for their wallet. Can you imagine a scenario where Louis Armstrong would have to pass a tip bucket to an audience just to make ends meet?

Most of these venues have no cover charge, so you are getting the music for free. We ask for your understanding of our situation; after all it is you, the patron, who we want to make happy.

—David Hyde, Hammond, LA

Most of the public who frequent the clubs in the Frenchmen Street area do not realize that tips are the musician’s source of income. The clubs do not pay us. On a slow night, you might go home with nothing. Try working a job without knowing what you’ll make at the end of the day. Because of these conditions, we have to play what we think the audience will respond to with their tips. If your audience is unfamiliar with the material, they may not break out that dollar bill. We do want to play new stuff, but we try to play what we feel the public wants to hear. Just like everyone else, “When the Saints…” keeps the rent paid.

There was a time when Bourbon Street was not a quagmire of T-shirt shops and cheap beer. This would be a shame if this happened on Frenchmen Street. When you sit in a club without a cover charge, it would not hurt to give the band a dollar. By doing this, you enable us to entertain you without trying to hustle you. We do the boring standards to get cab fare home.

—Shawn O’Neal, LaPlace, LA

WYNTON AND SOFTS

I really enjoyed reading Brian Boyles’ recounting of the meeting on stage in 1986 between Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis. I remember reading about it when it went down. Regardless of whose version of events you choose to believe, it was a sad occasion, for you would have been hard-pressed to find a more enthusiastic Miles missionary than Wynton during the latter part of the 1970s when Miles had retreated from public eye. I had the good fortune to share a few classes with Wynton during our freshmen year in high school, and he literally could not say enough about Miles to anyone who would listen, trying repeatedly to turn us all on to what Miles had been doing pre-Bitches Brew.

I was a fan of Weather Report at the time, which Wynton playfully dismissed, claiming that Miles’ great 1960s quintet was “the original Weather Report.” Miles was undoubtedly a hero to him. Any of us who knew anything about music knew right then and there that Wynton was headed for greatness. He repeatedly called attention to other musicians in the band as being more talented than he, but few if any of them possessed the practice ethic that he did, and he captured many “superior” ratings at LMEA competitions statewide. Nevertheless, can you imagine a high school marching band with Wynton Marsalis playing lead trumpet? I don’t know if I knew what the word “surreal” meant at that age, but it was surreal alright.

In Randy Savoie’s recounting of Jimi Hendrix’ appearance at City Park Stadium on August 1, 1968, he refers to support act the Soft Machine as a “British psychedelic garage band” and, at this point in their career prior to the recording of their first proper LP, they were most definitely psychedelic, but I’ve never heard any garage band sound like the Softs at any point in their history. Steve Staples’ categorizations of organist Mike Ratledge, drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt and guitarist/vocalist Kevin Ayers as “incredible,” “great” and “fantastic,” respectively, are certainly in keeping with the high esteem in which many hold this quintessential combo. Largely forgotten in recent years, especially in the U.S., their first three LPs and the numerous period concert bootlegs available nowadays are phenomenal documents of a band evolving over less than 18 months from psychedelia to the primordial jazz-rock that would come to be later known as “fusion” by way of a similarly uncharted trajectory. Sometimes I just wish I had been born about 10 years earlier than I was. It kills me to think that the Softs and Hendrix were blasting away less than two miles from my home on that hot Thursday night 43 years ago while I was likely bathing and being tucked in. But I got to hang with Wynton, so I guess it’s okay.

—Mike Champagne, New Orleans, LA

STOCKHOLM FESTIVAL

First of all, thanks for a great magazine. You have helped me so much in learning about the music and culture of New Orleans.

On Friday we start the first ever New Orleans Festival in Sweden at my club in Stockholm [Akkurat Bar & Restaurant]. I have beers coming in from both Abita and NOLA Brewing Company. To my knowledge, it’s the first time these beers have been shipped on draught outside the United States.

We will fill the empty barrels with Swedish beer and ship them back to Polly at the Avenue Pub on Saint Charles Avenue, who is doing a wonderful job for the beer culture. Hopefully we can have a continuous exchange program working in the future.

We also got loads of food like po-boys and of course crawfish, which are in season in Sweden right now. Yes we eat them here too.

—Stene Isacsson, Stockholm, Sweden

NEXT JUNE

I just read the latest OffBeat‘s Weekly Beat Newsletter email. Dang…and here I am stuck “Killing Bad Guys” in Afghanistan ’til next June. I’m sure New Orleans will be open next June too?

—Jesse Vielma, Jr., U.S. Army Base, Afghanistan

TELL IT LIKE IT IS

In the piece on Jimi Hendrix by Randy Savoie, in the August issue, he states that…”Joe Banashak, who produced Aaron Neville’s ‘Tell It Like It Is’ in 1967…”! “Tell It Like It Is” was written, arranged and produced by the late George Davis in 1966! I invite you to correct this in print and give him his proper credit! Let’s keep the history of New Orleans music accurate and preserve the integrity of the culture; so many other mis-statements are already contaminating the waters.

—George C. Green, Lawrenceville, GA

Thanks for the correction.—ED.