Music
Max Bien-Kahn: Flowers (Defend Vinyl)
Based on his previous indie releases I had Max Bien-Kahn pegged as a singer/writer who makes charmingly offhand pop in the same general orbit of Jonathan Richman and NRBQ (and a million miles from his regular band, Tuba Skinny). To a large extent that’s still true on his latest album, but the real highlights here are still pop but more poignant.
Tiago Guy: Paper Thin (Independent)
This warm breeze of an album marks the arrival of a promising songwriter to town. Tiago Guy came to New Orleans from Brazil in 2021, and the songs here include farewells to his old home and greetings to his new one.
A Tribute To The Queen: Producer Sonny Schneidau’s tribute promises to be special
Thanksgiving is traditionally a time for Tipitina’s to give thanks to its favorite local legends. The past six seasons (skipping one for covid) have seen tributes to Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Fats Domino and others. But this year’s tribute to Irma Thomas promises to be a little special. For one thing, it features a one-time convergence of many of New Orleans’ greatest voices, all of them belonging to women. For another, the honoree herself will be among the performers.
Review, 2024 NOLA Funk Fest: New Orleans Jazz Museum
To invoke the name of another popular festival, the NOLA Funk Fest was hardly strictly funk. True, there was plenty of uncut funk in the weekend lineup—but with the weekend’s headliners including the wildly eclectic Tank & the Bangas and the diva of bounce Big Freedia, it mostly honored funk as a cornerstone of the wider realm of New Orleans music. And with an audience including a fair share of out-of-town visitors, it also served as a mid-season Jazz Fest fix for the faithful.
Tab Benoit: I Hear Thunder (Whiskey Bayou Records)
The last thing you’d expect Tab Benoit to require is another guitar player, especially one with an equally high profile as a bandleader. But he teamed with Anders Osborne on his last album Medicine a full 13 years ago, and the two are reunited on this long-overdue follow-up (delayed largely so Benoit could get out of record-label limbo and launch his own Whiskey Bayou Records label).
The Junior League: Our Broadcast Day (Greenleaves Sound)
There’s a select group of pop songwriters (Tommy Keene and Jeff Tweedy come to mind) who can make you feel glad to be alive without writing a single happy song Joe Adragna joins that company with the latest Junior League album (on which he again does the lion’s share of the singing and playing). Lyrically it’s full of downcast thoughts—one of its catchiest tunes is about death—but it’s also full of soaring tunes that give an uplift at every turn.
Various Artists: We Are All Drifters: A Tribute to the Continental Drifters (Cool Dog Sound)
Looks like the Continental Drifters are officially legendary now. Though the band itself is currently on hiatus, they’re being honored with the trifecta of a compilation double album, a print biography, and this two-CD tribute album curated by biographer Sean Kelly and longtime friend and associate, Los Angeles musician David Jenkins.
Jim Stephens: Pick Your Potion: A Blues Journey (Independent)
Guitarist and songwriter Jim Stephens designs his albums as a curator or tour guide. By any standard you can name—musical style, lyrical mood, production, instrumentation—this album goes all over the place; it’s a blues album with elements of rock, R&B, jazz and hip-hop.
Zita: Alive (Independent)
For all the wiseasses who like to shout “Whippin’ Post” at live gigs, here’s a band that will actually play it. Zita closes their live LP with twelve minutes’ worth of that Allman Brothers Band chestnut—only half as long as the original Fillmore East version, and with a few notable change ups: They rework the groove (making it a close cousin to Hendrix’ “Manic Depression”), and instead if two-guitar interplay, they give it extended solos on guitar and trombone. It’s entirely true to the spirit of the Allmans’ original without sounding much like it.
Ingrid Lucia: The Big Time: A Memoir (Westview Publishing)
At one point in her memoir, Ingrid Lucia confesses that she’s been dissed in New Orleans for writing “novels” on social media. If you’ve followed her on Facebook—or even read her interviews in these pages—you know what they’re talking about: Her unfiltered posts regularly reveal exactly what’s been going on in her personal and creative life at any given time. That’s who she is as a writer and performer: She gives you all she’s got, take it or leave it.
