Issue Articles
O. Perry Walker’s Marchers
The walls of the band director’s office at O. Perry Walker High School are plastered with newspaper clippings. One, from The Times-Picayune of February 12, 2010, features a photograph of […]
Best of the Beat Lifetime Achievement in Music Education Award: John Rankin
For a guy who can be seen playing regularly alongside jazz musicians like Jesse Boyd, Tom Fischer and Don Vappie, guitarist John Rankin has an unusual claim to fame. “I […]
Out-of-Town Brass Bands
Jazz funerals work a little differently in Minneapolis. Just ask the Jack Brass Band. “It wasn’t like a second line. We were actually inside the church, standing up in front […]
Zazou City, Liar’s Moon (Jumping Man Records)
It seems unconscionably trite to say that a band “brings a New Orleans flavor” to their chosen genre, but I’ll say it anyway. Bart Ramsey’s accordion and Chris Edmunds’ busy, […]
The New Orleans Moonshiners: The Many Moons of Frenchmen Street
You might say that the trajectory of banjoist Chris Edmunds’ musical career has been a bit backwards. In 2008, dismayed at a lack of steady work, he took the plunge […]
Various Artists, Mardi Gras Parade Music From New Orleans, Volume 2 (GHB Records)
Compilations of New Orleans Mardi Gras music have a tendency to adjust themselves to outside perceptions of the holiday rather than vice versa. Not so with GHB Records’ newest offering. […]
Tommy Sancton/Lars Edegran New Orleans Legacy Band, City of a Million Dreams (GHB Records)
Tommy Sancton’s notes to City of a Million Dreams include a photo taken during a performance at Preservation Hall in 1965. Sancton sits alongside his mentor and idol, clarinetist George […]
Tim Laughlin featuring Connie Jones, If Dreams Come True (Gentilly Records)
During the summer of 2010, clarinetist Tim Laughlin asked cornetist Connie Jones to imagine a “dream band”. The list included—among others—John Sheridan on piano, Ed Wise on bass, Danny Coots […]
Tom McDermott and Evan Christopher, Almost Native (Threadhead Records)
A grid of 12 images adorns the cover of Almost Native. It includes a po-boy, a pair of maracas, and the Arc de Triomphe. If that seems too subtle, the […]
New Orleans Moonshiners, Frenchmen St. Parade (Independent)
The Moonshiners have built a reputation as one of New Orleans’ most capable—and unpredictable—trad groups. The group’s third album witnesses a tempering of their more offbeat tendencies, but loses none […]
