April 2015
BackTalk
- Backtalk: Allen Toussaint
The last time pianist, vocalist, composer and producer Allen Toussaint performed at the French Quarter Festival was in 1998. The legendary…
Bookmark
- Barbara Barnes Sims, The Next Elvis: Searching for Stardom at Sun Records (LSU Press)
The music business is a continual hustle. Label owners must always be looking for the next charting artist and next hit…
Cover Story
- Irvin Mayfield’s Expanding world
Past a two-story wall of windows, up a wide set of wooden stairs, and set back from the concert stage at…
Features
- Fest Focus: Trombonist Charlie Halloran Gets Around
Trombone player Charlie Halloran will appear at this year’s French Quarter Fest on nine separate occasions. Given that each set is… - French Quarter Fest 2015 A to Z
French Quarter Fest 2015 will feature over 1,400 local artists on 23 stages spread throughout the Quarter. You are definitely going… - Fest Focus: The Honorable South
Thursday, April 9, House of Blues, 4:30p Saturday, April 11, Tropical Isle Stage, 12:30p As the Honorable South works through a… - Fest Focus: Guitar Slim, Jr.
Saturday, April 11, WWL Stage, 2p Before making his French Quarter Fest debut this year, Jazz Fest veteran and New Orleans… - Fest Focus: Lagniappe Brass Band
Saturday, April 11, Brass Band Stage, 4p People in New Orleans love to dance,” says Lagniappe Brass Band drummer Joshua “Jams”… - Fest Focus: The Dog Hill Stompers
Friday, April 10, Chevron Stage, 2p Fourteen years after his Earthly departure, the legacy of Boozoo Chavis lives on in the… - The Sweetness of Alexandra Scott
It would be perfectly fine with Alexandra Scott if she never experiences another year like the one that preceded her last… - Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill is Back on Track
Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill, 29, performed at his first French Quarter Fest as a member of the Trombone Shorty Brass Band… - John Rankin's Journey
"I have three jobs,” John Rankin says with a smile as he sits in his home off Bayou St. John surrounded… - The NOLA Jitterbugs Share the History of Dance
Nothing defines the joie-de-vivre of New Orleans so much as traditional jazz music, and nothing gives life to jazz like swing…
Fresh
- Michelle Malone is Stronger Than You Think
The title of Michelle Malone’s 16th CD, Stronger Than You Think, perfectly describes both Malone and her music. Malone grew up… - The New Orleans International Music Colloquium Shines a New Light
The New Orleans International Music Colloquium (NOIMC)—an annual series of informal panels, interviews, and presentations on the history of New Orleans… - My Music: Marc Stone
When I recruit players for recording, I always try and let my ear guide me. Sure, it looks nice to have… - Soundcheck: Five Questions with Lisa Stafford
Lisa Stafford has been on staff of The Festival International de Louisiane for the past 18 years, and she logged five… - Top 10 French Quarter Songs
In honor of French Quarter Fest, this month’s playlist celebrates the French Quarter. Draw your own conclusions about why the classic-rock…
In The Spirit
- In the Spirit: Julia McElroy of Grand Isle
"I’ve only lived in New Orleans for a year. I love it here. I had never even heard of St. Germain…
Letters
- April 2015 Letters to OffBeat Magazine
MUSIC MUSEUM Just want you [Jan Ramsey] to know your article is spot on! [Mojo Mouth: Are we missing a great…
Mojo Mouth
- Festival Season in New Orleans
How many reading this will experience their very first French Quarter Festival this year? Just in the last week or so,…
Obituaries
- Obituary: Alfred "Bucket" Carter
"It’s my life and I love it,” Alfred “Bucket” Carter once proclaimed of being a member of and second lining with…
OffBeat Eats
- Dining Out: Doris Metropolitan
The transformation of the corner of Chartres Street and Wilkinson Street over the last three years is a miniature display of…
Dining Out
- Dining Out: Doris Metropolitan
The transformation of the corner of Chartres Street and Wilkinson Street over the last three years is a miniature display of…
The Spot
- The Spot: Josh Paxton at Elizabeth's
Why Elizabeth's? I realize this is heresy for someone in New Orleans, but six days out of the week I eat…
Reviews
- Papa Mali, Music Is Love (429 Records)
Remember the Ted Nugent live album where he voices the immortal sentiment, “Anyone who wants to get mellow can turn around… - James Singleton, Shiner (Independent)
Bass is the sinew of the jazz band. Mistress of the pulse, muted partner of the melodic lead, architect of harmony… - Larry Scala Band, Swing Stories from New Orleans (Independent)
“Play the melody, improvise, tell a story, and make it swing.” That quote, from composer/pianist Steve Elmer, is on the cover… - Al Berard, Incredible Journey (Independent)
Just days before Al Berard died unexpectedly in February 2014, he announced to his family that his decades-in-the-making guitar album was… - Steve Cunningham, Music from Mister Steve (Independent)
You might think that a debut album from a mainstay of the Neutral Ground Coffee House scene would be filled with… - Naughty Professor, Out on a Limb (Independent)
Proving quite prolific since their 2011 formation, local jazz/funk/groove sextet Naughty Professor will release in April its third studio effort, Out on… - The Russell Welch Hot Quartet, Mississippi Gipsy (Independent)
The New Vagabond movement of trad-jazz post-K transplants—and let’s keep using that term until OffBeat readers come up with a more… - Jon Batiste, Chad Smith & Bill Laswell, The Process (M.O.D. Technologies)
With its synthesis of rock, funk, fusion and hip hop, The Process is identifiable as a Bill Laswell project from the… - Cajun Strangers, Louisiana Boogie (Independent)
Though the Cajun Strangers hail from Madison Wisconsin, the group is hardly a stranger to Cajun music, with two Cajun French… - Patrick Williams and His Blues Xpress, Big Easy Blues (Sound of New Orleans)
Singer and harp man Patrick Williams is one of those rare NOLA natives who chose blues over jazz, and as such,… - Sexual Thunder!, Cheek Sweat (Independent)
The first couple tracks on this six-song EP are exactly what you’d hope a band called Sexual Thunder! would sound like.… - Cary Hudson, Town and Country (Daddy Rabbit Records)
Cary Hudson’s latest record is a little mellower than his Blue Mountain recordings (if you want to hear a wild tale,… - Various Artists, Brand New Old Songs: Recycling the Lomax Recordings (Center for Louisiana Studies)
If you’re at all Cajun curious, it’s fascinating to hear a song evolve from its early incarnation to today’s version. As… - Sweet Cecilia, Sweet Cecilia (Old Man Records)
The late Al Berard shed tears of joys the first time he heard his daughters and niece singing angelically together. And… - JeConte, Down by the Bayou (Red Parlor Records) & Danielle Nicole, "Danielle Nicole" (Concord Music Group)
As any politician will tell you, the bully pulpit is half the fun of the job, and same goes for musicians—when… - Sassafras Jubilee, Long Time Coming (Independent)
Like a lot of groups, Sassafras Jubilee (SJ) has had its fair share of evolving and morphing to eventually arrive at… - Nick Sanders Trio, You Are a Creature (Sunnyside Records)
Hot new pianist Nick Sanders is a New Orleans metro native, NOCCA trained, who went off to the prestigious New England…
