Dr. John was in Los Angeles Monday night previewing songs from his upcoming album, Tribal, at the Grammy Museum. Not surprisingly, he didn’t hold his tongue where the BP oil disaster is concerned. According to the Los Angeles Times‘ Randy Lewis:

He said the recent spill is just the latest, albeit the most egregious, of hundreds of such incidents in the region in recent years as oil exploration has expanded.  “Nobody [outside of Louisiana] heard about those,” he said, “because they weren’t as completely ridiculous as this one.”

He also echoed Eddie Vedder’s Jazz Fest sentiments:

“Let BP foot the bill,” he interjected into “Black Gold,” a song about the consequences of the “Drill, baby, drill!” mentality from his 2008 post-Hurricane Katrina album, City That Care Forgot, which won the  Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

On Saturday, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Ave. and Christian Scott performed at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. According to writer Chris Barton:

… the early part of the day belonged to the New Orleans-based Trombone Shorty. Often spoken of as a near-mythic figure in his appearances on HBO’s Treme, the bandleader also known as Troy Andrews did not disappoint, even as he showed he could opt for a name change if he really wanted.

Midway through a set of raucous Crescent City jazz and R&B, Andrews switched to trumpet for a searing solo that cut through the middle of the classic “St. James Infirmary,” which had hankies twirling excitedly in the air as Andrews stretched a single note over the crowd and seemingly toward infinity.

Scott performed with Marcus Miller as part of the “Tutu Revisited” show that they played at Jazz Fest:

Electric bass titan Marcus Miller teamed with fiery young trumpeter Christian Scott to revisit the sound of Miles Davis’ synthesizer-heavy 1986 album Tutu,which was co-produced by Miller. Though Scott was an ideal choice to fill Davis’ muted trumpet and could have easily performed the festival with his own band on the heels of an impressive new album, this set’s midtempo funk workouts and dated keyboard tones often failed to connect, even during a reverent if straightforward cover of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.”