Champion Jack Dupree – Sweeney's Gumbo YaYa

A Show To Satisfy that Live Music Craving

If its been too long since you’ve experienced live music than this week’s show might offer some joy, starting with the funky Meters 2010 JazzFest extended performance of “Fire on the Bayou.” For that song alone, you should start the player below.

While studio recordings can offer more perfection and audio wizardry, live recordings deliver more of the energy you would feel if you were in the audience and offer up freer, more loose performances. Given a choice, I almost always choose the live performance even if they are not as technically exacting as the studio recording.

Perhaps no record better exemplifies that trade-off than Kermit Ruffins’ Live at Vaughan’s. Kermit’s horn playing and singing may not always be on the mark, but this 12-track release puts you in the middle of the dance floor at Vaughan’s during one of his now historic Thursday night performances. The fun is infectious. You’ll hear “Hide the Reefer” from that set on this show. . . but that will be later.

First, Terrance Simien & the Zydeco Experience will cover “Johnny Too Bad” from his Live! Worldwide release. Debbie Davis sings “Lulu’s Back in Town” and you’ll hear the audience go wild on Josh Paxton frenetic piano solo. And you’ll visit two famous New Orleans bars to hear the New Orleans Nightcrawlers and New Orleans Jazz Vipers do their thing (a Craig Klein double feature.)

Later, Taylor Smith of the Roamin’ Jasmine explains how recording a performance at his neighborhood bar was easier and more fun than dealing with the pressure associated with recording in a studio. You’ll hear his group do “That’s a Pretty Good Love” from Live at Horace’s Bar.

Champion Jack Dupree showing off his abdominal muscles with Allen Toussaint on piano

As promised on my show, here’s a link to the video of Champion Jack Dupree at the 1990 New Orleans Jazz Fest when Allen Toussaint suddenly joined him at the piano. You’ll hear Dupree start with his soulful “Bring Me Flowers While I’m Living” and then Toussaint sneaks in and plays on the high keys. Eventually, the two move into a boogie woogie number with the 80-year-old Dupree getting up and doing some very interesting boogie moves of his own. You just never know what might happen in a live performance.

Also, during the show, you’ll be transported to the street for a Second Line parade with a performance of “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” by Rebirth Brass Band, recorded on the street as part of the HBO Treme show. You’ll also hear Paul Sanchez speak emotionally about the value of friendship in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as a way of introducing guests at his live performance of “Home.”

Glen David Andrews performing at Louis Armstrong Park

Another reason to enjoy live performances (and their recordings) is for the extended versions of familiar songs and the improvisational jams that make the moment feel special and unique. You’ll get that experience throughout the show but definitely with the New Orleans Suspects rendition of “Big Chief” from their Caught Live at the Maple Leaf and Glen David Andrews “Brothers Johnson Jam” from Live at Three Muses.

Live music is starting to come back, so please support these musicians whenever and where ever you can. And I’ll keep spinning the records. Thanks for tuning in.

Swinging into African American Music Appreciation Month

This week’s show takes a deep dive into the swinging, danceable music that got folks bumping body parts in such a way that it helped create a boom in babies, giving my generation its name. You can listen to this first of my June episodes in celebration of African American Music Appreciation Month using the player below.

As far as I’m concerned, all the music I enjoy is connected directly,or at least indirectly, to African American musicians and songwriters. So its not a stretch to do a month of music featuring exclusively African American artists. This week’s show covers the post World War II music scene in New Orleans where Jump Blues evolved into R&B and then later got called Rock ‘n’ Roll.

After Percy Mayfield kicks off the show with a personal song about returning to Louisiana to settle down, I get down to business with Champion Jack Dupree’s “Junker Blues” a much covered song that served as a basis for several other R&B numbers such as Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” and Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” (You’ll hear all of them.),

Fats Domino (left) and Dave Bartholomew generated a mountain of hits, enjoyed by a broad audience.

You’ll hear some songs that are considered on the short list for “first Rock ‘n’ Roll song” — a designation that will never get settled but is fun to argue about. This means Louis Jordan, Roy Brown and Erline Harris take the radio stage.

New Orleans was a hot bed for the nascent R&B scene. When Dave Bartholomew, no slouch performer himself, got Antoine Domino into the J&M (Cosimo Matassa) studio, he propelled the city into the sites of other record companies who sent their scouts out to find the next star. Smiley Lewis, Larry Williams, Chick and Chuck Carbo and the Spiders, the Barons, Earl King, Larry Darnell, Little Mr. Midnight, Huey “Piano” Smith, L’il Millet, Shirley and Lee all scrambled into the studio and cut 45’s that got folks dancing.

I also do a set of music by the stable of artists who worked with Allen Toussaint – Ernie K-Doe, Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas, Lee Dorsey, Eldridge Holmes and Diamond Joe.

When music industry executives adopted the term “Rhythm and Blues” or “R&B” to replace “race music” they probably were just trying to make the marketing term less offensive to African American audiences. But it also set the stage for a crossover to white audiences. Fats Domino, whose shows resulted in white and black audiences dancing together (and sometimes causing problems as a result) was the first big crossover African American artist.

But it seems like it was Little Richard, sent to New Orleans by Specialty Records, who blew the doors open. Little Richard didn’t record the first Rock ‘n’ Roll song but after “Tutti Frutti” and “Rip It Up” (which you’ll hear), the line between Rock and R&B was gone. Domino used to say that what he played didn’t change but but they called it did.

Well whatever you call it, you’ll get almost two hours of it in today’s show in honor of African American Music Appreciation Music. Thanks for listening.

Two extended JazzFest performances anchors this week’s show

Champion Jack Dupree and Sam Williams couldn’t be more different in their style of music but they hold a common ground as dear to them as it is to my show: New Orleans. And I feature knock out JazzFest performances by both of them in this week’s show. Go ahead get it started.

Big Sam of Big Sam’s Funky Nation kicked off his 2010 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival performance with a nearly 12-minute song he titled “Play Them Funky Horns” a mash up of songs that even includes a few bars of “Liza Jane.” It’s a nice preview for his upcoming performance in Portland (Mississippi Studios) and Seattle (Tractor Tavern) next week. That song kicks off the first full set on this show and will get you moving — guaranteed.

Twenty festivals previously, in 1990, Champion Jack Dupree sat on the stage — his first return to New Orleans in over 30 years of living in Europe — with a master of ceremonies Allen Toussaint — whose job was to interview the long-missed expatriate — one of the few remaining original barrelhouse piano maestros. During a soulful number called “Bring Me Flowers While I’m Living,” Dupree is joined by a Toussaint who lays in on the high side of the keys some pretty flourishes.

The duo continue through that song and into a boogie woogie number that ended with Dupree (80 plus years old at that time) getting up demonstrating is own boogie woogie moves that included some incredible abdominal exertions. The performances has been available in video online for years and this year the Smithsonian Folkways included the performance in its five-disk retrospective in honor of the 50th annual JazzFest. You’ll find that song in the second hour of the show.

In between, the show features performances by Jon Cleary, Shamarr Allen, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Dwayne Dopsie, Frog and Henry, Leyla McCalla, Dana Abbott, Galactic and The Crooked Vines (just to name a few).

I also celebrate Little Joe Gaines 100th birthday anniversary by playing his two solo numbers by Mercury, including “Snuff Dipper.”

Check out whose playing the Northwest this summer here.

Mouth Watering Jazz Fest Food Inspires This Week’s Show

Perhaps the hardest part about listening to the WWOZ live feed of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is hearing the on-air hosts talk about the food. Shrimp and lump crab ravigote, fried green tomatoes, catfish almondine, Key Lime tart, crawfish strudel — for starters. Listen to today’s show to be subjected to similar punishment with appropriate musical accompaniment.

Crawfish sack and crawfish beignets served by Patton’s Caterers at Jazz Fest this year.

The show starts with the basics of greens, gumbo, red beans and fried fish. Or put in terms of songs: Champion Jack Dupree’s “Cabbage Greens #1,” Rebirth Brass Band’s cover “Shrimp and Gumbo,” Professor Longhair’s “Red Beans” and Charmaine Neville’s inspired version of the the Louis Jordan classic “Saturday Night Fish Fry.”

During the air breaks you’ll hear descriptions of food sold by vendors at Jazz Fest such as fried crab cake with smoked tomato and jalapeno tartar, alligator pie, crabmeat stuff shrimp — just to name a few.

I do songs about catfish stew (Bobby Rush), chicken (C.J. Chenier) and a wide range of other songs from coffee to sweet potatoes.

Crawfish strudel with white chocolate bread pudding served by Cottage Catering at Jazz Fest this year.

At one point, I list off all the dishes served at Jazz Fest that have crawfish in it. There’s lot of them as well as good old spicy boiled crawfish where you “Suck the Heads and Squeeze the Tip” following the Radiator’s song advice.

I also do a sweet set and list of menu items on desserts near the end. So stay with the whole show. And thanks for tuning in.

Hot 8 Brass Band release includes NOLA Banksy art

The name Banksy is world known now after one of his pieces self-shredded during its auction recently. But the anonymous English street artist was hardly a household name when the Hot 8 Brass Band included his art on 2012 CD release “The Life and Times of . ” Get the show started and then read on.

banksy2 — Banksy street art that appeared in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and feature don the 2012 Hot 8 Brass Band release

Banksy, whose art has appeared on walls throughout the world, visited New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and his work captured the community’s affection. Abraham Lincoln pushing a shopping cart, a little girl flying a refrigerator and a brass band marching down the street. In today’s show, I play “Ghost Town” off the Hot 8 release.

But before you get to that song, you’ll hear Seattle-area musician, Del Rey, performing “Going Back to New Orleans,” Champion Jack Dupree with “Yella Pocahontas,” Charmaine Neville and the Iguanas. To name a few.

Tank and the Bangas, who will be performing in Seattle and Portland in November, are on this show as well doing “Rollercoaster” Live at Gasa Gasa and Kermit Ruffins performs “If I Only Had a Brain.”

I also feature an early R&B set with Little Richard, Leo Price and Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns. Thanks for tuning and please subscribe so you can be informed of when new shows are available.

banksy

Piano, Scat and Blues for this week’s show

Champion Jack Dupree scats through this week’s opening number with “Skit Skat” from his 1991 Rounder release, Forever and Ever. While he lived over 30 years in Europe, Dupree learned his piano in New Orleans. Later in the show, Jon Cleary sings ” Hit, Git, Quit, Split.” For right now, I hope you just “hit” the show’s start button and forget the rest of his advice.

Dr. Michael White (clarinet) and Matt Perrine (sousaphone) add the New Orleans feel to Portland-based blues guitarist Mary Flower’s hilarious rendition of “Main Street Blues” to start the first full set. She’s followed by a Boswell Sister cover energetically performed live at the New Orleans Mint by Bon Bon Vivant (“Shout Sister, Shout).

From his latest release Dyna-Mite, Cleary kicks off the second full set which is anchored by Glen David Andrews performing the “Brothers Johnson Jam” at Three Muses. In later sets, John Lisi, Mem Shannon and Bonerama liven things up, along with Dash Rip Rock, Buddy Flett, and the Dirty River Bourbon Band. I hope you keep listening. Here’s the full playlist.

Careless Love follows carefree path to our ears

“Oh love, oh careless love, you’ve fly to my head like wine.”

Words of caution during this season of Valentine? Perhaps. But it’s also the opening to another enigmatic traditional song with uncertain origins that has become a New Orleans standard.

Like St. James Infirmary, Careless Love took its form from the 19th Century folk tradition. The song didn’t get locked down until it was recorded in the 1920’s, most notably Bessie Smith’s recording with Louis Armstrong on cornet. Even since then, the song’s lyrics have been malleable, adapted to jazz, blues and even bluegrass.

Buddy Bolden, holding the cornet standing in back, was never recorded but he is likely the reason why Careless Love is New Orleans standard today. — Buddy Bolden, holding the cornet standing in back, was never recorded but he is likely the reason why Careless Love is a New Orleans standard today.

The song’s strong association to New Orleans is most likely the result of Buddy Bolden who performed the song regularly at the turn of the 20th Century. Buddy Bolden and his band performed a more bluesier and improvised form of ragtime and inspired jazz pioneers such as Kid Ory, King Oliver and Bunk Johnson who followed.

While there are no recordings of Bolden and his band, there are literally hundreds of other recorded versions of Careless Love, including those by Pete Seeger, Janis Joplin, Lead Belly, Madeleine Peyroux, Big Joe Turner, Nat King Cole, and Ray Charles.