Kevin Louis – Sweeney's Gumbo YaYa

This week’s show continues to explore Craig Klein‘s new record Talkative Horns – A Musical Conversation on Lucien Barbarin with more excerpts from my interview with the Grammy winning trombonist. But to balance the horns out, you’ll hear some fancy guitar work by John Rankin, Mem Shannon, Lynn Drury, Little Freddie King, Tab Benoit and Pee Wee Crayton.

Yes, you can start the show with the player below and still read on.

This show starts off with a Craig Klein song “If I Could Hug You” by the New Orleans Jazz Vipers. Later, you’ll hear him perform the song again with Kevin Louis on trumpet. Craig talks about his new record’s extensive use of horn mutes, the funky riff that Louis came up with to enliven their version of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Rockin Chair” and how Lucien Barbarin helped Craig score a job with Harry Connick Jr’s big band back in the 1990’s. You can learn more about Klein’s send up of his good friend Lucien Barbarin from my previous show and acquire the record here. To round out the set, I also include tracks from other Klein projects, Bonerama and the New Orleans Nightcrawlers.

But about those guitars, let’s start with John Rankin who before the pandemic held court at the Columns Hotel on Tuesday evenings as well as a Sunday lunch jazz show at Superior Seafood (both on St. Charles Street). His “Last in April, First in May” is an instrumental ode to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival which has been postponed this year to October. But worry not, WWOZ will feature a virtual festival this weekend drawing upon the community station’s vast library of past festival performances.

The guitar work continues with Walter “Wolfman” Washington covering “Use Me,” Lynn Drury’s song “I Just Get Down,” and Tab Benoit’s “Lost in Your Lovin’.” Later Little Freddie King and Mem Shannon hop on to wow you with their dexterity.

Pee Wee Crayton recorded in New Orleans in 1954

And the show closes with Blues Hall of Famer Pee Wee Crayton serving up another example of how the roots of rock ‘n’ roll stretch deeply into New Orleans. Working with Dave Bartholomew’s band (essentially the same as Fats Domino’s), Crayton recorded with Imperial Records at the J&M Studio on Rampart Street in 1954. You’ll hear “You Know Yeah” on this show so get it started.

There’s other surprises as well. So listen to the whole show and then subscribe. Also some great news. Just two more shows recorded from my home before I go back into the studio to do live radio. Let’s hear it for the VAX!

This week, Craig Klein joins me on the show virtually from New Orleans to talk about his new sweet record made in homage to his friend, fellow trombonist Lucien Barbarin who died of cancer early last year. In the spirit of his record Talkative Horns – A Musical Conversation with Lucien Barbarin, the show also features other songs with muted horns and trombones.

The opening track is “Lily of the Valley” from a record Leroy Jones produced in memory of the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band — a group that both Jones and Lucien Barbarin performed in during their youth. Craig Klein, who was not part of that seminal band, did play on the record.

On the show, which you can start up with the player above, Craig talks about his friendship with Lucien, the Barbarin family and the origins of the record that they were to produce together. Craig is a ubiquitous site in the New Orleans music scene. Aside from performing on countless albums and touring with Harry Connick, Jr., he’s a founding member of Bonerama, the New Orleans Nightcrawlers (which just won a grammy) and the Storyville Stompers and performs at Preservation Hall and with the New Orleans Jazz Vipers. After the loss of his friend, Craig landed on a concept of a musical conversation using short solos and mutes to simulate communication — performing with trumpeter Kevin Louis who performed regularly with Lucien at Preservation Hall.

The result is a playful, interplay of long cornet and trombone that sounds very much like a musical conversation held together by Steve Detroy’s casually swinging piano. Molly Reeves on guitar, Michell Player on bass and Gerry Barbarin Anderson (Lucien’s nephew) on drums round out the record’s sound. Stick around for his description of recording “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.”

Craig was generous with his time so I’ll include more of his conversation in next week’s show and play a few more from his record which is available on Bandcamp. Also included in today’s show is Lucien Barbarin and the Palm Court Swingsters doing “Just a Little While to Stay Here” where Lucien uses a mute on his trombone.

I also include some other fine trombone performances by Trombone Shorty, Kid Ory, Corey Henry, Big Sam Williams and Russell Ramirez.

Later in the show Vanessa Niemann gets on virtually with an introduction to a song she wrote about her grandfather “In My Dreams Again.” You’ll hear two other tracks by Vanessa who performs under the name Gal Holiday.

Thank you for listening to the show. You can subscribe to this blog and get alerts when new shows arrive. By the way, this week’s show is the KMRE version. There’s really no difference between the KAOS and KMRE recordings aside from station identifications.