Louis Armstrong – Sweeney's Gumbo YaYa

Songs with History & Depth Attract Internet Visits

Welcome to this site on New Orleans music. There are four posts about New Orleans standards that are attracting more attention now than when originally posted. Since these posts are accompanied by one of my shows, I thought I would make it easier to read and listen to them..

Recently, my number one visited page provides the back story on “Darktown Strutters Ball.” When I prepared for this show a few years back, I was conflicted over the use of a racist term for African-American neighborhoods and yet there was this amazing song that used it. The post and the accompanying show delves into the context of the song written by African-American composer Shelton Brooks and how various artists handle the song. If you listen to the show, you will hear five versions of “Darktown Strutters Ball.”

Next on the resurgent reading list is my post and show about Basin Street Blues. Composed by Spencer Williams who lived in Mahogany Hall on Basin Street and originally recorded by Louis Armstrong, who grew up in that neighborhood at the height of its notoriety, the song has evolved over the years including the addition of an opening musical phrase and lyrics (with a Glen Miller assist). You’ll get the full story and listen to the show here. The street has evolved too.

My post on Lil Liza Jane scores the next top spot in recent views. The post and show explores adaptability of this minstrel era song which has been updated and adapted by a variety of artists, including groups who follow in the tradition of the Black Indians of Mardi Gras. If you read this post (and listen to the show), feel free to leave a comment in a call and response style as one reader did.

Finally, the New Orleans standard (without a New Orleans back story) “St. James Infirmary” continues to get attention from readers and listeners. This was actually the first post and show I did focusing on a particularly standard. And I loved the history of it. Here it is.

A reminder that I’ve retired Gumbo YaYa and replaced it with a non-recorded live drive-time show on Thursdays on my community radio station KAOS. I play uptempo music and often draw from my New Orleans library. You can stream the show live and listen to the most recent shows using Spinitron (just type in the date and time into the ARK player that corresponds with my most recent show time adjusted for your location)

Hot Days, Ice Cream & Fireworks

If you’re looking for the song that perfectly captures what it’s like to live in the kind of heat we have endured during this record breaking summer check out the first song on this week’s show. . . But stick around for ice cream and fireworks.

If the heat has caused you to change your shirt or take more than one bath in a day then you’ll appreciate “Dog Days” written and sung by Leigh Harris, better known as Little Queenie. In addition to her steamy lyrics, the song features a gravity-defying sousaphone performance by Matt Perrine. The song is the opening track from her 2006 Polychrome Junction.

The show bounces between the twin themes of Independence Day and Summer with songs like Dee-1’s “No Car Note” expressing the economic freedom of owning a vehicle that is paid for to George Lewis’ “Ice Cream.” Later, Louis Armstrong and his Hot 5 show off their improvisational “Fireworks” from a 1928 recording.

Stay with the show and you’ll hear “Freedom” — the live 1991 Mardi Gras performance by Rebirth Brass Band in honor of the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. Louie Ludwig sings “God Hates Flags” and Dr. John and Tab Benoit do “We Ain’t Gonna Lose No More.”

Henry Gray does “Cold Chills” and Dr. Michael White covers “Happy Together.” Gal Holiday sings “Found Myself Instead” followed by The Soul Rebels with “Living for the City.” In short, I’m back to my usual mix of jazz, country, blues, rock, and funk.

Have a safe holiday and remember Little Queenie’s words: “It’s not the heat, its the humidity.”

Black Music Month – New Orleans Jazz

As part of my month-long celebration of African American Music Appreciation Month, this week’s show is devoted to New Orleans jazz created by musicians of color. Check it out with the player below. (Last week’s show focused on R&B)

Drummer Joe Lastie, a product of New Orleans Ninth Ward and a family of musicians, starts the show with a song he produced with Big Chief David Montana that honors the resilience of the love for New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina survivors. It’s a modern song steeped in the musical traditions that formed jazz.

While the origins of jazz are grist for scholarly debate, one thing is crystal clear to me. The music bubbled up from the creative cauldron of people of color living, working and playing in New Orleans. For more details (without getting scholarly), I like the National Park Service webpage on this topic written in part by Dr. Michael White and Ellis Marsalis. You can read that page while listening to the show which carries on with some of the more well-known pioneers of jazz: Jelly Roll Morton, King Joe Oliver, Bunk Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory and Lil Hardin. Okay, so Hardin was from Memphis but she ended up in Chicago with a scrum of New Orleans musicians and she helped whip them into shape, writing and arranging some of the earliest recordings.

You might find interesting this page on Onward Brass Band (also featured in the show) which tells the story of Paul Barbarin, Louis Cottrell, Danny Barker and others in that band. Check out the picture of them drinking (champagne?) with Janis Joplin.

Here’s some pages on my site that might be interesting reading and you can go to them without disturbing your listen to my show posted above.
Louis Armstrong Park
Some Storyville history contained in Basin Street Blues
Danny Barker’s contribution to New Orleans and brass bands
New Orleans dancehalls

Celebrating “Frogman”, Grammy winners & Irish Heritage

This week’s show is crammed with stories and recognitions, starting with the opening track by Louis Armstrong – “Irish Black Bottom” and carrying on with Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s 84th birthday, and grammy wins by the New Orleans Nightcrawlers and Bobby Rush. Go ahead and get it started and then read on.

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five – Irish Black Bottom

I’m not sure what possessed Louis Armstrong to do Percy Venable’s “Irish Black Bottom.” Some have surmised that it was part of his act at the time he recorded it in November 1927 with his Hot Five. Certainly the song’s novelty fits with the sense of humor many associate with Satchmo. It helps to know that Black Bottom refers to a dance craze of that era — which was likely begun as a result of a Jelly Roll Morton song recorded a bit earlier called “Black Bottom Stomp.” Black Bottom refers to a neighborhood in Detroit which was occupied predominantly by African Americans but was named for its fertile dark soil.

The song opens the show and I follow through with a token set of Irish-like songs in honor of a day in which some celebrate Irish Heritage. Marc Gunn, Gina Forsyth, the Zydepunks and the Valparaiso Men’s Chorus represent in that set. I then keep the folk vibe going for one more set with the Tom Paines, Luke Winslow-King and Theresa Andersson, among others.

But then I repeat a short clip from my interview with the New Orleans Nightcrawlers who just won a grammy for their album Atmosphere. In the clip, Matt Perrine talks about how the band mediates between honoring the rich New Orleans music culture and incorporating new elements of interest to the nine members of this band. I follow that up with a couple of songs by Bobby Rush who also just won a grammy — his second in three years. He’s 87 years old.

Speaking of octogenarians, Clarence “Frogman” Henry, who was there when it all happened during the New Orleans R&B boom, turns 84 on Friday. I celebrate his birthday with three songs (the limit according to federal streaming rules).

The real Clarence “Frogman” Henry (left) in a scene from the HBO show “Treme” where he notes how like other early R&B artists, he did not reap the financial benefits of his songs. He turns 84 Friday.

But wait! There’s more. Allen Toussaint sings “Brickyard Blues” a song that was recorded by five different artists when he wrote it in 1974. But Allen recognizes Scottish soul singer Frankie Miller as his inspiration. Here’s the Miller version of Brickyard Blues.

And finally, near the end of this week’s two-hour show, I talk briefly about the Leroy Jones documentary “A Man and His Trumpet” streaming on Netflix. I play two songs by this exceptionally talented and dedicated trumpet player and band leader — perhaps the first member to be recruited by Danny Barker for the famous Fairview Baptist Marching Band. If you love New Orleans music, you should catch this documentary with great stories delivered by Jones as well as Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Greg Stafford and Herlin Riley. As promised on the show, his goofy trailer.

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Clarinetist’s Birthday Sets Up Celebration of Dancehalls

The birth anniversary of Israel Gorman, an early New Orleans jazz clarinetist, allows this week’s show to transport us to the high energy of New Orleans dancehalls — past, current and future.

Israel Gorman – Photo by Al Rose – Courtesy of Louisiana State Museum

Once again, I’m humbled by the opportunity to learn more about New Orleans music through this show. Until this week, I did not know about Israel Gorman. Thank you to the 64 Parishes website for starting my education on this early jazz man who was at least four years older than Louis Armstrong. He was born March 4, 1896, making him old enough to perform his clarinet in Storyville saloons before World War 1 ended the red light district and sent him to fight in France. And while Gorman, like many New Orleans musicians, played in Chicago and New York, it was his recording at a dancehall near the shore of Lake Pontchartrain in the 1950’s that solidifies his place in music history. On some of the songs, you can hear the conversations from the audience and diners at Happy Landing Restaurant and Club and the shuffling of dancers feet. As far as music recording quality, it falls short of today’s standards. But it puts your ears in the room.

This listening experience has encouraged me to look more deeply into dancehalls — a source of community identity and historical interest that has spurred symposiums. Every worthy community has had one. I’ll never forget flying out of the Olympia Airport on July 21, 2000 to see a large column of smoke rising up from the Evergreen Ballroom, ending a 70-year history of bringing great music to the area. (An early highlight of doing the Gumbo YaYa show was when a listener called to tell me about seeing Fats Domino perform at the Evergreen Ballroom during his heyday. (Here’s an early post and show about the famous Dew Drop Inn.)

Today’s show includes other dancehall gems such as Jacques Gauthe and his Creole Rice Yerba Buena Band, Kid Thomas (who Gorman played with during the early years of Preservation Hall) and his Algiers Stompers, Champion Jack Dupree and a contemporary quartet that seeks to capture the magic of dancehalls of yesteryear.

Happy Landing – Past Prime. See the picture on the Mixcloud player to see a more stylized shot of the venue.

I continue in this vein for about an hour, aided further by Riverside Jazz Collective, Aurora Nealand and Smoking Time Jazz Club. And perhaps the highlight is Louis Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues.” (How progressive of Satchmo to have avoided the gender tag in the title)

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band provides our transitional link from dancehall to funk, cajun and latin music. Later in the show, I also recognize Jazon Marsalis’ 44th birthday, spinning a couple of tracks with him on vibraphone.

Thank you for tuning in. Please let me know what you think of the music.

Helping you vote with music from New Orleans – Part Two

With two weeks left before election day, over 800,000 ballots in my state have been turned in. Turnout is even stronger where this show is broadcast with ballots turned in by nearly one out of three voters. Over 42 million have already voted nationwide. Wow!

For those who haven’t voted yet, here’s music to vote . . .or to listen to while waiting to vote.

This week’s songs, like last week’s songs, are selected to get you into a frame of mind for exercising your right to vote, starting with John Boutte’s cover of “A Change is Gonna Come” — a song inspired by a racist experience when Sam Cooke attempted to check into a Shreveport motel.

The Meters gives us “People Say” to start the first full set and Leyla McCalla puts Langston Hughes words to music with “Song for a Dark Girl.” It’s a set designed to remind us that its been a long, long journey for racial equity and justice and we’re not done yet. This set finishes with The Neville Brothers’ “Sons and Daughters (Reprise)” and Rebirth Brass Band’s “Take it to the Street.”

Allen Toussaint’s sings “We Are America”

Allen Toussaint starts “Yes We Can Can” by singing “We are America” to a New Orleans Jazz Fest audience. His song enlivens a second half hour set of music that includes The Hot 8 Brass Band’s “Working Together,” Marcia Ball’s “World Full of Love,” Smoky Greenwell’s “Get Out and Vote,” and Tab Benoit and Dr. John doing “We Ain’t Gonna Lose No More.”

In the second half of the show, Davis Rogan’s “Joe Biden Will Do Just Fine” pairs nicely with Paula and The Pontiacs doing “Play to Win.” Eric Lindell follows up with “Revolution” as in a revolution in our heart. New Orleans Suspects offers up “Whatcha Gonna Do” and Dr. Michael White delivers “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

The show ends with an amazing Louis Armstrong cover of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” Amazing because first it was recorded less than a year after Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded the original Second, its clearly a funk version which is unusual for Armstrong who would live only a year after the release of this song. And finally, the song comes across so well, particularly for the vibe I was going for. Let me know what you think.

Trouble in Mind – The Sun will Shine Again

We are on fire and not in a good way. From the fever of COVID-19 which has infected 2 million U.S. residents to the violent actions that lead to unnecessary death and hurt on our streets, we have “. . .trouble in mind.” To get the sun to shine in your backdoor again, start my show – we’ll make the journey to and from the dark place together.

Police in Coral Gables, Florida, kneel in solidarity with the protesters against the killing of George Floyd. (Getty)

You can’t do a show of New Orleans music and NOT play blues. And the song “Trouble in Mind” is classic New Orleans blues– written by Richard M. Jones, who grew up in New Orleans and played jazz in the city’s red light district, Storyville until he followed the African American diaspora north. He settled in Chicago where he worked with the gang of New Orleans musicians who made jazz an American tradition, including Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams.

He first recorded “Trouble” in 1924 but it was his recording in 1926 with the voice of Bertha “Chippie” Hill and the trumpet of Louis Armstrong that made the song a hit. You’ll hear that version (recently inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame) on this show. The lyrics have a dark edge.

Trouble in mind, that’s true
I have almost lost my mind
Life ain’t worthwhile livin’; feel like I could die
I’m gonna lay my head
On some lonesome rail road iron
Let the 2:19 train ease my trouble of mine
Trouble In Mind – by Richard M. Jones

Like most blues, the song is as much about hope as it is about despair. When I was listening to this song in preparation for this show, I learned about how Jones cobbled this song from earlier spirituals that date back to slavery — how blues expresses suffering, yet by vocalizing our pain we can find ways to cope. In this show I express the view that we all have our burdens to carry but the most significant one is the imperative to ensure that no person or people have to carry more than their share. It seems to be a simple philosophy to say but difficult to follow.

Trouble in mind, oh, yes, I am blue
But I won’t be blue always
Yes, the sun will shine in my back door someday
the last stanza of Trouble in Mind by Richard M. Jones

If you listen to the whole show, you’ll hear a few renditions some with different lyrics and different styles (Zydeco and Caribbean for instance).

But there is a lot more to the show. You’ll hear the voice of listener “Ron” who introduces a set of music by female musicians and talks briefly about how New Orleans shares its good and bad, making it a real experience. You’ll also hear (and I hope dance to) a 25-minute brass band set. I play a new release by Taylor Smith who still has roots in New Orleans but recorded “Amnesia” in Memphis. Tuts Washington will bring “Georgia on My Mind.” Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band does “Eh la Bas”

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Vinyl Gumbo! Can you hear the difference

If you long for LPs then this week’s show is for you. Over an hour of vinyl New Orleans music is waiting to be heard, just click the application below and get it spinning.

hirt fountain vinyl I still own the first CD player I bought for my stereo. And I love it. I love the ease of playing CDs. I love being able to quickly find the track I want to hear. I like being able to repeat tracks. I love how clean the sound is. I really don’t miss vinyl.

Yet, I still buy LPs. And you’ll hear some of them on this show, including Pete Fountain, Professor Longhair, Al Hirt, Willie Humphrey, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Beausoleil, Bunk Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Huey “Piano” Smith and John Mooney. Nothing like playing a continuous stream of LPs to appreciate the work of DJs before the digital era. It really is a lot more effort playing off of turntables.

But aside from the crackling of the needle contacting the surface, I really can’t tell the difference in the sound. Perhaps you will.

Also, on today’s show, I honor Eddie Bo’s birth anniversary. Noted perhaps mostly for his funk, Edwin Bocage was a piano player skilled in jazz and other music genre as well. He was also a talented builder, who even in his mid-70’s was active in rebuilding his home damaged by Hurricane Katrina. I play a couple of his lesser known numbers in today’s show along with a couple of new releases by Eric Lindell and Keith Stone along with a handful of contemporary female New Orleans artists to offer some gender balance wrapped in very fine music. Thanks for tuning in.

Funky Eliza Jane and Satchmo’s famous quote star in today’s show.

“I don’t know, boss. . but I won’t do it again,” is allegedly how Louis Armstrong responded to a pointed question from the president of Okeh records when he asked him who was playing trumpet on a song recorded by a competing label. The song was “Drop that Sack” and you’ll hear it on today’s show.

Armstrong strayed from his label briefly to record with Vocalion under a band named after his wife Lil Harden.

Helen Gillet’s memorable “De mémoire de Rose opens the show followed by Satchmo’s 1926 recording and a live recording of Big Sam’s Funky Nation at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival doing almost 12 minutes of funk with some familiar touchstones throughout, including “Eliza Jane.”

I do a set of jazz, swing numbers followed by a Latin-inflected number by Charmaine Neville and her band appropriately titled “Dance.” I break into the new release by Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue and offer up some New Orleans Suspects, Seth Walker, Professor Longhair and Lena Prima.

Near the end of the show catch a great number sung by Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes with the Smoky Greenwell Band followed by Rosie Ledet’s “It Might Be You” from her latest release. If you stay with me long enough, you’ll catch another Helen Gillet number.

Thanks for tuning in.

Just a typical Gumbo YaYa Show

Some times I don’t have an organizing theme for the show and this is one is one of those. That doesn’t mean it ain’t worth listening to though.

soul In honor of the Soul Rebels’ tuba player, Damion Francois’s 46th birthday, I start the show with the band knocking out “Let Your Mind Be Free.” The Young Tuxedo Brass Band keeps the second line moving with Little Freddie King and the Red Hot Brass Band helping out with their own songs.

Speaking of tubas (actually sousaphones), I featured a cover of The Who’s “Magic Bus” with a tuba playing the bass line. Earl King does “Things I Used to Do,” James Booker does “Classified” and Rebirth Brass Band plays “Your Mama Don’t Dance.”

This week’s show also features “Beau Koo Jack” recorded December 5th 1928 by Louis Armstrong and his Savoy Ballroom Five. Throw in some Pete Fountain, Marcia Ball, Papa Mali, the Radiators, and some surprises and you’ve got a typical, unthemed Sweeney’s Gumbo YaYa. Enjoy.