offBeat

David Montana

On Thanksgiving night, the Mardi Gras Indian Orchestra will return to the site of its memorable debut at the Hi Ho Lounge this past Fat Tuesday. Anyone who witnessed that spectacular show, or its sequel at Chickie Wah Wah during Jazz Fest, knows that this is not just another case of Mardi Gras Indians chanting in front of jams by local funk bands. The orchestra brings some of the city’s greatest players together to create new arrangements— including a string section—for traditional Mardi Gras Indian songs. David Montana, Second Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indians, and Sunpie Barnes in his Skeleton regalia, will return to preside over the Thursday and Friday night shows, along with Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Big Chief Yeti Boudreaux and Big Chief Roddy Lewis, who will also play bass drum. Organizer John Driver hopes there will be a couple of very special guests as well.

The band will feature most of the same musicians from earlier this year, including Papa Mali, Camile Baudoin and Sam Hotchkiss on guitars, Reggie Scanlan on bass, Kevin O’Day on drums, Harry Hardin on violin, and Helen Gillet on cello. Tim Green will join the ensemble on woodwinds.

The event will be dedicated to Tootie Montana and his brother Edward Montana, David’s father. David will compose new verses in their honor.

“My father was Edward Alfred Montana,” says David, “the elder brother of Tootie. Actually he was the first to mask out of the brothers. Tootie come out the year after. They gave him the suit my daddy wore, but Tootie didn’t like that suit. He started doing his own suits and he ended up being a master because of that.

“I can remember when I was a little kid and everybody in the house was sewing. They had a big table in the middle of the floor and I would get in the beads and make such a mess. My daddy had a long stick, and he would tap me with it to get me away from the table.”

Even the players in the Orchestra who have no history backing Indians know this music as part of their lives.

“I grew up on Barrone and 7th,” says Camile Baudoin. “Back then, they said you had to watch ’cause the Indians were still callin’ each other out. But we were kids and we just were amazed at how scary they were and how good the music sounded. When we got older and started playing, we all played the Professor Longhair and Indian music. I’ve played ‘Iko Iko’ as long as I can remember, going back to the apartment complex lounges that were popular back then.

“When John Driver first suggested this, it threw me, then I started thinking, ‘This sounds like fun.’ When he told me Reggie would be involved, I knew we would solidify the rhythm section together, keep it down and it stays down. We know what it is to play to the roots of a song. It’s always about the song first. The jam comes later.”

The Hi-Ho, on the corner of St. Claude and Marigny, is an appropriate spot for a tribute to the Montanas because it was a local stop for the Yellow Pocahontas during their Mardi Gras day revels.

Driver hopes to build on the event, but the all-star nature of the band makes it difficult.

“We can only do it two or three times a year when everybody is home at the same time,” he says. “Eventually I would like to involve more Indians. The only way to do that is to invite them down to see for themselves and let things happen naturally.”