Though this foursome can be seen as another revival of The Click 5, with power-pop melodies, matching suits, and long, surfer-cut hairdos, Research Turtles have a bit more depth and dirt kicked up in their more mature sound. “Tomorrow,” for example, has Rivers Cuomo all over it with an “Island in the Sun” production and hopeful message, a nice treat for those nostalgic for how Weezer used to sound. And “A Feeling” with its pounding, prominent drum and guitar rhythm and simply structured vocals would be a Rock Band favorite if only given the chance.

Though these dudes from Lake Charles started out as a cover band, soon people will be covering their melodies, as they gain more traction as the little Southern rock band that could.

With a look and a sound that is far beyond her years, Kristin Diable tells her story in the purest of folk tradition on Extended Play. Each song showcases her contralto voice that sounds as though it’s been tainted by cigarette smoke and experience, a sound that suits her. You’ve definitely heard this type of voice before, most notably in one of her idols, Lucinda Williams, but Diable, a Baton Rouge native, has been branded with inherent Southern soul, a quality that separates her from the rest.

On the simple blues tune, “What We Mean,” Diable explains with a smirk, “I gotta lover who says he don’t need me. / I guess we don’t always say what we mean.” Her voice soars with extreme confidence over the simple two-chord melody of the guitar as the song takes you back to doo-wop ballads without the call and response.

Though most of Diable’s guitar melodies sound similar from track to track, the words are what make her songs great. On “Holdin’ On” she sings, “He was running down that road so fast / praying God was with him now / and he hoped to God that this don’t last / ’cause just one bad move could break his back.” It’s a simple yet powerful statement of a place all people find themselves at least once in their lives. On “Be My Husband,” Diable channels KT Tunstall on her breakthrough hit, “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” with the drum as the driving force of emotion and rhythm in this stripped down song about the complications of a relationship. But note to Diable: a broader sonic palate is your friend.

But Borders taps into her sexy side on “Sustenance” and her cheeky side on “Scream,” an in-your-face tune that accusingly prods for answers about why she wasn’t good enough to keep her man and whether or not the other woman’s sex was worth it. “You’ll get what’s comin’ to ya. / I swear I’ll get you back,” she sings with such fury that you wouldn’t want to be the guy that wronged her caught alone one night in a dark alley.

And with emotions as varying as hers are, this CD is full of surprises. There’s no telling what Mia Borders will come up with next, and that’s half the fun.

Straight out of Oxford, Mississippi, Herbert Wiley and his Mates insist that they are not an “appraisal of music that came out some 40 years ago,” but if you hear southern soul that recalls the glory days of soul, you’re not alone. Wiley’s voice reveals the wisdom that comes with age when he speaks about the struggles of life and love with his southern Mississippi accent on the slow ballad, “I Did my Part.” The simple guitar melody and steady bongo beat smoothly melt into the gentle rise and fall of the trumpet.

Fellow Checkmate Tricanna McGee occasionally but nicely blends her strong alto vocals in harmony with Wiley’s on the Stax-like “I Want Your Love in My Life,” but the strength of the album is in its directness. There are no double entendres, no self-conscious efforts at innovation. Instead, the Checkmates provide the sort of classic soul sonic framework for a singer who doesn’t fool around with metaphors. Wiley’s a blues man, and he’s speaking his mind with passion. And as history and We Call it Soul shows, passion goes a long, long way.

Shreveport drummer Brian Blade sets out to blend smooth Christian soft-rock with melodic blues vibes that attempts to carry listeners on a journey within their spirits for them to see the light and know the Lord, but sadly his message falls short.

Mama Rosa starts out with Blade’s soft ethereal voice telling me to “sleep my darlin’ through the night / I’m gonna watch until the morning light” and I wanted to believe him.

But the first song is the best song, and the album doesn’t progress from there. Blade never explores where else his piano and guitar can take him as they make the same rise and fall for eight counts in songs, and then they repeat.

The two bright spots of the album appear in the form of background vocalist, Kelly Jones and Blade’s descriptive lyrics. Jones provides a nice harmony vocal that truly sounds like an angel on “Mercy Angel.” Her soft breathy voice makes you want to close your eyes and follow her to wherever or whatever higher place she is trying to elevate you to. Whenever Jones’ voice graces the song, it’s a pleasure.

The other high point comes in his attention to visual details. In “Second Home,” he swiftly evokes day-to-day life, singing, “Plastic beads hang from trees / must have been a parade yesterday or maybe last year/ I don’t know.” The immediacy of the commonplace image is simple and arresting, and suggests a level of engagement with the city that goes beyond tourist bureau thrills.

It’s nice to see Blade step out from behind the drum kit and reveal himself as a songwriter, but it’s sad that Mama Rosa doesn’t reach its full potential because you can tell that the songs are genuine and speak from a sincere place in his heart.

At an early age he realized he could pick out the piano parts in songs while listening to his grandmother’s old records. He was also fascinated by his Aunt Donna’s piano, which she always kept locked–except for one day.

“My cousin dropped a bead in the piano, and my aunt opened it up to get it out and she let us play around on it,” Pappas says. “I had the most fun just playing on it. From there, I asked my mom for a keyboard.”

After a young Pappas got his keyboard, he began to learn basic chords and triads by ear because, as he quickly found out, his parents could not teach him how to read sheet music.

“Growing up, you think mom and dad could do everything,” he says. “But I don’t really come from a musical family. I think it was better for me that way though because they said, ‘Okay, since we can’t teach you, we’ll make sure we get the best to teach you.’ Plus, by them not knowing music, I got to play whatever kind of music I wanted.”

When he was in third grade, Pappas’ parents helped him find his first private piano tutor, who taught him to sight read. Then his parents enlisted teachers to perfect his classical piano.

But it wasn’t until he was 12 years old that Pappas first caught a whiff of the jazz he plays today, thanks to the Louis Armstrong “Satchmo” Jazz Camp, under the direction of Edward “Kidd” Jordan. While studying piano at the camp, his piano teachers didn’t teach him the level of a musician’s intensity quite like bassist Elton Huron.

“He wasn’t a piano player, he played bass, but boy did he know his way around a piano,” Pappas says while shaking his head and cupping his mouth in disbelief. “He was my first experience with a very intense teacher. I remember it took me a while before I could pick up jazz, so for about five minutes we sat in silence, and then he told me to visualize the piece. As a 12-year-old, you’re like, ‘What is he talking about, he’s crazy!’ Now I understand the things he said to make it work.”

After Huron’s lessons about mastering musicianship, Pappas would go into the band room to watch a group play under the instruction of Jonathan Bloom and Kent Jordan. When pianist Jonathan Batiste left for Julliard, they asked Pappas to fill in.

“I remember the moment that he left and they asked me to play with the ensemble. I had no experience, because you know, I had never played in a group, and that was a major turning point. [Kent] really pushed me to play with a group and to practice, practice, practice!”

Drummer Joe Dyson is also 19, but he got his start in music from a different source entirely–church.

“I grew up in a musical family,” the quiet Dyson says as he recalls his earliest times playing. “My father is an organist and a bass player, my grandmother is a vocalist, and I have cousins who play, and we all played in Holy Faith Temple Baptist Church, where my father is the pastor. So, that was my early musical environment.”

But before Dyson played his first beat in church, his mother insists that he would pull out pots and pans and start banging on those until he got his first drum set. “My uncle gave me my first pair of drum sticks and I just did the same for my little cousin” Dyson says.

But the banging didn’t stop there. In pre-school, he always fought to play drums during their music classes–a self-professed young “pro” who was already playing at his father’s church.

Next, Dyson was off to McDonough 15 in the French Quarter, which at the time was a creative and performing arts school that also spawned local musician Trombone Shorty. It was there that Dyson learned to read music. Under the direction of Jerry McGowan, he would play for group settings in marching bands and concert ensembles.

Monthly field trips to Preservation Hall and the Jazz National Historic Park greatly influenced the young drummer. One day, while doing a music workshop at the park, Clyde Kerr noticed Dyson sitting all the way in the back of the other students.

“I would always get called on to go up and play,” Dyson laughs. “[Kerr would say] ‘Is that Joe Dyson in the back? Come up and play!’”

The third member of the trio, 20-year-old bassist Max Moran, began his musical undertakings playing the violin at the insistence of his parents when he was five. After moving to New Orleans from Natchitoches, Moran decided at age 10 that he no longer liked the violin or practicing, and tried the guitar instead. It was Dan Sumner’s direction at Lusher Extension that inspired him to play the bass and jazz.

“I knew him before I was at Lusher because I got lessons from him,” Moran says. “I would learn notes, basic chords and simple songs. Then I would learn rock songs I liked, like System of a Down, and play that.”

Moran played in the band at Lusher, and in 8th grade Sumner needed a bassist for a jazz band, a position Moran gladly accepted. A friend needed a bass player for his band as well, so Moran bought a bass and began to rock out in rehearsals.

“I immediately felt like a bass player, and I was never going back,” Moran says.

Playing in the jazz band at school was influential to Moran, who remembers that trumpet player Bryce Miller would come during practices and help out. Because of these experiences he decided that he liked jazz, and got into gigging at an early age with classmates. His pre-teen band landed an early gig at the Funky Butt every Wednesday, playing for tips and food from the restaurant.

It was then that he decided he wanted to become a musician and study jazz at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) while in high school, and participated in the NOCCA summer program for jazz. Neither Moran, Dyson nor Pappas realized how important NOCCA was to become for their careers.

After meeting Pappas at the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp, Alvin Batiste, who was the head of the jazz department at NOCCA, urged the young musician to try out for NOCCA.

His tryout, however, was less than ideal. Pappas auditioned for the classical program, not jazz, and was rejected.

“When I got there, they really chewed me out, and I felt like I didn’t know anything,” he says. Not willing to give up on the opportunity to study with musicians such as Michael Pellera, Chris Severin, and Batiste, Pappas tried out again–this time for jazz–and he made it into the program.

“Being at NOCCA made me realize that I have my own identity as a piano player,” he says. “I always kept that with me, even now.”

Getting into NOCCA was easier for Dyson.

“Sophomore year of high school, Mr. Batiste kind of just let me in the program and I didn’t have to audition,” Dyson says. “But I had the most trouble with learning the theory and stuff. Those classes always gave me the most hell.”

Despite his Marching 100 days at St. Augustine, Dyson was given one week to get his act together, and learn some type of msuic theory before he was booted out the program.

“I had to leave behind the title of a drummer, and become a musician,” Dyson says.

Since Moran knew he wanted to be a musician before he even entered high school, NOCCA seemed like an easy choice for his development and he attended its summer program to prepare. He was taught by one of his bass heroes, Chris Severin, but Severin noticed something about Moran that no one had before.

“He told me there was something wrong with my technique. That was something I practiced hard on and still carry with me today,” Moran says.

But it was Alvin Batiste’s lessons about music and life that united the three. They all had “Mr. Bat” for jazz combo and ensemble classes. “He was all about finding your originality. He didn’t tell you what to play,” Pappas says. “He trained our ears based on notes he would play.”

Batiste loved to speak in metaphors as well. Dyson recalls not being able to understand his messages right away because Batiste never told his students the answers; he made them figure them out on their own. “‘Hipness is a profound colloquialism that professes an abstract truth.’ Mr. Bat would say that all the time, and I’m just now starting to understand it,” Dyson says.

The three met before NOCCA, but it wasn’t until they started playing at each other’s gigs in high school that their chemistry took off. “My favorite people to play with were Conun and Joe, so the three of us got a lot closer musically, and really, the reason why we started as a trio was because of Mr. Batiste,” Moran says. “He helped us work on starting to sound like a band.”

Pretty soon the group now known as the Bridge Trio was playing gigs with Batiste’s band at Snug Harbor before they were even old enough to get in the club.

Due to their good grades in high school (St. Augustine for Pappas and Dyson, and Benjamin Franklin for Moran), excellent musicianship, and numerous awards and accomplishments, the Bridge Trio members have landed themselves at some of the top music schools in the country.

Pappas spends his time at the Manhattan School of Music, getting used to the New Yorkers who aren’t as friendly as southerners from the Big Easy.

“They may not act like New Orleanians, but they are truly inspiring,” Pappas says about the students he interacts with in college. “I’ve shown a huge improvement playing in New York. I’ve learned to play with more energy and edge. The students here are much more intense, and I’m inspired.”

Dyson and Moran are currently living out their freshman year of college at Berklee College of Music, both with a full scholarship. “Before we went there, a lot of people told us not to become the typical ‘Berklee student’ and I’m starting to see more and more what they mean,” Moran says. “Sometimes Berklee can be really clique-y and catty. Sometimes the jazz students look down on pop singers, and a lot of R&B cats think we’re pretentious. Too often people try to put us in a box. Joe and I do play more than just jazz.”

While studying hard and playing hard is a necessity 24/7 for these three musicians, it’s difficult sometimes to go to school and also gig with jazz great Donald Harrison. The trio has played with Harrison for three years, and Dyson missed a placement exam playing a date with him in Sweden. “For that semester, I was in classes that I know I should’ve tested out of,” he says.

But Harrison appreciates the work of these three. “I try to groom them to be professional musicians; that’s why I put them on the road with me for gigs,” Harrison says. “Conun is well-rounded, Joe is very professional, and Max has a great feeling towards funk. Their music is beautiful.”

So, with all this experience under their belts, their future looks bright. Pappas is planning to release a solo video game soundtrack concept album sometime in the future, Moran would like to eventually front his own band and own his own music venue, and like Batiste advised him to do, Dyson will always be “striving for the hipness, always evolving and always changing.”

Even though the three now spend more than half of their school year in the Big Apple, they still believe in the culture of New Orleans music.

“More youth should try to understand that this music is a huge part of the culture in New Orleans,” Moran adds. “This tradition is something that’s unique and should be appreciated.”

The holiday gift-giving season may be over for the general population, but for Donald Harrison and Cherice Harrison-Nelson, the gift of a good education comes year-round.

At the 2009 Best of the Beat Awards, both Harrison siblings will be honored for their educational efforts in the fields of music and indigenous culture.

Harrison, known for his legendary jazz saxophone skills, got into music early because of his family. “My parents had so much music at home,” Harrison says. “There was always music playing in the house.” But it wasn’t until his time spent in New York that he realized he wanted to teach.

“When I went to New York, I got a different idea of what music was,” Harrison says. “I wanted to show students from firsthand instead of from a book. I wanted to pass down firsthand experience from great musicians. Great jazz musicians. I realized I could pass down information to help young kids get a job in the [music] industry.”

While living in The Big Apple, Harrison began teaching one very famous neighbor.

“I made him more aggressive,” Harrison recalls of working with the late Notorious B.I.G. “We worked on two main things: enunciation, and his delivery and ability to tell a story.”

During a recent stint in New York, Harrison met up with an up-and-coming engineer, Darius “Deezle” Harrison, and worked with him to “take his music to another level.” Since their meeting, Darius has gone on to produce four tracks including “Lollipop” and “Mrs. Officer” for Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, which garnered eight Grammy nominations this year.

Harrison is comfortable working with the younger generation, as can be seen in the mentoring he used to do with the Tipitina’s Foundation’s Intern Program, where he met Conun Pappas, one third of the Bridge Trio, which currently tours with him as his backing band.

“[The Intern Program] was a great experience,” Harrison says. “The students were very serious and I was happy to give them my knowledge. They were very diligent and didn’t want to take breaks. They were really trying to learn stuff.”

But Harrison wasn’t always the teacher; he too was a student.

Both he and his sister, Cherice, learned all the traditions, songs and rituals associated with the Mardi Gras Indians, from their father, the late Donald Harrison, Sr., Big Chief of Guardians of the Flame.

Now, they are the Big Chief and Big Queen of the Congo Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural Group, a new Mardi Gras Indian tribe, and both siblings are passing the traditions on to the next generation. “I think its getting strong again,” Harrison says about young people’s interest in the Mardi Gras Indian customs. “The guys really love it.”

“[Being a Mardi Gras Indian is] A testament to the strength of the human spirit, and resiliency to maintain this tradition and that in spite of everything, something so deep inside of them calls them to continue to do this,” Harrison-Nelson says. “We are spiritual first responders. The cornerstone of maintaining where African American reside. Those things along with education will build back our community.”

Nelson, a leader in her own right, has been teaching the traditions of the Mardi Gras Indians along with mother, Herreast Johnson Harrison, for years in and out of Louisiana. Through the Big Chief and Big Queen Book Club, Harrison-Nelson has linked cultural practice and literacy, celebrating Mardi Gras Indians and making them a force for educational good, and for nearly 20 years at Oretha Castle Haley Elementary School, she stressed enhancing the language arts and bringing cultural indigenous knowledge to the classroom.

“Each child needs an individual education plan, and it was most important of all to me to make that happen,” Nelson says.

She created the “Haley Story Quilt Project” in 1996 in which Nelson, a sixth generation knitter, would encourage students to tell their families’ stories through either poetry, song, or dance, and would showcase it by creating a quilt of pictorial descriptions. Even though the project had concluded, its concept proved most helpful in the aftermath of Katrina.

In 2005, a teacher at the Marjorie Elementary School in Kenner contacted Harrison-Nelson and her mother to help students express what had happened to them post-Katrina. They asked the students to write about the preparation for the storm, where they were during the storm, and the aftermath. Finally, they asked the children to “envision a world that they wanted for themselves,” and they drew pictures that went along with each story. They then chose which story they wanted to be in a book and what picture they wanted on a quilt.

“We had to confront what happened,” Harrison says. “It was really phenomenal because some children really wanted people to know what happened, so they picked those disturbing images of their houses and rooms being torn apart and the devastation.”

Harrison-Nelson was fired while on leave during Katrina (illegally, she feels, and she is still working to resolve this issue), but she doesn’t want the “adult drama” around her to hinder a child’s education.

“It’s not about me,” Nelson says. “It’s about getting each child the appropriate education they need to grow. Not every lesson is best learned from a binder.”

The liner notes explain, “With curves shaped by waters that provide and threaten, she cuddles you in the warmth of her bosom…. She dances with you in the streets… [and] she defines you with history and culture.

Her name is New Orleans.”

Influenced by the love and loss suffered in the city by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 12 local female vocalists came together to make
Her Name is New Orleans: Listen to the Women, a compilation album that is uplifting, sassy, and soulfully satisfying. From the upbeat, brass-oriented stylings of Charmaine Neville, to the unwavering spiritual from Lady BJ, to the neo-soul spoken word of Sunni Patterson, this album showcases many of the city’s top female vocalists in their best settings. Their individuality and strength sound powerful and necessary after times of crisis.

A little piece of Nashville is moving to New Orleans. On the weekend of December 5 and 6, the Songfest Foundation, Inc. and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) will sponsor the first New Orleans Songwriters Festival. The event is designed to promote original New Orleans compositions that may help to advance the careers of local writers/musicians by providing performance opportunities for the participants in front of music industry and publishing veterans.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” says festival organizer, Bud Tower. “I’ve never done this type of thing before. But everyone who hears about (this event) thinks it’s a really cool idea for the city.”

Recording artists and songwriters Allen Toussaint, Cassandra Wilson, Zachary Richard, Mary Gauthier, Susan Cowsill, Jim McCormick, and Murphy will all be in New Orleans to both perform and offer advice about the songwriting process at different times throughout the weekend. The festival will also bring the legendary Jimmy Webb to New Orleans to headline a Saturday night show at the House of Blues. Webb, best known for “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “MacArthur Park,” is a board member of ASCAP.

“It was important to have somebody like Jimmy Webb,” Tower said. “He’s one of the finest songwriters the city has seen.”

So, will this festival make New Orleans the new songwriter’s mecca like Tin Pan Alley all those years ago? Only time will tell.

“At one point, we really had an important group of songwriters here (in New Orleans) like Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint,” Tower says. “Anything is possible.”

For a complete schedule and details of events, go to NOSongFest.com.