It has always been regarded as an act of profound heresy when acoustic-folk musicians undergo a mysterious change of life and, throwing caution to the winds, goose their tunes to the max with mega-watt electronics. Though I was a mere waif at the time, I can still remember the huge scandal that ensued when Bob [...]
…A stranger to New Orleans…upon entering the square finds the multitude packed in groups of close, narrow circles, and in the center of each circle sits a musician… —Henry Edward Durell, 1853. Street music. A singular phrase, yet multifaceted; a phrase fraught with resonance, taunt as cat gut, redolent with the vibrato of centuries. A [...]
In case you haven’t noticed, we live in a time and country where everyone is supposed to be a specialist—cosmetologist, urologist, dietician, mortician—you name it. In the U.S. of A. you are what you do: the label is you. New Orleans, on the other hand, is situated on the alluvial plain where the Mississippi River [...]
Robert Tannen is a hard guy to get a read on, at least in terms of most people’s expectations. A sculptor, architect and urban transportation planner, he purposely takes an oblique route to and through these things. High-profile, connected with developers and politicians, he turns up all over the place, but in roles subject to [...]
Chill out. Cool it. Be cool. Cool is a physical condition; sometimes a metaphysical condition, or even a psychic or stylistic condition. Cool is essential to survival. The extremes of hot and cold are threats to life that call existence into question. Cool is the answer. Cool is both simple and complex. Within the known [...]
Visitors attending the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival enjoy a varied mix of local and regional as well as national performers. Throw in the kind of cuisine that abounds in the city and at the fair, and one finds evidence that regional cultures can, in certain ways, outperform their national counterparts. Fortunately, it is [...]
One of the strangest things about growing up in New Orleans is not the widespread frenzy of hedonism, crazed dancing in the streets and masking on the Tuesday before Lent—no, that all seems perfectly normal. The truly odd thing is the gradually dawning realization that the rest of the country does not do these things. [...]
New Orleans has long been famous as a get-down music city of the first magnitude, but this party town is also prolifically endowed with a large number of churches as well. Churches, temples and music have been closely linked for about as long as these things have been in existence—practically forever—and this ancient association is [...]
