Davis Rogan has a flair for the dramatic. His last album, The Once and Future DJ, was rescued from the flood before inspiring David Simon to base one of the characters in his HBO series Treme on Rogan’s life. Ever since, Davis has been walking through a dream world in which his own life intersects [...]
Drummers have the most difficult time going from being sidemen to leaders. Whether you were the propulsive force of your previous band or the featured soloist, the transition to front man from behind the kit is almost always problematic. Zigaboo Modeliste, the high performance engine behind the funk limousine of the Meters, has tinkered with [...]
Washboard Chaz is a lucky guy. Not everybody gets a festival named after them, but Chaz has become the iconic figurehead of one of the most interesting musical events to develop in New Orleans since the 2005 flood, the Bywater celebration called Chaz Fest. For a musician whose only equipment is a tricked-out washboard and [...]
This month, Consulting Editor John Swenson’s new book New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans examines the role musicians played in the city’s recovery. In this excerpt, he writes about the violence of 2006 and how it gave two musicians new artistic purpose. Glen David Andrews says he was one of [...]
Sugar on the Floor is Lynn Drury’s trump card. The talented New Orleans singer-songwriter has built a strong local following through her emotionally-charged live performances, but her strengths as a musician and songwriter haven’t been adequately captured on record until now. Part of the problem is that New Orleans is a difficult environment for songwriters. [...]
Theodore Walter “Sonny” Rollins was a teenage saxophone prodigy in the jazz hotbed of Harlem’s Sugar Hill neighborhood in New York City. Under the influence of Charlie Parker and the tutelage of Thelonious Monk, Rollins was the undisputed champion of tenor saxophonists in the 1950s, first as a sideman with luminaries such as Bud Powell, [...]
Mitch Woods will make his annual pilgrimage to New Orleans to pay tribute to the city’s rich R&B heritage during Jazz Fest. The boogie woogie piano player can roll those keys with the syncopated flourish of Ninth Ward masters such as Champion Jack Dupree, and his band will be stocked with New Orleans greats, including [...]
Thirty-three years is a long, long time, just about half of most people’s lives. Long enough to be an era. In this case, we’re talking about the era of the Radiators, a band that defined its time and place in New Orleans history and will play its final series of shows June 9 through 11 [...]
Duke Ellington composed music covering an extraordinary range of themes. His 12-song suite Such Sweet Thunder is not among his better-known works, but it is a beautiful and thoughtful piece of music that possesses all the coloration, dynamics and swing that Ellington is known for. Delfeayo Marsalis has been fascinated with this work for years [...]
Dawn arrived on Fat Tuesday 2011 with a gray, windy bluster and a forecast of heavy rain. But nature could not throw a wet blanket on the smoldering fire of revelers gathering along St. Charles Avenue waiting for the parades to roll. Outside of Commander’s Palace, Pete Fountain readied himself to lead those parades downtown, [...]
