The voice of experience echoes through Silence, a duet recording by saxophonist David Murray and pianist Mal Waldron. Recorded a year before Waldron died in 2002, this is the legend’s last known recording. These senior statesmen of the jazz establish their authority from the first notes on this excellent album. Neither Waldron nor Murray ever breaks a sweat. The music doesn’t show urgency or a sense of danger. But each musician plays at a level where they can breeze through material that would flummox other musicians. It’s a joy to hear two masters handle challenging music with such aplomb. On “All Too Soon” they express a sadness with no hint of sentimentality, a sound that comes from hard experience. “I Should Care” has a stately dignity. And “Hurray for Herbie” sounds avant-garde without being confrontational. The track raises the possibility that the last century’s more radical tendencies might find a wider audience, just as in the visual arts early Modernism eventually became mainstream. Stripped of the fire of youth, Silence doesn’t grab you at the first listen. These are musician with no need to prove themselves or win over a new audience. With each listen, though, Silence reveals greater depth. It might be a minor masterpiece.

Paul Bley says the subject of his new album is time. I take him at his word. On About Time the 75-year-old jazz pianist offers two solo improvisations: the 33-minute title track followed by a 10-minute “encore.” When we think of time in music, it’s the meter and not the length that matters. Music marks time. It divides it. Creates a beat. A beat, though, rarely appears on About Time as the basic structures that give music form—themes, heads, verses—are cast aside for a composition that drifts from one moment to the next. Melodies never return. A chord sequence plays only once.

How is About Time about time? Is Bley suggesting that musical time is a lie? Does music’s ability to capture time and make a moment (a meter, a chorus, a five-minute song) return exactly as it was before disguise how time actually works? About Time’s half-hour track flows by almost bereft of landmarks. Long songs are not unusual in jazz, but they normally just stretch the same structure used by a 3-minute pop tune. About Time captures how time passes in life, where a year, a month, a day will never match the one before or the one that follows. It demands your complete attention, but it fully rewards that effort.

Once a restaurant with perhaps an excess of personality, the new incarnation seems too eager to please and too afraid to offend. The hummus, with an unusual drizzle of balsamic vinegar across the top, only whetted my appetite for the better bowls at our local Middle Eastern restaurants. A barbecue sandwich, actually slow braised beef, managed to be dry despite the long soak. On the other hand, a sandwich of grilled vegetables with sun-dried tomato pesto was refreshing and served between two excellent slices of focaccia. The hamburger, with a hand formed patty stuffed with a long list of options (I went with chipotle peppers and Swiss cheese) could rightly claim a place in our local pantheon of great burgers.

I salvaged the barbecue sandwich with a squirt of the housemade hot sauce sitting next to the ketchup and mustard bottles, and the burst of flavor made me wish that Stop 9 would take more chances. When they step out on a limb, like they do with the rich avocado ice cream that gets a woody edge from a measure of tequila, the place soars. As it stands, I’ll be exiting the streetcar at stop number 9 for an afternoon snack of grown-up ice cream, a shot of sweet Cubano coffee and a jar of that hot sauce to take home to make my own exciting meal.

NOW CLOSED

Kirk Coco is building a little brewery on Tchoupitoulas. Along with his partner Peter Caddoo, a former brewer at Dixie, the New Orleans native is installing equipment in a warehouse on the corner of 7th Street, picking out the right design for tap handles and perfecting his recipes. In the fall, New Orleans Lager and Ale—or NOLA—Brewing Company will introduce their blond and brown brews. “A very small, city-wide brewery,” Coco says. “A brewery for New Orleans.”

NOLA Brewing Company has its roots in the days after Katrina. Coco, a Navy man stationed in Seattle at the time, watched on TV as the city filled with water. “I had this really horrible, guilty feeling,” he says. “God, I´m up here, not doing anything and all my friends and family are down there dealing with the problem.” He told his wife that after he left the Navy, they were moving back to New Orleans. And he vowed to start a company that made something in Orleans Parish. Too many manufactures, he thought, had left the city. Even products identified with New Orleans like Abita, Zatarain and now Crystal Hot Sauce are made outside the city.

“The more I studied the city and tried to figure out what at one time we were good at,” Coco says, “the more it came up that this city was the brewing capital of the South.” Jax, Regal, Falstaff, XXXX, Union and Dixie all brewed beer in New Orleans. By the 1960s, all but Dixie had closed. Even that survivor was limping before the storm.

“There was only one problem,” he says. “I don´t really know how to brew beer.”

He found a master brewer in Dixie´s Peter Caddoo, who along with most of Dixie´s staff was laid off the March before Katrina. In 1980, while a student at the Culinary Institute of America, Caddoo began his first batch of homebrew the day John Lennon died. Brewing was Caddoo´s hobby until Emeril Lagasse asked him to be the sous chef at Commander´s Palace. Instead of rising in the culinary ranks, Caddoo turned down the offer and took up brewing full time. NOLA Brewing Company will initially introduce itself to local drinkers with two easy-to-sip brews aimed to please most palates. Over the next year, though, look for some of Caddoo´s unique beers, like a hoppy Indiana Pale Ale sweetened with sweet potatoes.

But before a New Orleans bartender can pour a pint of NOLA Brewing Company´s beer, even at a bar down the street from the brewery, the kegs must travel to Jefferson Parish and back. In many other states, microbreweries like Coco´s can sell directly to customers. In New Orleans, all beer must pass through one of two local liquor distributors, either Glazer´s or Republic. Coco thinks that the extra hurdle has prevented microbreweries from sprouting in New Orleans. If NOLA Brewing Company succeeds, though, he hopes others follow his lead and start crafting beers for local taste.

The blond ale will be an upgrade for folks used to light American lagers. The brown, although dark as chicory coffee, is designed to quench the thirst of a city where it rarely gets cold. The head is almost effervescent, and the flavor hints at caramel without being heavy or lingering too long on the tongue. “The idea,” Coco says, “was to make a brown ale that people in New Orleans would drink with crawfish or barbecue.”

At first, NOLA Brewing Company will make no more than 3,000 barrels (the equivalent of 6,000 kegs) and they never plan to make more than 10,000 barrels. The first year, they´ll just sell kegs to bars in New Orleans. The next year, they´ll add bottles. “We´re going to try to put out the best beer that we can. I hope the city embraces it,” Coco says. “Or at least a very small portion. We don´t need a lot of people to drink it.”

The melodic playing of saxophonist Charles Lloyd often drifts lightly from one measure to the next. His ability to make popular jazz in the heyday of the hippie and his years spend teaching mediation add to his ethereal aura. The young pianist Jason Moran is incessantly inventive and deeply intellectual. He never lets us forget that the piano is percussion instrument, and his rhythms are less inspired by cool swing than the clank of machines. On Lloyd’s live album Rabo de Nube, the unlikely pair joins forces, and each is better for the encounter. Lloyd’s playing is tougher than normal; Moran’s more melodic. Lloyd opens the 14-minute track “Prometheus” with a flutter of notes on the tenor sax. The rhythmically inventive tune is full of the unexpected twists that fans expect from Moran. When it draws to a close, Moran echoes Lloyd’s runs from the start. On “Booker’s Garden,” Lloyd takes up the flute and ironically, his playing has a rougher edge that brings him closer to Moran. The two almost swap styles at times, finding new possibilities in the exchange. Live albums, even in jazz, can be self-indulgent. On Rabo de Nube, however, the format gives the players time to explore. Hopefully Lloyd and Moran will find more occasions to meet up and continues their conversation.

The small opening gesture sets the tone at MiLa. Slade Rushing and Allison Vines-Rushing are two of the most technical adept chefs in New Orleans, but they don’t try to dazzle. Instead, the husband and wife team devote their skill to drawing out the essence of flavors familiar to Southerners. Technique serves the end of taste.

Vines-Rushing won a James Beard rising star award in 2004 while at Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar in New York. Around the time of Katrina, the couple opened Longbranch on the Northshore, but closed it last summer. Now, in the space that once held Rene Bistrot, they’re bringing Southern and Louisiana food into the 21st Century without turning their backs on tradition. With their signature Oysters Rockefeller “Deconstructed” (ignore the trendy, pretentious name), the couple boldly suggests that this New Orleans classic could be better. They ditch the thick cap of sauce that too often overpowers the oyster. In this version, the delicious Gulf oysters aren’t treated like an unwelcome uncle at Sunday supper. Spinach, bits of bacon and wisps of licorice root surround the plump, poached oyster. A redfish advertised as “filo-crusted” arrives with a single shingle of crust across the top that provides crunch without obscuring the fish’s flavor. The pot of pig cheeks and langostines with turnips and collard greens gets a final dash of hot pepper vinegar at the table that makes the whole dish snap to attention.

MiLa never flags, not even in the final moment when a whimsical update on the root beer float or an almost floral rice pudding ends the meal as capably as it started.

817 Common St.

412-2580

Sun-Fri 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5:30-10 p.m., Sat 5:30-10 p.m.

Lu Brow, the bartender at the Swizzle Stick Bar, drops several lime wedges into a cocktail shaker and squeezes the last one to test their juiciness. She arranges her measures and ingredients around the shaker like a chef preparing her mise en place. She adds a precise amount of Cointreau followed by Plymouth gin. She shakes in one dash of Angostura bitters. With a wooden muddler, she gives the limes a few twists. A scoop of ice goes in. She caps the shaker, raises it to eye level and rocks it back and forth. Then she grabs a chilled cocktail glass and strains into it the Pegu Club, a bracing drink from the days before America tried to outlaw alcohol. Meanwhile, on Bourbon Street, another bartender pulls a lever and fills a plastic cup with sweet, potent slush.

In New Orleans, where we insist on good food, why don’t we demand better drinks? Even our signature Sazeracs are too often as sweet as sno-balls. We’re settling for Lucky Dogs at every dinner when we could be having trout amandine. “I’d like us nationally to be known for well-made cocktails as much as we are for food,” says Brow. “Not a Hurricane. Not a Hand Grenade.”

Across America, drinkers are demanding better cocktails. Drinks less sweet than soda pop. Drinks made with fresh citrus instead of sour mix. The kind of well-balanced drinks that almost vanished during Prohibition but have made a comeback in recent years. “People got so used to having fresh, seasonal, big flavors on the food side,” says Dale DeGroff, the former bartender at New York’s Rainbow Room and the author of The Craft of the Cocktail. “That prepared them for what has happened on the beverage side: the culinary cocktail.”

Chris McMillian, the bartender at the Renaissance Pere Marquette’s new Jazz Bar and a recognized master of classic cocktails, blames the convention business for holding back New Orleans’ drinking culture. “It’s the same reason we don’t have Dixieland jazz clubs on Bourbon Street,” he says. “The 30-something conventioneer, they want to go to Razzoo and the Cat’s Meow.”

In other cities, customers ask for better drinks. In New Orleans, McMillian thinks the bartenders must teach their customers why well crafted drinks are superior. “You don’t make fun of the guy who wants a Cosmopolitan,” he says. “You try to make the best version they’ve had. Gain trust.”

“People aren’t demanding better, because they haven’t seen better,” says Neal Bodenheimer, bartender at the Delachaise. The New Orleans native who returned a year and half ago after working in some of New York’s top restaurants will test the local interest in well-made cocktails when he opens Cure this fall. At the renovated 1904 firehouse on the corner of Freret and Upperline, Bodenheimer will take the cocktail craft to its highest level. The menu mixes classic and cutting edge cocktails made with fresh juices, homemade tonic and vermouth and then chilled with oversized ice cubes that won’t water down the drink.

“In my opinion, the bar business doesn’t function properly here because of video poker,” says Bodenheimer. The bar’s cut of the video poker take helps places that make inferior drinks stay open, but he will rely solely on the quality of his cocktails, and the customer service skills he learned working for legendary restaurateurs like New York’s Danny Meyer, to keep Cure in the black.

McMillian hopes once more customers taste well-made drinks, they will raise standards across the city. “They have to say, no, I’m sorry this is not a good Margarita,” he says. “Send it back.”

Is New Orleans’ reluctance to embrace the cocktail craze just another example of the city’s healthy skepticism towards trends from the coasts? “How could something that’s better be a passing fad?” asks DeGroff. He worked with the Marriott chain on a program to replace sour mix with fresh juice at all of their hotels, and he has also seen mainstream chain restaurants take an interest in making better cocktails. “When you can have the best, why go back to sugar water?”

McMillian agrees, “Everybody pretty much appreciates better.”

Take Up the Shaker

You are guaranteed to get a good drink at Tales of the Cocktail on July 16-20. The annual conference has become a required event for master mixologists, historians of the cocktail and anyone who enjoys a drink. Events range from cocktail dinners to demonstrations by the world’s leading bartenders. For more information, visit TalesOfTheCocktail.com.

Food and Drink Under Glass

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SouthernFood.org) opened last month in the Uptown end of the Riverwalk Mall. The initial exhibits explore Louisiana cuisine, the White House kitchen and African-American foodways. On July 21 at 10 a.m., the Museum of the American Cocktail (MuseumOfTheAmericanCocktail.org), which shares the same space, opens its doors and its tasting room. The museum documents two hundred years of cocktail history.

The Delachaise: 3442 St. Charles Ave., 895-0858.

Swizzle Stick Bar: 300 Poydras St., 595-3305.

Buzz has been building in the jazz world about Davy Mooney and his 7-string guitar. The New Orleans-native placed third in the 2005 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. After the storm, he moved to New York City and managed to stand out amid the mass of other talented players. Now he’s back home and a student at the elite Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, where top young players study the music with masters like Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Terence Blanchard. On Astoriano, Mooney proves that he’s a musician to watch, even though the record captures someone still maturing as an artist. Mooney’s self-assured playing is always fluid and smart. The most stripped down tracks, like “I Will Wait for You” and “Moon Song,” are the strongest. The give him room to focus on harmonies. On other tracks, John Ellis’ saxophone too often drowns out Mooney’s guitar. Ellis, another young player with a growing reputation, is solid but rarely surprising, and the delicate tone of Mooney’s guitar can’t stand up to the horn. Mooney’s potential is clear. The time he’ll spend studying with legends of the genre at the Monk Institute will no doubt develop his talent. When he finds his groove and the perfect setting for his guitar, everyone will know Mooney’s name.

A blue collar crowd from nearby plants pack Sammy’s for platters that need a “wide-load” warning. Even in this city of big portions, I was shocked by the gargantuan plates. Two moist, grilled pork chops, served with two sides, were each larger than a big man’s hands and seasoned with an entire spice cabinet of herbs. For the sides, try the potato salad with a zing of mustard or the jambalaya with almost more chicken and sausage than rice. The Ray Ray po-boy is an enormous 11-inch loaf stuffed with ham, cheese and a breaded and fried chicken breast spilling out the side. The red beans were full of flavor and didn’t need even a dash of hot sauce.

Sammy’s can be inconsistent, though. Although the pork chops were moist both times I tried them, they once tasted like cayenne was the only spice used. A side of baked macaroni was rich and stringy one time, but slippery and tasting of fake cheese the next. A roast beef po-boy was dry despite the generous helping of gravy.

Are New Orleanians always suspicious of the shiny and new? Although Sammy’s looks like a restaurant that could be found anywhere, the flavors are strictly local. And when you can still see waterlines taller than a man from the dining room of Sammy’s, maybe we’ve got enough grit in this city.

3000 Elysian Fields Ave.

947-0675

Mon-Thr 10:45a.m.-5p.m., Fri 10:45a.m.-7p.m., Sat 10:45a.m.-4p.m.

Keilen Williams perches on the tailgate of his truck, leans into the traffic streaming down Claiborne Avenue and dangles a massive shrimp from a line. He wears a sharp Cabela’s fishing hat, a serious look on his face, a long knife strapped to his belt and white shrimp boots on his feet. “I started making the right presentation,” says the fourth generation fisherman, “and you see, people come over.” A scale hangs from one side of the truck and an American flag flies on the other. In the bed he has coolers full of colossal shrimp that he sells for $5 a pound.

Williams makes the shrimp on his line dance for the cars whizzing past. He learned that trick on ESPN’s Bassmaster. “Normally when you’re fishing, you pop the bait,” he says. “You dangle one and make it look alive.” Instead of bass, Williams lures customers with his bait. One guy walks away with four pounds in a black plastic bag. “I bought some from you before,” he says. “I know it’s good.”

An older lady leans against the truck and inspects the shrimp. “I’ve been here twice today, looking for you,” she says. “Well, I have to go catch them,” says Williams. He shrimps at night, delivers to restaurants in the morning and sells on Claiborne in the afternoon.

A young woman marvels at the size of the shrimp. “He’s got shrimp steroids or something,” she says. “Don’t say that,” Williams replies. “It’s baseball season.”

Aaron Burgau, the chef at Restaurant Patois, stops by to set up a delivery. He offers to hook Williams up with chefs at Galatoire’s and Clancy’s. “People from out of town are astonished at the size of these shrimp, the taste,” Williams says. That evening, chef Burgau will serve his Uptown customers plates piled with shrimp that Williams caught. “Our seafood in Louisiana,” Williams says, “is out of the water and on your plate in less than 24 hours.”

To place a large order or check if Williams will be on Claiborne Avenue at Josephine Street, call (504) 358-1444 or email shrimpmank@yahoo.com.

A Seafood, Tomato and Zydeco Salad

The springtime festival calendar has gotten so full that three festivals have to share a single weekend. June 13-15 from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., the newly christened Vieux to Do brings together the Louisiana Seafood Festival, the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival and the 22-year-old Great French Market Creole Tomato Festival. The three festivals will stretch along the river from Jackson Square to the newly reopened French Market and the Old US Mint.

Chefs such as Susan Spicer of Bayona and Dominique Macquet of Dominique’s, along with students from Delgado College and the John Folse Culinary Institute, will show off their skills. More than 15 restaurants, including Surrey’s, Antoine’s and the Red Fish Grill, will be selling food. Two Grammy winners will headline the Cajun-Zydeco Festival—BeauSoleil and Terrance Simien—and Grammy nominees the Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars will also perform.

Don’t eat too much at the Vieux to Do, because there will be a reservation booth to make dinner reservations at restaurants around the city. Those not fortunate enough to live in the land of endless festivals can stop by the FedEx booth to ship some seafood or Creole tomatoes home.

Crawfishing Again

Everyone has an opinion about what Jazz Fest should be: more jazz, cheaper tickets, fewer aging pop stars. We all have ideas about the relationship between the festival and Louisiana and see ways that it could better reflect that relationship.

After writing last month’s story about vendors using imported crawfish, I wondered if I was another person trying to impose my own view on Jazz Fest. I believe Louisiana crawfish tastes better, and buying local helps our culture survive. I think every restaurant and festival should use local crawfish, but I admit that it bothered me more that Jazz Fest was selling crawfish farmed from the other side of the globe instead of down the road.

After that issue came out, I found a pdf for potential food vendors on Jazz Fest’s Website. Under “Rules and Regulations,” Jazz Fest tells them: “All foods must be prepared with fresh, wholesome and natural ingredients. Festival does not allow pre-smoked or pre-cooked meats, pre-packaged mixes and/or seasonings, foreign crawfish, processed cheese-food and parboiled (converted) rice without express written consent of Food Director.”

Evidently Jazz Fest does share these values, or it did, anyway. According Matthew Goldman, the Press and Advertising Director for Jazz Fest, “The language noted has been included in the food contracts since before Katrina, when the festival was a lot more vigilant on the use of Louisiana crawfish. The management and enforcement of the rule was still very difficult to oversee prior to 2005. Post-Katrina, the landscape and the world has changed and it is not feasible to mandate the use of only Louisiana crawfish at the Festival.”

Antoine’s: 713 St. Louis St., 581-4422
Bayona: 430 Dauphine St., 525-4455
Red Fish Grill: 115 Bourbon St., 598-1200
Restaurant Patois: 6078 Laurel St., 895-9441
Surrey’s Juice Bar: 1418 Magazine St., 524-3828