George Brumat, a long-time owner of both Snug Harbor Jazz Club and the Port of Call Restaurant, died in his sleep in New Orleans on July 7. Brumat, a bearlike figure in his later years, was beloved by jazz musicians in New Orleans and beyond for his generous stewardship of the city’s prime modern jazz [...]
Except for 2001’s much-acclaimed Portraits of Wonder, New Orleans pianist Matt Lemmler was known mostly in pre-storm days as one of the city’s upper echelon sidemen. After Katrina, Lemmler landed in Houston, where he has just released the terrific Music of New Orleans. The tunes covered—the hoariest of New Orleans trad jazz standards—might make the [...]
Harry Connick, Jr. has been making records for 20 years now, but there are still many New Orleanians who don’t know what to make of him. In the process of conquering first the New York cabaret world, then the jazz charts, movies, TV and finally Broadway, he has been resented by a segment of the [...]
There are thousands of piano players, amateur and professional, who can plow through a few boogie-woogie tunes. Then there’s Carl Sonny Leyland. A British expat who lived in New Orleans in the ’90s before settling in California, Leyland is probably the most complete boogie stylist ever. In addition to the obvious masters—Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, [...]
