Before During After speaks to the power of Hurricane Katrina, though not in the way it intends. Photographer Elizabeth Kleinveld had the provocative idea to document how Katrina affected people—in this case, photographers—by looking at the work they did before, during and after it. That means that there are only two or three Katrina-related photos [...]
Two Louis
David Stricklin
Louis Armstrong: The Soundtrack of the American Experience (Ivan R. Dee)
Scott Allen Nollen Louis Armstrong: The Life, Music, and Screen Career (McFarland and Company)
Louis Daniel Armstrong lies buried in Flushing, Queens, but his heart belongs to the Crescent City. Practically and spiritually, he belongs to the planet, and measuring the full extent of [...]
Michael Patrick Welch with Alison Fensterstock, New Orleans: The Underground Guide (UNO Press)
New Orleans has long fostered an underground scene unlike any other. Our tendency to prefer life a little quirkier is one of the reasons people migrate to the Crescent City. Not many other places offer great live music by talented musicians accompanied by a cabaret show and a bingo game.
Still, the rest of the world [...]
Andre Williams, Sweets and Other Stories (Kicks Books)
Hello world, meet Andre Williams, man of letters. If you’ve already met “Mr. Rhythm” in his better-known persona as purveyor of greasy R&B to the world, said knowledge shall deepen your deep-frying sensation at his debut between covers. If not, you need not worry. Williams moves along the printed page as “crazy” and “crude” (two [...]
Bruce Boyd Raeburn, New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History (University of Michigan Press)
It is no secret to musicians trying to play New Orleans jazz for a living that jazz writers have agendas, and that what passes for worthy in the jazz media often has little to do with the music. This fine book is for these souls, and for anyone with an interest in New Orleans music [...]
Ethan Brown, Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder That Rocked New Orleans (Henry Holt)
In the fall of 2006, a year after Katrina, Times-Picayune headlines detailed the murder of young French Quarter denizen Addie Hall, murdered by her boyfriend. Her body was found butchered and in pieces in the refrigerator and cooking pots in the couple’s French Quarter apartment. A few days after the murder, the boyfriend, 26-year-old Zackery [...]
Good News
It was nice to see former OffBeat contributor and WWOZ DJ John Sinclair back in town for the funerals of Snooks Eaglin and Antoinette K-Doe. Sinclair is back in another sense with the publication of It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader (Headpress Press). The book collects his prose and poetry dating back as far [...]
Jeff Kaliss, I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone/Eddie Santiago, Sly: The Lives of Sylvester Stewart and Sly Stone
For those who tuned in late, Sly and the Family Stone released seven essential albums, from 1967’s A Whole New Thing to 1974’s Small Talk. Go out and get them. I’ll wait. The seven-strong, five-black/two white, five-male/two-female lineup hardly erased the Negro Problem, but it had a hell of a time, and a heaven too, [...]
James Sullivan, The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America (Gotham)
To New York Senator Jacob Javits, trying to praise him, James Brown was “Jamie Brown.” To Boston mayor Kevin White, whom the singer introduced at Boston Garden that fateful night, James Brown was “James Washington” (mixed up, perhaps, with Walter Washington, first black Mayor-Commissioner of the nation’s capital) until “Brown” stuck in Mr. Mayor’s mind [...]
