She’s the picture of self-possession. It’s Tuesday night and Meschiya Lake is standing to the left of her band, the Little Big Horns, with perfect posture, her hands squarely on her hips. She’s in a trim, vintage black dress with a white lace collar, but her face is hard to read. Is she having fun? [...]
Tag Archives: traditional jazz
Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, A Tribute to Sidney Bechet: Live in New Orleans (Independent)
August 1, 2011 – 12:58 am
Sidney Bechet’s music and prowess on the soprano saxophone was every bit as powerful, soulful, and inventive as his New Orleans compatriot Louis Armstrong, but Armstrong became the most famous jazz player ever and Bechet became more of cult figure. Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses’ new live recording, A Tribute to Sidney Bechet, is [...]
The New Orleans Moonshiners: The Many Moons of Frenchmen Street
August 1, 2011 – 12:14 am
You might say that the trajectory of banjoist Chris Edmunds’ musical career has been a bit backwards. In 2008, dismayed at a lack of steady work, he took the plunge and started up his own band, the New Orleans Moonshiners. Only after the group was playing regularly did other gigs start to materialize. “I was [...]
YouTube du Jour: Don Vappie
July 12, 2011 – 11:06 am
Tonight, Don Vappie performs at Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse at 8 p.m. Here he is at the Dew Drop in Mandeville playing “Careless Love” with La Planche à Laver.
Lionel Ferbos: The Century Mark
July 1, 2011 – 12:15 am
On Sunday, July 17, the incomparable Lionel Ferbos will be one hundred years old. In order to maintain his chops, he still practices his horn from 45 minutes to one hour every day. Musically, Ferbos goes back to another time, that critical formative era when jazz as we know it was beginning to take shape. [...]
YouTube du Jour: The New Orleans Moonshiners
June 16, 2011 – 9:37 am
The New Orleans Moonshiners are one of the favorites of the swing dance set as this video from the 2009 French Quarter Fest suggests. The Moonshiners will perform tonight at 6 p.m. at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art as part of its “Ogden After Hours” series. Though museum staff would prefer you not bump [...]
Tommy Sancton/Lars Edegran New Orleans Legacy Band, City of a Million Dreams (GHB Records)
June 1, 2011 – 12:57 am
Tommy Sancton’s notes to City of a Million Dreams include a photo taken during a performance at Preservation Hall in 1965. Sancton sits alongside his mentor and idol, clarinetist George Lewis. Clive Wilson holds up his trumpet alongside De De Pierce, while Lars Edegran faces his piano in the rear. A host of famous old [...]
New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp: Come Blow Your Horn
June 1, 2011 – 12:03 am
“It is sort of a fantasy jazz camp,” Banu Gibson says. “Our campers are people who are investment bankers whose parents told them, ‘No, you can’t be a musician for a living.’ Now they are going back and saying, ‘I’m going to do what I wanted to do.’ We get a lot of people who [...]
Download New Dr. Michael White: “West African Strut”
May 31, 2011 – 5:41 pm
Clarinetist Dr. Michael White is releasing his tenth album, Adventures in New Orleans Jazz, Part 1, on June 21, and to promote the new CD Basin Street Records, his label, has one of the new tracks, “West African Strut,” available early as a free download. “West African Strut” is emblematic of how the new album [...]
Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury Band, American Legacies (McCoury Music)
April 1, 2011 – 12:58 am
The evolution of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band into a conveyer of hip is one of the musical successes of post-K culture. We can no longer point to the band (or the hall) as simply a bastion of tradition; we must recognize it as an innovator of tradition. As invaluable as his father’s contributions were [...]
