March 2014
BackTalk
- BackTalk: Getting Around with Sousaphone and Bassist Matt Perrine
With Carnival season in high gear and French Quarter Fest, then Jazz Fest, just around the corner, New Orleans musicians become…
Cover Story
- Two-Way-Pocky-Way: Big Chief Donald Harrison, Jr.
Two things have surrounded saxophonist Donald Harrison, Jr. throughout his life—jazz and the Mardi Gras Indian tradition. The son of the…
En Route
- En Route: Gold and the Rush's Mark Strella at Food Drunk Food Truck
What did you order today? The Mardi Gras burger, a burger on a king cake bun. What do you like…
Features
- Not Fade Away: Traditional Irish Music in New Orleans
As early as the late 18th century, Irish immigrants arrived in New Orleans, setting up shops and integrating into the city's… - Jazz Fest 2014 Top Fives
Brian Boyles Public Enemy: Probably the most popular band among my friends in 7th grade, I missed them when… - Krewe of Red Beans & Rice Show Off Mardi Gras Costumes
Krewe of Red Beans & Rice parades with the Treme Brass Band from Port and Royal through the Marigny and Treme… - How "Mardi Gras Mambo" Became an Unlikely Carnival Anthem
Down in New Orleans where the blues was born, It takes a cool cat to blow a horn On LaSalle and… - Happy Mardi Gras 2014 from OffBeat Readers
In mid-February, we asked our readers to send us their best, worst, craziest, goofiest, most beautiful or most favorite Mardi Gras…
Fresh
- Bandaloo Music Community to Launch in New Orleans in March 2014
Boasting "Connect, collaborate, create music" as its mantra, Bandaloo is a new national model for exploring music through community that will… - Music and Friends: Roxie Watson
Roxie Watson is a five-piece string band that blends gorgeous vocal harmonies and stellar songs. The group formed in 2007 as… - Beacons of the Scene: Preservation Hall Launches Pres Hall Brass
The latest development in Preservation Hall's kinetic drive to update itself comes in the form of Pres Hall Brass, a relatively… - Nas to Perform Illmatic in Its Entirety at BUKU Music + Art Project
On April 15, 1994, Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones, a 20-year-old lyricist from New York’s Queensbridge projects, released his debut album,… - Marc Stone, Josh Paxton and Freddie Staehle's New Groove
Singer-songwriter, guitarist and WWOZ DJ Marc Stone has been working as a duo with keyboardist Josh Paxton in recent years. After… - Zydeco Comes Out on Top at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards
Move over Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Johnny Cash. Make room for the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier. Chenier moved his… - Musicians Make Money
In Money from Music, a survey of 5,000 musicians nationwide, Peter DiCola at Northwestern University School of Law found that recording… - It's Five Somewhere with Zulu Chairman Lester Pollard
The Zulu Parade is one of New Orleans’ most beloved Mardi Gras traditions. But the Zulu organization also produces the Monday-before-Mardi… - Mardi Gras 2014 Concert Series at the Howlin' Wolf
There are a tremendous amount of variables which factor into the planning of a successful pre-Mardi Gras weekend, especially when trying… - All GLAAD About Big Freedia
National audiences and leading media-industry figures seem to be figuring out what OffBeat readers—who voted Big Freedia as Best Bounce Artist…
In The Spirit
- In the Spirit: "Buddy Bolden" by Emeril's Delmonico's Colleen Vizents
"I used to come to New Orleans on vacation all the time, before I picked up and moved here. Seattle is…
Letters
- March 2014 Letters to OffBeat Magazine
NOT KNOWING BETTER John Barry makes a good point in the February issue about Aaron Neville changing “cracker” to “farmer” in…
Mojo Mouth
- Music Party Central
Years ago, OffBeat, the Louisiana Music Factory and WWOZ proclaimed themselves to be the “Louisiana Music Collective.” We all promote, market…
OffBeat Eats
- NOLA Smokehouse: Smokin' on Jackson
Rob Bechtold of NOLA Smokehouse is no longer hiding his meats behind the PJ's on Magazine Street. He's now smoking up… - Dining Out: Peche Seafood Grill (Restaurant Review)
Michael Jordan’s short-lived professional baseball career proved that excellence in all endeavors is a rare human achievement. So when a trio… - En Route: Gold and the Rush's Mark Strella at Food Drunk Food Truck
What did you order today? The Mardi Gras burger, a burger on a king cake bun. What do you like… - In the Spirit: "Buddy Bolden" by Emeril's Delmonico's Colleen Vizents
"I used to come to New Orleans on vacation all the time, before I picked up and moved here. Seattle is…
Dining Out
- Not Fade Away: Traditional Irish Music in New Orleans
As early as the late 18th century, Irish immigrants arrived in New Orleans, setting up shops and integrating into the city's… - Dining Out: Peche Seafood Grill (Restaurant Review)
Michael Jordan’s short-lived professional baseball career proved that excellence in all endeavors is a rare human achievement. So when a trio…
Reviews
- Cindy Scott, Historia (Catahoula Records)
I’ve called Cindy Scott’s debut album, Major to Minor, my favorite album by a local female singer. Her follow-up, Let the… - Monica McIntyre, It Soon Come (Independent)
From the age of seven, Monica McIntyre was immersed in orchestra, alongside her nine-year-old sister, Marcia. Growing up, McIntyre and her… - MadFro, I.F.W.I. (Independent)
These debut tracks from MadFro are laced with wah-wah pedals, catchy choruses and popping snares. Vocals come courtesy of Slangston Hughes,… - Rod Melancon, Parish Lines (Medina River Records)
His look makes him come on like a Cajun Elvis. His first ambition was to be a movie star. And almost… - Warren Storm / Willie Tee and Cypress, Swamp Pop Jukebox (Jin Records)
From a marketing perspective, Swamp Pop Jukebox is the perfect title for Warren Storm/Willie Tee and Cypress’ latest since it captures… - Shotgun Jazz Band, Don't Give Up the Ship (Independent)
Something about the Shotgun Jazz Band’s Don’t Give Up The Ship elevates it above the typical traditional New Orleans jazz recording.… - NOLA County, Human Heartland (Independent)
“Keep Country Weird” is the unofficial motto of this quintet, which functions as another one of those spontaneous NOLA “supergroups” trying… - Renee and the Walkaways, The Walkaway Sessions (Independent)
It sounds like a dream come true for a lot of aspiring singer-songwriters, to have your debut album expertly produced by… - Steve Pistorius and Friends, New Orleans Shuffle (Independent)
This album, the product of a New Orleanian, a Swede, a Canadian and a Brit, is fine testimony to the power… - A L'Afrique, Pay Day (Fruge Records)
Christened after a Mississippi John Hurt song, A L'Afrique symbolizes a cultural bridge of sorts that was years in the making.… - Jimbo Mathus & the Tri-State Coalition, Dark Night of the Soul (Fat Possum)
On one of the live records from the Hill Country Picnic, songwriter/singer/guitarist Jimbo Mathus introduces a song by saying, “Let’s boogie!”… - Flow Tribe, At Capacity (Independent)
Of all the bands working the college funk circuit in 2014, Flow Tribe stands out as one of the best. They… - Creole United, Non Jamais Fait (Independent)
Who says rural Creole accordion music, the sound that gave birth to zydeco, has to be French songs from the early… - Sean Ardoin 'n' Zydekool, Return of the Kool (Independent)
For more than 80 years, a member of the Ardoin family has been recording Creole accordion music or the modern dance… - Will Kimbrough, Sideshow Love (Daphne)
Will Kimbrough writes songs that sneak up on you. They have their subtleties—like the way the acoustic slide guitar plays above… - Necessary Gentlemen, Fools to Stay (Independent)
One of the six Necessary Gentlemen of the band’s title is actually a woman, but the deceit stops there—everything else about… - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Give the People What They Want (Daptone Records)
Cancer’s a bitch. And even though Sharon Jones’ latest barn-burner of soul and Dap-King funk was completed before her diagnosis with… - Harn Solo, Perfect Picture (Independent)
It’s not the blasted urban hellscape that Detroit is (yet), but there’s no reason a city as relentlessly ethnic as NOLA…
