[Dixielandjazz] The Spirit of New Orleans

[Steve barbone]

>From a press release: We Americans might wonder why a group like this is not
successfully touring in the USA among all of our Festivals here.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


The Spirit of New Orleans.

The City of New Orleans, one of the symbols of the Jazz culture, has
specially suffered from the effects of the Katrina hurricane. The City's
musicians are in a very difficult situation: many have lost their homes and
their belongings, and most of them do not have a job, as the City's musical
activities have slowed down quite a bit.

For the above reasons, we organized a European tour in November 2005 for a
group of Traditional Jazz musicians, which we billed as "THE SPIRIT OF NEW
ORLEANS" to try and keep them working. The tour was so successful we had to
accept some extra dates in March of 2006. The band has appeared in Orense,
Lleida, Madrid, Ávila, Pamplona, Barakaldo, San Sebastián, Valencia, Murcia,
Lalín, Oviedo, Jaca, Zaragoza (Spain), Eskisehir (Turkey) and Marciac
(France). For the Summer of 2006 they are scheduled to appear in some of
Europe's leading Jazz Festivals, like Vitoria (Spain), Juan-Les-Pins and
Marciac (France), Brecon (Wales), Imatra (Finland), Stockholm (Sweden),
Rotterdam (Holland), etc

We have offered the leadership of the group to young trumpetist Mark Braud,
who has put together an all-star package of Traditional New Orleans Jazz
musicians. The first group featured Mark Braud (trumpet), Lucien Barbarin
(trombone), Tom Fischer (clarinet and saxophone), Loren Pickford (piano),
Kerry Lewis (bass), Rob Espino (tuba) and Gerald French (drums), plus singer
Charmaine Neville. Orange Kellin and Evan Christopher (clarinet), Steve
Pistorious (piano), Walter Payton (bass) and singer Lillian Boutté have
worked with the group in other occasions.

We intend to keep presenting this wonderful group of musicians in Europe:
they keep alive the musical tradition started at the beginning of the 20th
century by pioneers like King Oliver, Jimmy Noone, Kid Ory, Johnny and Baby
Doods, or Jelly Roll Morton, and later taken to the highest level by the
genius of Louis Armstrong. They represent not only a great musical
tradition, but also the spirit of a great Community: "THE SPIRIT OF NEW
ORLEANS".