[Dixielandjazz] Mardi Gras - Where Is The Music Going?

[Steve Barbone]

Read this and weep. Apparently much of the "New Orleans" jazz has departed
for Mardi Gras celebrations in areas like Miami, Philadelphia, etc.

I hope some N.O. Jazz appears in N.O. before Mardi Gras ends.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


NY Times - Mardi Gras Journal
Jon Pareles at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

DAY 2 | 02.18 6:30 P.M. - At the Maritime Ball

Down a dark alley, behind a grocery store on a weedy main street in the
Ninth Ward, a tiki torch was burning to announce a show at the Spellcaster
Lodge, the home and performance space of the keyboardist and songwriter
Quintron and his wife and bandmate, Miss Pussycat.

It was the annual Maritime Ball, an event they have held during Mardi Gras
weekend since the 1990's--part house party, part proudly eclectic hipster
showcase, and one of the few places anywhere to hear rap, punk, chamber-rock
and Quintron's own keyboard-driven music on the same bill. In New Orleans,
of course, people danced to all of them.

Quintron moved to New Orleans in the mid-1990's as part of an influx of
artists into Bywater, a low-rent district on the higher ground in the Ninth
Ward. The Spellcaster Lodge was slightly damaged but not destroyed by
Hurricane Katrina. Now it has been spiffed up as a lounge/club with two
small stages and a disc-jockey booth.

Shiny plastic, something like a shag carpet, that is used for Mardi Gras
floats covers the walls in ripples; the ceiling has glitter in it. Set into
the walls are life preservers and little aquarium-like dioramas, like one
that has a rock band made out of pine cones. Hundreds of people, many in
costumes, soon arrived to pack the place. Keeping the maritime theme,
Quintron wore a sailor suit; Miss Pussycat had an aqua dress appliqued with
octopi. 

Quintron's Hammond organ, probably the only one in the world mounted behind
an automobile grille with a Louisiana vanity license plate spelling
QUINTRON, was on a stage along with his Drum Buddy, a custom gizmo that
sounds like a drum machine crossed with a theremin. But that performance
would start later, around 3 a.m.

First came the Herringbone Orchestra, an unlikely sextet -- accordion,
euphonium, harp, bass clarinet, cello, drums -- playing chamber-rock, New
Orleans-style. The pieces circled through three or four chords, with
crescendo variations and inner details emerging something like the Penguin
Cafe Orchestra. The New Orleans extra was the swing: some tango, some waltz,
some oom-pah, making the Minimalism not just arty, but earthy. Also on the
bill was the Overnight Lows, a punky hardcore band from Jackson, Miss.

But the crowd was there for Katey Red, a transvestite rapper in a red dress
and a blonde wig who was all rhythm and raunch. It was bounce music, the
low-budget, lowbrow New Orleans hip-hop that's so sex-obsessed it's almost
pure comedy; it also allows New Orleans rappers to vow, "We gon' bounce
back." 

Katey Red had a few verses about 9/11 and a post-Katrina rap, but mostly
bragged about being a gay prostitute; "Put my money on the dresser" is one
of the few lines quotable here. Onstage, Katey Red led syncopated crowd
chants as a CD played, everyone danced and shouted and there was pure,
uproarious New Orleans call-and-response: "Ya ya, ya, ya-ya ya."

And then came Quintron and Miss Pussycat. Their self-named "swamp tech"
wanders the last four decades of keyboard-driven rock, from garage-band
organ stomps thorough motoric 1970's German rock through the pulsating punk
Minimalism of Suicide through electropop, not to mention a little bit of
lounge polka. Mr. Quintron cranked up his Hammond organ, pumping out chords
and drones, shouting like a rocker who loves old R&B and trading chants with
Miss Pussycat in songs like "Swamp Buggy Badass." His Drum Buddy -- which
gets its rhythm patterns by using light sensors to pick up rays from holes
punched through what looked like rotating coffee cans -- generated whizzing,
swoopy sounds along with dance beats.

A woman in a tutu twirled onstage, her arms arched overhead. Miss Pussycat
shook some glitter-fringed maracas. And the dance floor at the Spellcaster
Lodge did, as one song put it, "the shake and bake."

It didn't end there. After the set, Mr. Quintron and other local musicians
put on red-and-white marching band uniforms -- emblazoned with a 9 and a cat
-- and picked up horns and drums to become the Ninth Ward Marching Band.
Although the Ninth Ward has become synonymous with the city's worst
devastation, the marching band long predates that notoriety. Quintron
started the group soon after he settled in New Orleans; it couldn't exist
anywhere else. At 4 a.m. in chilly weather, they were going to parade to the
French Quarter playing classic rock songs. Not me -- I needed some sleep
before the rest of Mardi Gras.