[Dixielandjazz] The Latest Revival.

[Steve Barbone]

Following is excerpted from a very long article. Main point, In Louisiana,
Cajun music is enjoying a revival among the 20 something young people. Why?
Read on. Because, it is played by young bands, for young audiences, as dance
music, focused on the relevance of "today" via fire and energy.

Why not an OKOM revival along the same path? We've got youth bands, we've
got jazz camps, we've got everything it takes to bring the music into
today's scene, in place . . . except?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

NY TIMES - March 4, 2007 - By GEOFFREY HIMES - LAFAYETTE, La.

Cajun Sound, Rock ¹n¹ Roll Energy

This wasn¹t a show for Mardi Gras tourists. On Lundi Gras, as they call the
day before Fat Tuesday in south Louisiana, the Pine Leaf Boys were onstage
before a crowd of locals at the Grant Street Dancehall here. The five
musicians, all in their 20s, played songs by Cajun legends like the 1950s
accordionist Iry LeJeune and the 1930s fiddler Dennis McGee, but the dancers
who were packed shoulder to shoulder on the well-worn wooden floor didn¹t
seem to care about the history. They were more interested in the visceral
excitement of the band¹s signature song, ³Pine Leaf Boy Two Step.² . . .

This was the Pine Leaf Boys¹ seventh show in five days, and if you had spent
the Mardi Gras weekend in Lafayette, the biggest city in the Cajun region
known as Acadiana, you could have also seen the Lost Bayou Ramblers at the
Blue Moon Saloon on Saturday night and the Red Stick Ramblers at 307
Downtown on Sunday night. At each spot you would have found young dancers
responding with the same enthusiasm.

These three Lafayette bands, with a fourth ‹ Feufollet, a teenage group that
spent the weekend touring the Midwest ‹ form the core of a renaissance in
Cajun and Creole music. After years of recycled arrangements and graying
performers and listeners, Acadiana¹s dance halls are suddenly filled with
young musicians, young dancers and a hard-rocking approach to the old
acoustic instruments.

Next month Arhoolie Records will release the Pine Leaf Boys¹ second album,
³Blues de Musicien,² an impressive recording that may vault them onto the
national roots-music scene ‹ though probably not onto the pop charts. They
are introducing the album with an East Coast tour that brings them to
Connolly¹s in Manhattan on Sunday night. . .

³Cajun music has survived because it¹s dance music,² Mr. Savoy, 25, said
before the show. ³Cajuns have a need to go out on a Saturday night to a
dance hall and have a good time.²

When he goes out to dance, Mr. Savoy said, ³I want to hear a 25-year-old kid
jamming on the accordion in a bar where young people are screaming on
Football Friday.² Then again, ³I don¹t want to hear five two-steps in a
row,² he added. ³I want to hear a waltz so I can get close to a woman.² . .

³I want to document what¹s going on here,² Joel Savoy, 26, said, ³because
it¹s exciting to see all these young kids playing this weird traditional
music with accordions and fiddles and to have all these young kids eating it
up like it¹s the coolest thing ever.²