[Dixielandjazz] Notes from N.O. J & H

[Stephen G Barbone]

Snips From the NY Times Blog:

BTW, for those who have never heard Esperanza Spalding, this 20  
something woman is a GREAT jazz musician, Berkelee College of Music  
grad etc., and just delightful to see.

Esperanza Spalding, who can play virtuosic jazz bass and improvise  
vocals, in unison or counterpoint, at the same time, unveiled the best  
audience-participation shtick I expect to see in some time. As her  
band played a modal vamp, she sweetly requested, “Will you sing with  
me? Please?” Then she divided the audience into three groups and  
proceeded to unveil prospective parts: quick scat syllables in  
arpeggiated lines that went on, and on, and on. “You got it, right?”  
she said. Much later, after breezing through a complex composition  
with a Latin lilt and a lot more blithe scat-singing, she called for  
that singalong, getting the expected silence and laughter. But instead  
of leaving the audience feeling inadequate, she offered a part that  
was brief enough to remember — but which might have sounded too tricky  
earlier. The singalong was instant and spirited — and so was the  
standing ovation that followed her set.


— — —

Maybe it was the New Orleans setting, but I could have sworn that Doc  
Watson’s ragtimey picking and acoustic leads had an extra bit of swing.

— — —

Raised in Maine and now based in Austin, the songwriter Patty Griffin  
said that Jazzfest was her first gig ever in New Orleans — startling  
for someone who has been making worthy albums for more than a decade.  
She was on the Fais Do Do stage, which mostly holds Acadian bands, but  
her music was at home there. Her songs pondered redemption and  
forgiveness with bluesy grooves, and by the time she got to “Chief,” a  
song about a shattered army veteran, the arrangement had a Cajun  
rhythm and an accordion, too.

— — —

Marcia Ball, a two-fisted Texan piano player and singer who grew up in  
Louisiana, had food on her mind when I got to her set. She followed  
“Peace, Love & BBQ” with dessert: “Watermelon Time.”

— — —

About two hours later, Glen David Andrews, Trombone Shorty and the  
clarinetist Evan Christopher were onstage with Bonnie Raitt; Andrews  
was playing trombone. They were the traditional-jazz horns for a  
slouchy New Orleans retrofitting of Sippie Wallace’s “Women Be Wise.”

That’s New Orleans and Jazzfest; musicians keep turning up in  
different company, and smart visitors like Raitt make the most of the  
local resources.

By the way, does Trombone Shorty sleep during Jazzfest? Or does he  
just do another gig hourly? Between his cousin and Ms. Raitt, he  
showed up to play with the combined Dirty Dozen and Rebirth Brass  
Bands, who were celebrating the Glass House, a now vanished club where  
the Dirty Dozen fomented a new, funk-loving generation of brass bands.

Their performance together was an exercise in hefty sound and double  
vision: twice the number of instruments on every part, including  
sousaphones, with each pair of instruments trading friendly but  
seriously competitive solos. Trombone Shorty went for his high notes.

Oh, and then, on Friday night, Trombone Shorty was leading his own  
band, Orleans Avenue, at Tipitina’s in the French Quarter. Showtime: 2  
a.m.