[Dixielandjazz] The Night New Orleans Came to Brooklyn

[Stephen G Barbone]

Trombone Shorty is a recent favorite of my daughter. She has gone to  
see his shows in Philadelphia and Wilmington DE several times and  
journeyed to Brooklyn to see this show last weekend. She loved it.  
Slowly but surely this dedicated "Dead Head" is coming back to the  
roots music. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

The Night New Orleans Came to Brooklyn

NY TIMES - By JON PARELES - Dec 5, 2010


Starting with a parade (down an opera-house aisle) and ending nearly  
three hours later with a jam session, Red Hot + New Orleans brought a  
generous Crescent City spirit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on  
Friday night to kick off a two-night stand.

Trombone Shorty, who also plays trumpet, was curator of the show, the  
latest of the Red Hot Organization’s AIDS benefit concerts, which  
donated some proceeds to the New Orleans NO/AIDS Task Force. Born Troy  
Andrews in New Orleans, Trombone Shorty is ubiquitous in his hometown  
as a bandleader and a sideman; his 2010 album, “Backatown” (Verve  
Forecast), is nominated for a Grammy Award.

He assembled his city’s longtime stars, including Irma Thomas and Dr.  
John, along with local stalwarts like the trumpeter Kermit Ruffins;  
the keyboardist Ivan Neville; the hip-hop producer Mannie Fresh; the  
soul singer Marc Broussard; and members of two pre-eminent brass  
bands, Rebirth and the Dirty Dozen. Trombone Shorty sat in with just  
about everyone, playing R&B, funk, jazz and the New Orleans hip-hop  
variant called bounce. He also led his own band (and the concert’s  
house band), Orleans Avenue, which put the heft and dynamics of rock  
behind his own riffing, growling trombone.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the musical culture of New Orleans  
has persevered, still cherishing its long memory, its amiably shared  
local lore, its rhythmic genius and songs that are tough-minded even  
as they grin. Perhaps inevitably, the city’s culture is growing less  
insular. Many of the concert’s performers have had televised moments  
lately — or, like Trombone Shorty and Mr. Ruffins, repeated exposure —  
on the HBO series “Treme.” Mr. Ruffins sang the “Treme” theme during  
the concert’s final jam on “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which  
also segued into a Mardi Gras Indians song, “Let’s Go Get ’Em.”

New Orleans music also maintains its jazz-funeral determination to  
celebrate rather than mourn. Partners-N-Crime, a rap duo that had  
local bounce hits in the 1990s, enlisted Trombone Shorty and Rebirth  
members for a second-line parade sound in “Foot Work”; it included the  
lines “Katrina’s gone, can’t cry no more/ All the money’s gone, but  
the levees ain’t broke no more.”

Giant Mardi Gras beads hung over the stage and dangled from the box  
seats; a video backdrop showed images of the city and its people. That  
didn’t turn the opera house into a carnival, but the music got people  
up and dancing.

Dr. John and Ms. Thomas each did minisets of hits. Ms. Thomas seesawed  
between sultriness and ache in “It’s Raining” and “Ruler of My Heart.”  
Dr. John cackled through “Such a Night” with a splashy barrelhouse  
piano coda, turned to funk with “Right Place, Wrong Time” and led a  
spooky “Walk on Gilded Splinters,” with Mr. Neville on Hammond organ  
playing atmospheric chords like smoke signals.

True to a New Orleans heritage, two-fisted piano reappeared through  
the show. Mr. Neville riffled through the Mardi Gras mambo of  
Professor Longhair’s “Big Chief,” and an unannounced guest, Jonathan  
Batiste, splayed chords across the keyboard in “Saints.” In his own  
segment, Mr. Neville seized a family legacy, playing the jigsaw New  
Orleans funk of his uncle Art Neville’s band, the Meters. Mr. Ruffins,  
who sang when he wasn’t playing sweet and tart trumpet, looked toward  
Louis Armstrong, reviving a southern African song from the Armstrong  
repertory, “Skokiaan,” and sharing “What a Wonderful World” with the  
R&B singer Ledisi, whose scat-singing fluttered around his rasp.

The concert had some ups and downs; Mannie Fresh is an important  
figure in New Orleans hip-hop as a producer (notably of the Hot Boys,  
who included Lil Wayne and Juvenile), not a rapper. But Trombone  
Shorty had clearly set out to present New Orleans as a city whose  
glory days aren’t over. One of his band’s tunes was called “Hurricane  
Season,” and it was no lament. With high-note-trumpet lines and a  
“Hey!” shout-along, it was a signal that the city’s music would push  
ahead.