Recently in neworleans Category
Sunday night, when Allen Toussaint played "Yes We Can Can" for Democratic convention delegates in Denver, the song sounded tailor-made for the Obama campaign. But he wrote it in New Orleans, in 1970, inspired by a different era of change.
No wonder. New Orleans musicians have for more than a century anticipated and articulated just what this country needs. Now, three years past the floods that followed Katrina, Mr. Toussaint and other bearers of the city's unique (and uniquely American) culture -- jazz musicians, brass-band members, Social Aid & Pleasure Club second-liners, and Mardi Gras Indians --call on the country to respond to their needs, for the good of us all. We must recognize this culture as essential to New Orleans recovery, not to mention the restoration of our damaged national identity.
BIG "We Shall Not Be Moved" VIDEO SHOOT
Woldenberg Riverfront Park
Saturday, 9 August (with a rain date of Sunday, 10 August)
10:00am - 1:00pm
Come out and be a part of the "We Are the World" of New Orleans!
**** OVERVIEW ****
We Shall Not Be Moved is, essentially, the "We Are the World" of New
Orleans http://www.weshallnotbemoved.org.
The musicians of New Orleans are producing a recording and video of
the song, We Shall Not Be Moved, featuring some of New Orleans' best
players, singers and choirs, along with national celebrities.
The project is designed to heal, uplift and unify the people of New
Orleans---and the world---helping us all turn the page once and for
all, release the images of devastation to flow downstream, and stride
into the future with spirits soaring.
NEW ORLEANS: Culture, Crisis, and Community
How can music help heal New Orleans? What role should the arts play in rebuilding communities? Why does this city's storied culture find itself embattled? Why are so many residents still displaced or homeless?
A panel discussion
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Moderator: Larry Blumenfeld, journalist
Panelists:
Kalamu ya Salaam, poet/activist; Kent Jordan, musician/educator; Josh Neufeld,
cartoonist/Red Cross volunteer; Emmanuel Pratt, urban planning researcher/digital
media artist; Rob Cambre, producer; others
Wednesday, June 11th 5pm (until about 6:30)
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center
107
Suffolk Street
New
York NY 10002
Presented by the 13th annual VISION FESTIVAL as a prelude to Wednesday night's Lifetime Achievement Celebration of Edward "Kidd" Jordan
Politics were in the
air during jazzfest -- literally. While the Neville Brothers closed the event on
the Acura stage, a plane circled above the Fair Grounds towing a banner that
read: "Shell, Hear the Music. Fix the Coast You Broke." Not all the commentary
was so overt, and none as visible, but it was there if you kept your eyes and
ears open. Mind you, it's too easy in New Orleans these days to read meaning
and purpose into every lyric or song choice -- was Sheryl Crow making a
statement by covering "Gimme Shelter," or was she just doing a Stones tune? --
yet some of the messages were timely, pointed, and worth remembering.
Here's my reflection on all that in a piece for the website Truthdig.
Just when I was feeling guilty about heading into Passover
without a thought of my desert-crossing ancestors or my going-without-bread
family members, I ran into Ronald Lewis, a sweet-hearted, tough-minded guy who
is still among the lonely pioneers who've returned to his Lower Ninth Ward
neighborhood. (He was a key character in a piece I did for Salon last year.)
"You comin' to the Seder?" he asked.
"What Seder?"
"The one at my house."
"Huh?"
Turns out LJ Goldstein, photographer, Jew-about-town, founding member of Krewe du Jieux, was holding his krewe's ritual dinner at
Lewis's recently restored home. If my culture was on display for a night at
Lewis's place, so was his, permanently: When I introduced my wife, Erica, Lewis
commanded: "Go see my museum!" -- the House of Dance and Feathers located
just behind his home (this is the second edition, and impressive at that, reconstructed after
Lewis lost his previous artifacts in the floods).
Some guests had prepared traditional Jewish fare -- kugel and
matzoh ball soup and so on. There was brisket, too -- from The Joint, a favorite Bywater barbecue spot. We sat on the floor and worked through two
hours of a Passover service far more faithful than my family's version. And different -- the Haggadah, for instance, began with "Shalom, y'all." Helen Regis, scholar of all
things second-line, was there, as was Joel Dinnerstein, who is on Tulane
Univeristy's faculty. So was Willie Birch, whose paintings, drawings, and mixed-media
sculptures tell stories of struggle and transcendence as powerfully as the Haggadah.
"Yeah. I'm doin' a multicultural thing," Lewis joked
when Birch showed up. When it came time to give thanks and to reflect, he
turned serious. "I'm thankful for being back. But I miss the Ninth Ward
like it was. I used to be able to just walk and see everyone and everything where
there is still mostly nothing."
From there, as any good Seder does, we traced the tale of
enslaved Jews on the run from Egypt, and I thought about how little difference
there is between "Let My People Go" and "Let My People Go
Home."
The NBA all-star game brought "I love this game" excitement, much-needed out-of-state money and laudable good will campaigns (wherein 7-footers in windbreakers hammered nails, read to schoolkids, and showcased the many worthy nonprofit efforts around town). I guess I was remiss in not posting this piece of mine, which ran in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Links between basketball and jazz run deep
By Larry Blumenfeld
One striking absurdity of the National Basketball Association is this fact: The team from Utah wears the jerseys emblazoned with "Jazz."
That name originated in New Orleans, of course, where the Jazz played its first five seasons in the late 1970s. Back then, the shirts made fundamental sense -- and not just as a nod to the city's iconic art form.
It's nearly March, but the sight of Mardi Gras Indian Chiefs in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday is fresh in my mind. And the Democratic primary race, which tightened that same day, remains a horserace.
My thoughts on how the two subjects intertwine (or not) is expressed in this Village Voice piece:
"It's amazing how much joy and hope these beads and feathers bring."
The Sunday before Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Donald Harrison Jr., Big Chief of the Congo Nation, son of Big Chief Donald Sr., lay on the living-room floor of his mother's house in the Ninth Ward, cutting leopard-print fur in a pattern as he spoke. Nearby, a sofa and chair were covered with beads and rhinestones, along with ostrich and turkey feathers that had been dyed a golden yellow. Harrison was preparing to "mask," to enact the city's least-understood tradition, and these days, perhaps, its most essential: Mardi Gras Indian culture. These rituals, which date to at least the mid-1800s, are an African-American homage to the Native Americans who once sheltered runaway slaves and to the spirit of resistance.
The calendar was pointed in its irony this year: Elsewhere, February 5 marked Super Tuesday....
For the full piece, click here or read on.
Blogroll
CultureGulf
be.jazz
rifftides
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise
Dave Douglas: Greenleaf Music
birdlives
Lerterland
point of departure
Jazziz magazine
Jazz Journalists Association
Steve Smith: nightafternight
Willard Jenkins: Open Sky Jazz
music/food/justice in NOLA
Howard Mandel's JazzBeyondJazz
Stereophile:Fred Kaplan
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AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Richard Kessler on arts education
Douglas McLennan's blog
Art from the American Outback
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
visual
Public Art, Public Space
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
