Kermit Ruffins at The Blue Nile in NOLA

It's already a week removed, but got a chance finally to see the inimitable Kermit Ruffins & His BBQ Players last Friday February 18 2011 at The Blue Nile on Frenchman Street in The Marigny, New Orleans. Good times. He was playing unfortunately, for the you 20 something white people, but still a good show. I have been wanting to see the music star of the HBO show Treme' for awhile. He usually gigs at Vaughn's (Thursdays) or Bullit's (Tuesdays). Finally so live music got under my belt in the greatest musical city in the world.

Also took my picture in front of Cosimo Matassa's studio (now a laundramat). As a friend of mine recently said on Facebook, it should be the site of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Trombone Shorty Live Columbia, MO Feb 5, 2011

Just got back from the Trombone Shorty show which was held at University of Missouri's Jesse Hall. The only drawback of this particular venue is the unavailability of a dance floor. They did let folks gather on both sides of the stage and the dog-paddling hippy chicks loved it!

But let's talk about this young master, who I am saying is the future of New Orleans music. I reviewed Backatown not too long ago and loved it. It is up for a Grammy for 'best contemporary jazz album.' Jazz doesn't even begin to categorize the funk. Much like the album I reviewed, Troy Andrews mines a lot of New Orleans. He also owns what he mines and expounds on it in leaps and bounds.

Seeing him really drives home the point that this guy is a Band Leader with an excellent band. In the middle 90s I got a chance to see Maceo Parker with his band. I have seen many live clips of James Brown. I have seen a lot of clips of Ray Charles as a band leader. All of these musicians are par excellance arrangers and boss-ass managers and leaders. It is impressive. Trombone Shorty is way above impressive. I expect his career to continue in the vein of his dead peers.

As proficient on the trumpet as he is the trombone his band consisting of two percussionists, a monster super bass player, a funky (and white) lead guitar player, a tenor sax, and the creme de la creme baritone sax player. You don't get that very often. A lot of sound comes out of this small funk ensemble. Oh yeah, Trombone Shorty has a beautiful 2 or 3 octave voice and could dance Michael Jackson off the stage. Tons of songs written on the bass clef.

Trombone Shorty even got the blue hairs up offa their dead asses.

His encore consisted of an un-miced set of second line brass band standards. This guy and his band were just incredible. Robust, proficient, soulful and he just made a gumbo as diverse as New Orleans itself. I have seen the future of New Orleans music and it is Trombone Shorty. Good luck at the Grammies Troy. You gave me one of the best concert experiences I have ever had!

Wanda Jackson

Look out for Wanda Jackson's the Party Ain't Over, produced by Jack White.

R.I.P. Charlie Louvin

I was saddened by the passing of Charlie Louvin a couple of days ago (Born July 7, 1927, Died January 26, 2011) . Charlie and Ira Louvin, in my humble opinion, were maybe the best contemporary music harmonizing duo. They informed the likes of The Everly Brothers and Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris. It's a natural part of life of course, but that makes it no less poignant. I don't have Charlie's solo work. I have Razor & Tie's excellent greatest hits package of the Louvin Brothers called When I Stop Dreaming. I have their most important gospel album Satan Is Real and finally their country & western classic Tragic Songs of Life. These are essential to any serious country & western music collector and any serious record collector in general. May you have met the maker you wished to meet Brother Charlie.

Trombone Shorty Backatown

True, I am behind on reviews. But I am inspired here for two reasons. I soon will return to New Orleans first of all, and second of all I will get to see the great Trombone Shorty in Columbia on February 5, 2011 (which is REALLY great because it is a Saturday night!).

Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews' 2010 release Backatown could have been made in New Orleans as early as 1960. It is something that is that funky-butt style or early 70s Funky Meters or 21st Century hip-hop bounce all at once.

Opening with seamless New Orleans Funk crossed with progressive southern hip-hop bounce Hurricane Season sets the tone for this classic gumbo. There is such a taste for The Meters here that you would think they are the rhythm section, as they were for so much of New Orleans bands of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

By the time you make your way to the post modern R & B of the song Something Beautiful (with backing vocals by Lenny Kravitz) you know this young trombone player has made something beautiful. Backatown is not only a Rosetta Stone of New Orleans music ranging from 50s Rock and Roll to neo-soul, he's made it accessible as hell! It is the best of New Orleans brass bands filtered through rap 'tude.

Each listen subsequently brings something new, for example, the likes of the song Neph feels like Jazz made in Egypt. And god in heaven, Andrews can arrange a brass ensemble as if the spirit of Ray Charles was hovering behind him. The hard-rocking Suburbia will blast you to your feet. Two-chord electric guitar and bass are the underbeat punch to Andrews' Spanish bull-fighting staccato trombone. It's fucking crazy!

The flavor and tones this young master possesses will someday read like other master's album catalogs...long, storied, scattered with classics that will be transcendent. He could pick any genre and do straight albums of whatever type of music and be considered brilliant. But Backatown has been chosen as a master's genre-bending sampler masterpiece. Allen Toussaint even lends piano on a track to solidify Andrews' street cred.

Don't leave home without this.

Mary Gauthier The Foundling

Mary Gauthier's (pron. Go-shay) 2010 release The Foundling starts out with the titular song, slow-waltz style; and has more in common with European cafe culture with its soft accordion and Italian folk arrangements, than what you think of as Americana singer-songwriter music.

This does not keep it from being any less visceral or poignant as this concept album is a rumination on being orphaned and searching some 40 years later for a birth mother. Sometimes coming off like a humorless John Prine (which is not a bad thing at all), by the time you get to Mama Here, Mama Gone you'll get the gist of this achingly beautiful singer-songwriter's muse.

Mary Gauthier is a rare singer-songwriter whose original and personal confessions become a nice contrast to this genre's usual observation stories. Not that the greats don't have personal and confessional songs but they don't always make whole albums about it without sounding maudlin. Goodbye starts out with the lyric 'I was born a bastard child in Louisiana.' Now that is honest.

It would be easy to compare Mary Gauthier to her fellow Louisiana contemporary Lucinda Williams, but I have to quit doing that. Primarily because they are really quite different and certainly matured differently as singer-songwriters. You are much more likely to hear New Orleans music gumbos or European folk idioms with Mary Gauthier than with Lucinda, who has chosen to pursue the more electric pursuits of rock & roll or roots rock for all its worth in order to mainstream herself in a genre she helped popularize some time ago with the brilliant Car Wheels on a Gravel Road album. And there is nothing wrong with that. Dylan is now doing the same thing and has made some of the best rock albums of this folk career here lately.

Mary though lets that musical melting pot of Louisiana really influence this album. Soft Cajun violins, New Orleans brass band and acoustic guitar permeate. It really makes the album haunting and so holds up her participating in her songs rather than writing about observations. She talks about herself in a deeply personal level without sounding like she is talking to her therapist (as is the common habit of so many of her male counterparts...Ellis Paul & John Gorka come to mind).

To make her abandonment legitimatized and forgiven she introduces a nice rock & roll style drum beat against an acoustic backdrop for the heartbreaking Blood is Blood.

'I got a heart that's ripped

I got a heart that's torn

I got a hole in me like I was never born'

The chorus is 'blood is blood and blood don't wash away'

Within the record she finally finds her birth mother and I won't give away the whole story in this excellent songscape that plays like a black and white indie movie that might not have an ending you expected, but you will appreciate it and will not be left without hope.

The New Pornographers - Together

The New Pornographers are not breaking any new ground with Together. The album is full of their usual excellent pop gems. And I mean every one. To me though, to operate in the pop rock realm and pull it off well is probably one of the most difficult things you can do without mimicking other artists...but c'mon with pop, that is exactly what you do unless you are The Beatles or Phil Spectre.

The New Pornographers are a Canadian supergroup and the only one I really know out of their group is alt-country singer-songwriter Neko Case, who I would gladly drink her bathwater. And she isn't even Canadian. Together, is reminiscent of their first three albums. I was struck though how much they really mine The Beatles. But on songs like the Crash Years we get treated to Brian Wilson via Pet Sounds. This is a strong complement. The next song following this, Silver Dollar Jenny, we get treated to the Neko Case's breathy 'wa-wa-wa-wa' sounding like that old pop easy listening classic Teach Me Tiger.

If You Can't See My Mirror is a swirling, swimming diamond ruby combining the male lead singer and brainchild of the group, A. C. Newman with Neko Case, in a cross between a Laurel Canyon Mamas and Papas and every middle 80s British faux gay alt-pop I have ever heard).

Their typical convention of making you think that you are getting verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus is turned on its ear, as they may change this completely in on itself. I don't know if it is because they are primarily Canadian, but it sure seems like you hear a lot of Euro-pop in here too. Guitars are sparse, but plenty of pianos and all kinds of Eastern European brass (especially the great brass arrangement on Daughters of Sorrow). In the classic pop sense, they let the voices of the various lead and harmony singers serve as the lead instrument. This is a great listen.

Be aware, that subsequent listens will turn you into an ear candy addict.