It’s that time of year again. Here are some events to add to your entertainment schedules into the first weekend of the festival:
Mon 4/22- with King James and the Special Men- Saturn Bar 10pm Tues 4/23- with Martin Krusche Band- Hi Ho Lounge 9pm Thurs 4/25- Trio with James Singleton and Skerik- Zeitgeist Theater and Bar-9pm Thurs 4/25- New Orleans Klezmer All Stars- Siberia Lounge 11pm Saturday 4/27- with the midnight disturbers- Jazzfest 1:20pm Saturday 4/27- with James Singleton Trio- Zeitgeist Theater and Lounge- 9pm Sunday 4/28- with The New Orleans Klezmer All Stars- jazzfest lagniappe stage-6pm Sunday 4/28- with the valparaiso men’s chorus- siberia lounge 10pm Monday 4/29- solo guitar- Bywater Bakery 10am
Here is what to look forward to. Mark down the dates and improve your scramble for a spiraling higher and higher musical ecstasy.
Thursday 26th May 9:30pm- Siberia Lounge- The New Orleans Klezmer All Stars feat. Ben Ellman Friday 27th May 11pm-Starlight Lounge- Derrick Freeman Trio Saturday 28th May 4:20pm- New Orleans Jazzfest-Klezmer All Stars feat. Steven Bernstein Tuesday May 1st 9pm- 3 Keys at The Ace Hotel- Naked On The Floor feat. Steven Bernstein Tuesday May 1st 11:30pm- Blue Nile balcony Room- Steven Bernstein's Fest Mob Wednesday May 2nd 11am-1pm- The Bywater Bakery- New Orleans klezmer All Stars Thursday May 3rd 9pm- Hi Ho Lounge- Saucefest Friday May 4 8:30pm- Zeitgeist Multi Disciplinary Art Center- James Singleton Band Friday May 4th midnight- Sidebar - New Orleans Klezmer All Stars Trio feat. Aurora Nealand Saturday May 5th 10pm-Vaughan's Lounge-Klezmer All Stars double bill w/ Morning 40 Federation Saturday May 5th-midnight- Chickie Wah Wah-James Singleton Quartet Sunday May 6th 11:30pm- Chickie Wah Wah- Mike Dillon Quartet
Thursday April 26 at 9:30pm Siberia Lounge fro the Eastern European Bloc Party Saturday April 28 at 4:20pm The Lagniappe stage Fairgrounds for the Jazzfest. Wednesday May 2 at 11am Bywater Bakery Friday May 4th at midnight at Sidebar -Klezmer All Stars Duo/Trio w/ Aurora Nealand Saturday May 5th 10pm Vaughan's Lounge- double bill with The Morning 40 Federation
Thursday Oct. 5- The new Orleans Klezmer All Stars, 9PM, Siberia-
Last month we played at Siberia, and it was a fitting return for Glenn Hartman, our keyboardist and blood pumper. The food is excellent and Eastern Euro. Everyone loved it. Folks can't help but dance and imbibe. Come out for this one.
Thursday Oct 12th- The Naked Orchestra, 10PM, Allways Lounge-
The full 20 odd piece Naked Orchestra performs again, at a new venue for us. Come see some of the greatest and most exciting improvisors and composers from across the scene. It's always an instant party.
Friday Oct. 13th- The New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, 9pm Chickie Wah Wah
This will be a party and some really driving music a) because it's the klez and b) because it's my birthday, and you are all invited c) it's friday the 13th again.. Let's really go crazy, it's been a tough year. This one is going to rock!
Saturday Oct. 14th- Wadada Leo Smith performs 10 Freedom Summers at Loyola.
I'm happy to have contributed to the effort to help get Wadada here to perform and work with the New Orleans music community. He is a great artist with great vision and this is a seminal work about civil rights. This group is not to be missed and is augmented by string quartet and strong multimedia presentation.. The information on the show is here... please attend you will be edified.
Sunday Oct. 15th- w/ James Singleton quintet, 8 and 10PM- Snug Harbor-
My flagship chamber group, in a great room. Rex Gregory- saxes etc; Cyrus Nabipoor-trumpet; Rick Trolsen-trombone; James Singleton-bass; Stanton Moore-drums; Jonathan Freilich- guitar. Yep, you read right. Our original drummer, Stanton is back for a great evening of music.
Thursday Oct. 19th- w/ singer, Annie Ellicott- 8:43PM- The Sidebar
Annie is a great writer and fascinatingly flexible vocalist. If you haven't checked out the sidebar you are living in a dream where you can't figure out what's up.
And that's just to start, get you salivating at the diversity, and give you some strength to take on the adversity.
New Orleans Klezmer All Stars for the last gig of the weekend out for the jazzfest stretch. If you haven't been there yet. Things have been unusual and interesting (read exciting if you need more positive detail) at both the jazzfest slot and at the Hi Ho lounge.
Tomorrow will be no slouch as we return with our old drummer Willie Green (The Neville brothers, Bob Dylan and other minor figures, etc.) If you haven't ever seen him play yiddish music, you are only familiar with a few of his dimensions as an innovative musical contributor. Get out there for it! Together we are a fascinating New Orleans/World music machine.
Jazzfest-Our musical offerings for start tomorrow, Friday April 25th. 2:50pm at the Fais do-do stage. A great slot for hot klezmer fun in the sun!
Following that-we will be at The Hi Ho lounge on St. Claude Ave. The show starts at 10pm and it's a double bill with the unperturbable Iguanas. They have a new record and we have a new item for your digital devices as well.
our sets will feature the following local/global all-stars:
The Klezmer All-Stars will be back Mardi Gras Day at DBA, New Orleans at the terminus of the Krewe of Jewlu parade. I will be there. Remember the gig at DBA on Fat Tuesday has been going on since 1998. That's some history!
Ben Ellman: note the shirt & NOKAS drummer Kevin O'DayWe congregated in New Orleans last Friday at Galactic studios and made a start on a recording that looks to be really different from previous outings of the last 20 years...
Ben Ellman
Glenn Hartman
Dave Rebeck
Joe Cabral
Jonathan Freilich
Stanton Moore
We all were there. Ben manned the controls. But special thanks to Bobby Mack who made the day even easier and the reflections even more entertaining!
Jonathan Freilich, Sam Rivers, Jeff Albert, Zeitgeist theater, New Orleans The great Sam Rivers has passed and what a big loss, what a human being, what an improvisor. And really...what do I know? I only got to see him a handful of times but each was better than a delight; it was actually transformative.
The first couple of times that I saw him in person was when he came out to a couple of New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars shows in Orlando, FL. At one of them he was dancing wildly and he made sure to come over and tell us how much he liked it. He was one of my heroes and I felt like i'd been given a fresh, strong, backbone.
When we would go down to Orlando, we were sometimes lucky to see his Rivbea orchestra; a great band- check out some of those hot clips on youtube.
The most important memory of Sam for me, and a number of my comrades in New Orleans, was when he came down to play with the Naked Orchestra. He had some music prepared but there had been a mixup with his management who had incorrectly communicated the Naked Orchestra's instrumentation to him. He felt badly about it and said that he had lots of music for such a project if he'd been told what kind of band it was. He dissolved the rehearsal and said he would have new music for us right before the gig and he did just that; the following evening he had worked up a complete piece for the orchestra. It was a very ear opening piece of music and I wish I had a recording of that evening.
Every time you saw Sam Rivers he exuded a shocking amount of energy and his multi instrumental trio of recent years was also something else to see.
My old friend, David Kunian wrote a poem inspired by the show that night with the Naked Orchestra . Here it is...
SAM RIVERS AND THE NAKED ORCHESTRA 3/8/02 ZEITGEIST THEATRE
Michael Ray is his own delay.
If he were going the speed of light,
Would he hear his instrument in the mirror?
Yeah, Einstein, I’m hearing things, All Right!
Tim Green’s blowing breath through the bass sax
Powering the band like a B-2 bomber.
Sounds like Operation Anaconda creeping
Through the mountains and then a big BOOM
As Eric Lucero’s trumpet and Rob Wagner’s horn
Drop the furious atonal BOMB. Sam the Man Rivers
Writing a new piece like a snake
Sousaphone in the hills, saxophones in the grass.
Mikiel Williams fingering like a snake charmer.
Sam has Hart McKnee adding flute
And interpretive dance stomps.
“Ooops, I brought music for an orchestra,
but not this kind of Orchestra.”
Maybe an Arkestra? A Dressed Orchestra?
Michael Skinkus is the tomato conga.
Matt Perrine on sousaphone is definitely pickles.
Doug Miller no offense slathers on tenor mayo.
Jonathan Froelich’s sharp guitar tones and crazy clusters
What follows is a piece written for Lee Barclay and Chris Porche West's great collection of short pieces by New Orleans residents from all across the city and its complex social layers. It was written after the 2005 hurricane that wiped out so much but then there was the city wide pondering over What Can't be Lost. The roster of contributors is epic and being invited to participate was an honor. It's still available here...
Though the book is a few months old now and the subject even older I'm still including it under "What's New?"...because it hasn't been seen outside the book yet.
Jewish-New Orleans Art?
Over the last 16 years, playing with the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, I have had a close view of what a hybridized New Orleans- Jewish art form might be and, more interestingly, what forces in any locale might contribute to the alteration of certain sounds in music.
The common definition of Klezmer music is usually given by the translation of the word coupled with the origins of the sound. The word Klezmer is from two words, kley and zemer, meaning vessel of song. Some go on to say that this describes the musician who is the vessel who channels the melodies that in a sense are already out there in a metaphysical space given by God. From a cultural or ethno-musicological standpoint, Klezmer denotes Eastern European Jews playing the secular music of those regions but with an instrumental inflection from the liturgical-singing style of the Chazzans or synagogue cantorial soloists of those regions.
It is interesting how people begin to identify with phenomena such as sounds and places and relate to those things as being their own. Since this band started playing the bars of New Orleans in the early nineties, the energy of that world began to seep in. People wanted to dance, and they wanted rhythmic, ecstatic music that lasted for hours into the night. That was their idea of New Orleans music at that time. People who saw that element said that we were New Orleans players; that we played New Orleans Jewish Funk. On the other hand, many said that we were
Someone managed to get this shot of film maker, Henry Griffin demonstrating his classic Ot Azoy dance backed up by Stanton Moore. this is really Fresh Out The Past. WWOZ even got involved in The Big Kibosh! This was a truly memorable highlight from the three 20th anniversary shows. Also on stage here are bass- Arthur Kastler; Saxophone-Ben Ellman; Accordion- Glenn Hartman, Fiddle-David Rebeck; guitar- yours truly!
