The Hot 8 Brass Band at The Great Americian Brass Band Festival...

 We saw the Hot 8 Brass Band at the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, Ky. I think the last time I saw them was in New Orleans at a Frenchman Street club in 2018.  The tuba great Bennie Pete was still leading the band. Bennie passed away due to COVID in 2021 and their latest release is in his honor and remembrance and is called "Big Tuba." Naturally this release is my new favorite and I bought it as soon as it came out. The Hot 8 has always been one of my favorites and they do a great job of bringing all the elements of New Orleans culture that I love so much together in a rocking show. 

Of course I think the tuba player in this band (I couldn't find a list of band member names) is great but my favorite guy in the band is one of the trumpet players. He's the guy on the left in this photo. 

Last time we saw them in New Orleans he was stone cool onstage but he seems to have a more prominent role center stage singing, second line style dancing, sweating and soloing that really highlights the joys of New Orleans brass band street culture. It makes me feel happy watching him. 

That looks like a happy drum and tuba section right there.

Trumpet and trombone.

Big Tuba!

I guess if I would have headed over to the merch tent I could have met the guys and I'd had names and probably a new t shirt but the weather was iffy and the Hot 8 set was cut short by rain and lightening. Actually when lightening was reported the band said "they say lightening but we will play one more," but festival officials quickly said, "no you won't" and that was it. It was enough and I though a great set.

 Instead of heading to meet the band we headed for the parking lot in the rain and our car was the last one there.

In 2014 my family, or most of us as I remember (only two grand kids at the time) all went to New Orleans for some of the early season Mardi Gras. There were no big floats but mostly walking parades and low crowd numbers with many brass bands and tubas. I snapped this photo after a parade and I did not know who it was at the time but it's Mr. Big Tuba, Bennie Pete of the Hot 8 with family. I don't think we saw the Hot 8 as such that weekend but Bennie was just out sitting in on the parades and enjoying the community, culture and this photo shows what kind of guy he was. 

Join the family. Get some Hot 8 right now.

  

  

   

 

Your Favorite King...

 Cathy and I were driving home last night. The night skies were beginning to light up with  late spring thunderstorms that promised to bring much needed rain. It's only a side note that King Charles is visiting the USA because the USB drive plugged into the car which makes it a random play stereo on wheels started to belt out a long slow blues by Albert King and the stinging sustained notes from his signature Flying V guitar must have made the hair stand up on the back of both of our necks because Cathy asked, "Who is your favorite King?" 

If you are a blues fan you should know there are four Kings. There is Earl King from New Orleans, Freddie King from Gilmer, Texas, B.B King from Mississippi and the one we were listening to, Albert King also born in Mississippi. I had to answer that probably my favorite is Albert. 

Actually Albert has been on my mind as it's that New Orleans Jazz Fest time of the year and I always think about music that was the soundtrack in the car for long rides south on I-10 to the fest as well as the music I've seen at the fest. There was plenty of Albert King on those old cassette mixtapes we played in the Rocket 88 and actually saw Albert once at the fest but for what ever reason, too much beer in the sun or too many funk and tropical sounds for me to sit though a set of 1234 blues in the middle of the afternoon. My loss. 

I took a quick count of the music in my collection and found these three records. That live one has had the most play and if you don't count the greatest hits package these are not even his most well known recordings. Though I have seen Earl King twice I think I might only have one side by him on a jazz fest compilation. I never got to see Freddie King but I think I might have three or four cds. I have seen B.B. King live twice, have two of his albums and though he is a great maybe my least favorite. 

So I guess to answer that stormy question who is your favorite King:

1. Albert

2. Freddie.

3. Earl

4. B.B.

Don't let my thoughts influence your judgment. Take a late drive. Crank the tunes. They will speak to you and maybe rearrange your hair.   

  

Used Shirts...

 I have about three shirts that my parents gave me for Christmas sometime in the late 70s. They are good shirts, durable and besides needing an occasional button or slight mending by my needle and thread capable wife they have served well and I still wear them often. Besides a few other shirt gifts I have received such as the big foot and tuba shirts that everyone feels are so appropriate I get my shirts at the thrift store. There's one particular snap button western shirt I own, bought used that lately I have seen two others like it. 

Someone asked me yesterday the question, "when did you have it done?" I couldn't exactly say so I said, "before COVID," and they understood and it immediately cleared up all confusion. So this western shirt I got before COVID. I was standing on a French Quarter street corner. It was morning of a bright spring day full of possibility and I spotted a guy coming down the street pushing a wheeled clothing rack stocked thick with shirts. I stopped him, you can do that in the great southern cities. Try it in the northern towns and that person might fight you off. 

The guy had taken thrift store snap button shirts and embroidered various designs on each shoulder. I was having modest success playing music and making cigar box guitars at the time so I was on the look out for stage costumes so this fit the bill. I bought one with crawfish on each shoulder. 

I used to like crawfish. On trips to Louisiana it was old cheap food that didn't fill you up too much so you could drink plenty of old cheap beer. The salty, spicy taste also made you want to drink more old cheap beer so it was really a hand and glove kind of thing. They go together. Now days I don't drink beer and for the price crawfish sell for I usually spring for the lobster. I'll just wear my embroidered shirt when I eat it.

I don't know how many shirts with crawfish that street vendor had that day. I have never seen another one. I was walking across the parking lot of a big box building material store and I spotted a shirt of the same pattern on a skinny wizened up little guy. It looked in good condition. These are after all quality shirts. I didn't mention to him I had one just like it or take a photo because my wife has coached me not to talk to other guys about what they are wearing. Not that there is anything wrong with that it's just something that might not sit in the moment right, which is a moment in the parking lot of a big box building materials store. 

The second shirt I saw like mine was in an online video released by New Orleans based folk singer Mark Rubin. I follow him on Facebook and he's a banjo/tuba/punk/bluegrass/Jewish dude. Pro tip: when you follow stuff like this on social media it wrecks the algorithm. When I saw his shirt I headed over to his band camp page and bought his latest release. I guess I should have left a comment, nice shirt. 

Here's the shirt in action.

Once I was at a little BBQ festival and saw a band play. I'd say they played about 75% of the songs a band I was in planned to play at a different festival he next day. I told the singer about this and he said by way of explanation, "Them are good songs." I guess you could say, "Them are good shirts."

That morning in the French Quarter I also bought another shirt but it will be another blog post.

        

         

Wake Up Deadman...

 My music room is worth a blog post at least once a year. Actually I have two music rooms, one full of electric instruments (the acoustic instruments are all over the house since they are not beholden to amps, zip strips and instrument cables) and this one full of records and cds. If you count trombone and three string trance guitar as instruments there is some spill over between the two rooms.  

I spent a good bit of time in this room during the recent deep freeze cold snap picking out a sound track for our cabin fever. I don't know how many titles there are available but I tried to pick things I had not listened to any time recently or those that I might have completely forgotten about. I recently read the book by John Lomax "Confessions of a Ballad Hunter" about his adventures capturing blues, folk songs and work songs by recording the singers in whatever environment he found them. This reminded me I had a cd of Texas prison work songs from the mid 1960s called Wake up Deadman. I could not locate that cd to save my life.    

Generally I file alphabetically except for the records on the floor that are piled into the categories of swing, polka, exotic and George Jones. Since Wake up Deadman is a compilation of various singers there is a various artists cd section which would be a sensible place for it except it's not there. I dug all through the piles in likely spots but no luck. This search goes on a few days and then I decide to listen to Dylan and picking up a handful of cds from the "D" stack and there is Wake Up Deadman. Makes perfect sense, file it under "D" 

The story does not end here. As usual it's on to the next big thing. Our last time in New Orleans at Satchmo Summer Fest I bought a New Orleans Brass Band Compilation at the Jazz Museum. I know I listened to it once and I'm pretty sure it's burned to a USB drive we listen to in the cars but I can't locate it there among the thousands of songs or in the room stacks either. It's around somewhere just creatively filed and I can't recall the exact title to give clues on the location. I do remember it's multiple cds divided into old school traditional bands and newer, modern sounds. 

Wake Up Deadman, find that cd! 

  

      

Adonis Rose and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra at Temple Theater...

 Last might we saw great music by Adonis Rose and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra at Temple Theater as part of the Angelina Arts Alliance Series concerts.  It was a great show, the kind we need to have Lufkin to grow into a city where vibrant, varied and insightful music comes to us. 

We did not buy season tickets this year choosing to cherry pick the shows we liked best and for this last minute impulse we got the cheaper balcony seats. They were first row but when ushers noticed Cathy might not be seeing over the rail well they upgraded us to more expensive seats a row back. Also one of the Huntington High School band directors, an acquaintance who I have played together with in the civic band brought his kids and they sat as a group in the balcony. I like this because sometimes when I meet younger players they are playing really well but may not be exposed to different styles of music and are not well versed in what is actually possible on the instrument. It never fails that when I visit a place like New Orleans and see someone doing somethin with a horn that I've never seen before.       

The Jazz Orchestra's take on New Orleans music was a very big band style sound that gave Jelly Roll Morton and Louie Armstrong tunes and updated sound in addition to the many original compositions performed. Lots of good solos by each section with intricate trade offs between members of the sax, trombone and trumpet lineup. The trumpets were really screamers with all members hitting the high notes. 

Back in August we saw an abbreviated version of this group at Satchmo Summer fest that calls itself the NOJO 7.   

They ended the show in Fine New Orleans tradition with a second line parade through the audience.   

From the Jazz Orchestra web site:

NOJO stand in solidarity with those on the front lines fighting for justice and equality. The losses that black people have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of those who pledge to protect and serve must stop. 

In the spirit of healing, NOJO Will continue to use alchemic power of music to create transformative experience is that inspire social change.

Also of note in town yesterday was The local brewery hosting The Rusty Axe Blues and Brews festival in downtown Cotton Square. We stopped by before the Jazz show for a great meal from Viet Fusion Food Truck (they ask how spicy and on a scale 7 to 10 was pretty good) and a set of blues standards by The Brickyard Blues Band. Playing later was The Mighty Orq who we saw in Houston opening for Fantastic Negrito. Orq puts on a good slide guitar show with lots of time altered effects which make him a man after my own heart. I how he was a hit for Lufkin. 

I guess when I had my last drink Lufkin was still a dry town (I think there is a history of temperance movements which rid the town of saloons) and you could not buy it in stores and breweries were unheard of. It still takes me a bit to get used to people walking down the street drinking it but like the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra playing here changing times brings new things.  

Mardi Gras Galveston...

It was cold, windy and wet but that did not stop us from enjoying a the 12pm parade this past Saturday on the beautiful, choppy, gray Gulf of Mexico for Galveston Mardi Gras. 

We had a good spot, floats were great, caught several specular throws and there were lots of tuba in the marching bands. 

They let you put your RV on the Seawall starting on Thursday morning before the parade at 5am. I talked to the fellow in the camper across the street behind Rose and Miguel and he said at 5am Thursday he was unable to secure a spot close to friends he was trying to camp with. Looks like fun but I don't think I can get Cathy up this early to get a good place. Maybe next year at least bring a BBQ grill.   

Waiting for the parade.

Getting drunk on Vienna Sausage. 

He's making a good Mardi Gras Man. 

Who dat in the mask? 

If I mention it enough when you google the Gulf of Mexico my blog will be one of the hits. 

These beads will be used at the church Mardi Gras, Tuesday March 4th at 5:30. I'm cooking gumbo.  

Throw me something mista! 

Tuba! 

They ended up canceling the 6pm parade because of rain but opened up the area of the Strand requiring tickets to free admission. We headed home as relocating this circus might have been a Mardi Gras too far.   

 

Maybe I Need to Walk There Again...

My doc asked me if I slept well. I said after sleeping several hours I wake up and use the bathroom but get back to sleep easily but then in a couple of more hours I wake for another bathroom break but them I sometimes don't get to sleep as easily and I have to get up and read a book for 30 minutes and then I sleep on till dawn or sometimes after. When you do the math that adds up to 7 or 8 hours sleep which the journals tell us is about enough. 

What I didn't tell him is that second wake up is usually after a very vivid dream that leaves my mind awake and busy. I also didn't tell him because a family doctor seeing a basically well patient that he can get rid of in less than 15 minutes or anyone else for that matter other than a blog reader does not give a flip about what you dreamed.  

A couple of nights ago I woke from a dream like this and carefully sat up on the side of the bed. I kept very quiet so as to not wake Cathy but I wanted to think it over and have good recall since there were many themes at work.

I dreamed I was walking through the French Quarter in New Orleans with someone I knew but it was like the person was a composite of every person I had ever walked through the French Quarter with and also every person I knew that had told me a story about walking through the Quarter. Soon we were out of the neighborhood influenced by the old Spanish and French styles of architecture and entered a darker more slum like area. World beat music with a lots of congas, heavy bass and soulful vocals in an African language carried to us from an indistinct source. It was loud but not overpoweringly so. My composite friend tripped along lightly, almost dancing, occasionally whirling around to see if I was still with him.

We came to what seemed to be fire escape type stairs and began to climb. The steps seemed uneven and hand carved. A tall man in colorful African dress began to ascend the steps behind us and we all arrived at an open air restaurant or bar.

Inside there were quite a few people sitting at a plywood bar on barrels for barstools and it seemed like I knew most of them. We talked about walking down Bourbon Street and after looking at a menu on the wall written in a foreign language that I couldn't make heads or tails of someone told me to order the mosquito plate. "It means something special to them" they told me indicating the waitstaff behind the bar so I ordered. 

A girl sitting next to me who I did not know asked if I always wore a suit. I didn't realize what I was wearing but it was my old grey thrift store sport coat. I told her yes, this color in winter but come summer I would shift to seersucker suits for the hot weather. She asked if I was heading back to walk down Bourbon Street. I said no. I might never walk down Bourbon Street again.

I awoke from the dream and after a period of thinking all this over it occurred that while I've been in the French Quarter a number of times over the past decade I have not actually walked down Bourbon Street since Mardi Gras 2014.  

I never did get that Mosquito Plate. 

               

             

Gumbo and Zydeco...

  Another event that's been on my radar for a couple of years and I was glad when the stars lined up and we made it to the Gumbo and Zydeco Cook Off in Lufkin Tx sponsored by the Angelina County Citizens Chamber and The Pineywoods Trail Ride Association. Prizes were awarded for the best gumbo and the best dancers. Supplying the music for the dancers was Leon Chavis and the Zydeco Flames. 

Leon comes from a fine old zydeco family. He is the great nephew of Boozoo Chavis one of the all time giants of zydeco music. I've see Boozoo at the jazzfest in New Orleans and here's a photo I made that day which I can only date as sometime in the 1990s. As you may have guessed gumbo and zydeco is hot work. 

I think one of the best shows I have seen and one of those that fall under the category of I'd see it again if I could was in 2001. Right before jazzfest time Boozoo had a heart attack while playing in Austin, Tx. The band with guitarist Sonny Landreth filling in played their gig obligation at the fest dedicating the show to Boozoo. It was a heartfelt tribute and I was glad to be in the audience. Boozoo passed a week later. 

I've seen a couple of zydeco shows this year and they all play Boozoo's tune "Uncle Bud." 

I did manage to get my photo on the Lufkin Daily News web site, taken while I waited on a bowl of gumbo and an order of beignets. Many thanks to Brock West the photographer for keeping me in the news. 

At $5 a bowl the gumbo was a bargain and it was good with shrimp and sausage but next year I think we should enter Suzi Powell in the contest. 

Money from the event went to affordable housing projects in our area. 

There are many festivals for zydeco and gumbo, some with RV camping in easy striking distance just over the Sabine River in our neighboring state of Louisiana. Come spring they will be in full swing and I'll be looking for a good one. 

Leon and the boys were very good and very loud. It's been a few years since I have played the VFW and the stage has had some nice upgrades but I have never got to play that loud there. Good show guys! 

 

 

The November Fishing Report...

 

Lord I died and went down on the bayou in Louisiana or was it some where near Beaumont or maybe West Memphis. At the very least the ghost of my late mom and dad were sitting by me while I ate this old school dinner of whole fried catfish on a bed of Zummo's rice dressing with hushpuppies and fried alligator pear on the side.     

Even though we noted a big goose egg swelled up on a trailer tire that will need replacement we put on the spare and  headed across the lake for a moderate good middle of the afternoon fish bite. Fish did not seem grouped up but maybe it was the time of the day so we hit several spots all about 24'-26' feet deep and found a few catfish laying right on the bottom at each one. Final total was 23. Most were decent size with a mix of channel and blue cats. Since there is no minimum size restriction on catfish we threw is several like those on the plate because I felt like eating whole fried.  

Cathy with a fat blue cat. Catfish count is going to run low this year because we have been occupied with other things and our outdoor activities are split between boating and travel trailering. That's ok, we will live and maybe a little longer since we haven't eaten as much fried catfish.  

Matt lands another nice blue. 

I think that's why we call him Mr. Whiskers. 

We put enough of the big fillets into the freezer that we could have a grilled fish dinner for four. That will probably happen in early December because Cathy is scheduled for that shoulder in the foreground to be replaced and it will be sometime before she's casting and reeling again. The rest of those cats made a nice dinner for Miguel and the boys with a sampler package sent up to Mary on the labor and delivery night shift at the hospital. 

I have been reading a Tennessee Williams bio that when it relates the period when he moved to New Orleans and describes it as a city "...famous for it's catfish..." This blog won't equal the literary greatness of Williams but my fried catfish is pretty famous and the fishing report is ever popular.   

Cross Satchmo Summer Fest Off the Bucket List...

Satchmo Summer Fest a celebration of the great Louie Armstrong's birthday held in his home town of New Orleans is one of those things I always wanted to do but I was usually working that weekend. I retired and this weekend we booked a room at one of our favorite hotels, The Frenchman, which is right across the street from the New Orleans Jazz Museum where the fest is held and just steps away. 

Anything we wanted to do was close by from street music, clubs and dining and never required driving so the car stayed parked all weekend.   

The story goes that on New Years Eve 1912 an eleven year old Armstrong was sent to the Colored Waifs Home for firing a blank pistol in the air. He took up the cornet there and the world was never the same as he became one of the most influential figures in jazz. Louie often said that when he played he looked right into the heart of New Orleans.  

 New Orleans is a city that each person has a personal version of. I have been coming to soak up the music, food and culture since 1983. The oldest African American Parish in the country, St. Augustine dating back 180 years holds a jazz Mass each Sunday. You can hang with the drunk college boys from LSU on Bourbon St. when you visit or you can live like the people live by attending neighborhood functions. That's what I choose. There is a lot of history here from the tomb of the Unknown Slave to being the parish where Louie, Sidney Bechet and Homer Plessy attended. 

After Mass there followed a second line parade from the church to the fest led by social and pleasure clubs, brass bands and other costumed characters.   

Lots of good bands at the fest, brass bands, jazz singers, traditional and more modern stuff I would guess that with only two stages and inside venues for piano music and educational discussions and the museum exhibits I managed to see about a quarter of what was offered and even that was plenty to digest. 

It's hot in New Orleans. Like Deep Mardi Gras it's Deep Summer and one of the internet funny men I follow said all his friends were indoors with only crappy tourist from Biloxi walking the streets. I'll take being a crappy tourist in New Orleans because as playwright Tennessee Williams said, "everywhere else is Cleveland" and it is nice to know that if I can't take the heat there is a whole world of air conditioned fun to see.     

Preservation Hall Brass. 

The Onward brass band on stage

 Best I can tell I saw 17 different tuba players this past weekend. Find your own personal New Orleans.  

 

 

Turtle Soup...

Last time I was in New Orleans I went to see a band at Chickie Wah-Wah on Canal St. A few blocks away was one of my favorite restaurants in the Crescent City, Mandina's. As things go sometimes, the best laid plans and all, I did not make it over there. The next day, we were camped across one of the longest bridges in the world in Mandeville at the State Park there I was delighted to learn that there was a Mandina's near by. Maybe not as cool as the old Mandina's uptown in New Orleans that had it's origins as a grocery store making sandwiches for working class Italian immigrants in 1898 but I was still able to satisfy a Jones for their famous turtle soup. 

Don't worry, since we did not have a shot of sherry to serve on the side like they do in Mandina's, it comes out in a shot glass on the side of the plate and you dump in in the soup yourself for flavor we did not make soup out of this turtle. Cathy claims she has cleaned and cooked a turtle before although it's probably been about 40 years ago since she did such so if we had had sherry...

Not an appetizer although I did dream last night that I was fishing at the beach and someone cooked stuffed crabs that were so good that I ate shell, legs and all.     

 

The Uptown Mandina's opened as the restaurant we know today in 1932 in the same building the Mandina family opened the original grocery store and the family still runs it. There's a lot of history there to go with the food. The old days and all that. They are important, especially when eating turtle soup. 

 

Honk!Tx 2024...

Yes there were tubas. Lots of them as well as all other kind of instruments at the Austin Honk!Tx street band festival this past weekend.  It was our second year to attend and I love every minute. Though I do get plenty of opportunities to play music with good people all the time I do wish there was something like this in my home town with wacky dress up sensibilities which in many cases with these groups also combine with community purposes to make the world a better place. 

Here's the Honk!Tx Mission statement:

HONK!TX is a nonprofit, community-driven festival that brings street and brass bands from around the country to perform for free in the public spaces of Austin, Texas. Mobile and unamplified, HONK! bands transform everyday locations into spontaneous stages, dissolving the line between crowd and performers and inviting everyone to celebrate the joys of music and community. A range of genres will be represented: New Orleans second-line brass, European Klezmer and Balkan, Brazilian, West African and more. HONK! is a celebration of community, collaboration and creative expression. Join the revelry!

Above is pictured and you may guess their name, The Neon Brass Party from the clothing style. They come to the festival from Seattle, Wa. The traveling bands are put up in the homes of volunteers, preferably located on public transit or bike lanes. Food sponsors, Restaurants, Caterers and individuals feed everyone. 

9th Avenue Brass from Pensacola, Fl. One of my favorites. 

Bramaya West African Music and Dance from Austin.

Generally not real crowded for a free festival but I could not get real close to the Minor Mishap Marching Band. 

Black Sheep Ensemble from Atlanta.  

Greenbelt Honk! Situation from Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Cimarrona La Original from Santo Domingo Costa Rica. Great group, good drums and tuba. 

The Human Band from New Orleans. Not your typical New Orleans thing but a bit of Balkan and other stuff thrown in. 

I think a lot of Honk groups, many cities have Honk Festivals, meet in the park or other public space on a weekend afternoon, rehearse an hour and then perform an hour. I'd love to do something like that. Maybe I'm not too old to have this much energy I just wish I had the arranging skills to put it together. I'd certainty hold down the tuba line.