Remembering a Phenomenal Concert: New Orleans '06

Music Memory: MAY 2006

Recommended beverage to go with this show:

a bottle of Abita (it's the local brew in New Orleans)

The other day, a friend asked me what was the best concert I saw this year. One definitely stands out as the best and, in fact, it was one of the most memorable concerts of my life.

In May, I attended Jazz Fest in New Orleans. It was my fourth one but the most emotional, given that the most lively and culturally vibrant city that I so loved still lay in tatters, possibly never to fully recover from Katrina.

The fairgrounds, where the Fest is held every spring, had been submerged under five feet of water just eight months earlier, but, magically, organizers and sponsors transformed the space into the cultural and musical grounds of past Fests. Numerous stages and music tents, crafts for sale, delicious local cuisine at multiple stands. It was quite a feat. The sounds of zydeco, cajun, jazz, gospel, blues, country, and rock filled the air. Musicians who'd fled the city returned, even if briefly, to participate. The city was alive again, for a time.

But of all the music I heard that weekend, it was an evening concert at a club just outside the French Quarter, way up on Frenchman Street, that left me mesmerized. It was a Saturday night at the Blue Nile. We walked in around just before midnight as the Soul Rebels Brass Band were finishing their set. Soon after, blues artist Papa Mali took the stage with Chief Ike Boudreaux. They warmed up the crowd for Henry Butler, a pianist and singing sensation who joined them on the stage for much of the set. Butler, blind since childhood, looked like a young Ray Charles as he headed to the piano. He had lived in the Ninth Ward; Katrina destroyed his home and yet he stayed in New Orleans, still trying to rebuild.

The boogie woogy that came outta this man defied description. Every fiber of his being was immersed in the music and we all felt it too. His fingers flew over the piano keys and he sang from deep down, and who better than he to truly feel the blues. He ended with a musical tribute to the late, legendary Professor Longhair including "Tipitina," a version of which can be found on his 2004 disc, Homeland.

It was nearing 2:30 a.m. and we were tired from a long day of Fest, but we hung in there, convinced more great music was to come. And so there was. Several of Nawlins's best brass musicians took the stage: Big Sam on trombone, Maurice Brown on trumpet, and Carl Denson on saxophone joined by Mike Dillon on vibraphone, and a few others would rotate in as well. What would follow was a raucous jam of jazz, blues, swing fueled by that infectious New Orleans brass sound.

By 4:30 a.m., we left to crash but the band kept on going long after we left. We were happily exhausted and that music, and the love I feel for that city, will always stay with me.

(Photos to be uploaded soon)