FoodMusicJustice.com

Earl Barth, a sixth generation master of the plastering art, has passed away.

Mr. Barth is representative of one of the little know aspects of New Orleans art and creativity.

Known for its music and food, New Orleans was and remains one of the bastions of high level craftsmanship in the building trades. New Orleans craftsmen were in demand around the country and their work can be seen in places as far flung as Chicago and Washington DC.

In 2008, scholars and music lovers gathered at the Sound Cafe in New Orleans for to hear some of these men talk about their dual lives and craftsmen and musicians - and to hear them play.

Here’s some video from the event:

http://www.foodmusicjustice.com/page/219.html

I love the music of places like Cuba and Brazil and God knows they have had a massive influence on the course of world music.

But let’s look at a few numbers for perspective.

The current population of Brazil is over 191 million people (191.000.000.)

Cuba has over 11 million (11,000,000)

New Orleans, at the height of its population (roughly 1960) had less than one million, 627,000 to be exact.

Today, after the federal levee catastrophe, the city is estimated to have something over 300,000.

So let’s line it up:

Brazil - 191,000,000
Cuba - 11,000,000
New Orleans - 300,000

For people who like percentages this means that New Orleans is only 00.15 % of the population of Brazil and only 2.7% of the population of Cuba.

Now, music is not a competition and the point of all of this is not to rank places and people by their importance, but it does illustrate a point about little New Orleans.

Jazz, R & B, rock and roll, funk, and a whole bunch of other varieties of music that didn’t get a name that stuck…no place on earth in the modern era has ever cranked out as much music as New Orleans.

Ernie K-Doe may have been right when he said it:

“I’m not certain, but I’m almost positive that all music came from New Orleans.”

Manchester, New Orleans’ sister city, which has also had a disproportionate influence on the course of popular music, has a population of less than 500,000.

Big things come in small packages.

Cellist Helen Gillet - a New Orleanian by way of Belgium, Singapore, Japan and Chicago - was a renter in pre-Katrina times.

She came home in October 2005 to a roofless apartment inhabited by wildlife.

Now she is a home owner through the Habitat for Humanity Musician’s Village program.

Click here for more about Helen Gillet
Helen Sings with Vavavoom

Caught this at the Sound Cafe and glad I did.

The video doesn’t begin to do it justice.

(more…)

Larry Blumenfeld did the interview. David Aman shot and edited. FoodMusicJustice.com produced it.

This was one of the videos Larry showed at the International Jazz Educators Conference in Toronto last summer.

Meanwhile, I shot a ton of nice stuff at the French Quarter Fest which I’ll be posting in the coming days.

One of the rare and beautiful things about New Orleans his how integrated live music is with daily life.

This used to be the norm. Now New Orleans seems to be the last place in North America where this is true.

And more than that, New Orleans has a music community that consciously develops its young; maintains its traditions (including a vast repertoire of New Orleans-based songs); and honors its elders for their open-handed generosity of spirit to the new generation.

It’s a very beautiful, very human system.

In this less-than-perfect video (the light was bad and I was cut off before things really got rolling) one of the most beloved figures in the New Orleans music community “Uncle” Lionel Batiste shares a moment at the Palm Court.

Caught this band - Da Truth Brass Band - playing on the corner on Frenchman street.

When I remember to, I carry a $95 video camera, the size of a pack of cigarettes, with me and shoot interesting things I see Lumiere-style (one shot, no edit) If I find that I have anything good, I load it up to YouTube.

Everyone who lives and visits New Orleans could be doing this.

In the process, bit by bit, we could put the magic of New Orleans out there for people who’ve never been here and maybe change people’s perceptions about the city and why it is so worth helping in its time of need.

Stop waiting for grants and the time to be right. Just do it.

I should know better than going anywhere without my PureDigital video camera (about the size of a pack of cigarettes.)But I do have a rudimentary video camera on my cell phone that records up to 15 seconds.

Here’s the end of a drum solo by a young kid playing with the Treme Brass Band at Ray’s Boom Boom Room on Frenchman Street.

Here’s some clips from the 2007 Big Nine Social and Pleasure Club Second Line, my favorite parade of the year and maybe my favorite event in New Orleans period. (more…)

Just got back from a community screening of “Faubourg Treme: The untold story of New Orleans.”

I expected it to be good. It was great.

(more…)

The NBA did it right.

They didn’t just come to New Orleans to play a game, they rolled up their sleeves and helped out in various ways. (more…)