The Valparaiso Men's Chorus "Guano and Nitrates" (4*)

You might figure you’ve heard all the versions of (What Shall We Do With a) Drunken Sailor you’re likely to need, but there’s a hearty roughness to the version that opens this collection, a sort of seedy singalong raunch meets Crescent City degeneracy that might persuade you to have a go at just one more.

You mightn’t think you need another Blow the Man Down either, but Alex McMurray and crew appear to be having such a good time anyone who fits into the target audience (thirsty people who love to bellow and still know how to curse, drink, and party) is probably going to find themselves reaching for a chilled article and looking for a chance to join in.

All for Me Grog breaks down into bar room chaos about half way through and gets itself back together to finish in a suitably rousing fashion, while Serafina features a rather classy little jazz solo in the middle, emphasising the fact that the Valparaiso Men’s Chorus might be a bunch of alcohol fuelled degenerates but they happen to include a fair cross section of New Orleans’ best musos.

So Early in the Morning sounds like a hangover song (the sort of hangover where you immediately reach for the hair of the dog that bit you, assuming, of course, you have actually started sobering up). New York Girls works the way the Steeleye Span version (for example, I could cite others) doesn’t, with a ragtag chorus, thumping bass drum with just a tad of syncopation and tin whistle and accordion churning away in the background. Magnificently ragged.

But it’s not all rant and rave, though the words in the chorus of Spanish Ladies suggests it should be. The track starts out as a sort of soft, serenading waltz, builds up a bit of momentum and switches back to maudlin sentimentality until the chorus kicks back in with odd blasts of drunken sousaphone picking its way through the melody line.

The chorus are back on the ran-tan for Sally Brown, complete with a trombone break that sounds predictably the worse for alcoholic wear, while Rio Grande starts relatively tenderly, with an electric guitar solo that fits the vibe that runs through the album perfectly. Light and shade is still possible, even in the degenerate company we’re sharing hereabouts.

Cape Cod Girls and Rosyanna bring proceedings to a rousing finish, with the latter throwing in a few contemporary references as the bottles clink, the Chorus roars away and the trombones and sousaphone rag around the tune.

All of which goes to show what can be achieved on the Monday after Thanksgiving if you happen to have an assembly of degenerates, recording equipment and a substantial supply of beer to lubricate their throats. According to the self-proclaimed mythology the single session at the Mermaid Lounge lasted as long as the beer supply, and the resulting set of traditional sea shanties filtered through an alcoholic New Orleans sensibility might have been larger had the beer supply been more generous, but what’s on offer here will do very nicely for mine.

It’s not the sort of thing that can be repeated on a regular basis (two or three albums at five year intervals would seem to be about the right ration) but as something to spice up your playlists this highly energised exercise in contagious tomfoolery and ribald rowdiness delivers plenty of fun, with a a drunken lurch as the sousaphone, trombone, washboard, guitar, accordion and viola go about their business and the Chorus does its thing.

Little Feat "Barnstormin' Live Volume One", "Barnstormin' Live Volume Two", "Rocky Mountain Jam" (all 4*)

Here are a couple that slipped past in the changeover between buying hard copies of new music and rocking over to iTunes to grab the digital equivalents.

The purpose of these selections from the Feat's extensive tape archive is, as far as I can make out, to provide new items that can be sold through the website and, more particularly, at the merchandise table at live gigs. That sort of thing is a vital component of a touring outfit's bottom line.

Barnstormin' Live Volume One hit the market and the merch table back in early 2005, and Hughesy was off to the website for a hard copy tout suite. Volume Two sneaked out later that year, by which stage I think I'd run across the problem of storage space so I'd put off buying a hard copy, and the reappearance of Volume Two in a two disk box with its predecessor wasn't going to result in a purchase either.

Rocky Mountain Jam appeared in 2007, aimed at much the same target, and by that time, with the purchases almost exclusively in the digital domain it was a case of we'll get around to it someday while financial and other considerations stepped in.

A glance at the three track listings doesn't reveal much in the way of fresh material. Apart from a take on Little Walter’s Last Night on Barnstorming One and a segue from Down On the Farm into Candy Man Blues to kick off Volume Two there’s a selection of titles from across the band’s history from Sailin’ Shoes to tracks from the then-most-recent studio effort Kicking It At The Barn without most of the night by night musical suspects. Those turn up on Rocky Mountain Jam, presumably because their absence on the earlier two titles had been noted.

As such, the three titles a fair portrayal of mid-noughties Little Feat in the seven piece configuration. One doesn’t ask too much about these things, but vocalist Shaun Murphy was cut loose in 2009, presumably as a cost-cutting exercise and the death of drummer Richie Hayes leaves keyboard wizard Bill Payne as the only survivor from the original quartet. Guitarist Paul Barrere, percussionist Sam Clayton and the bass playing Kenny Gradney climbed aboard for Sailin’ Shoes and multi-instrumentalist Fred Tackett had been on the fringes of the Feat scene for years before he was officially recruited when the post-Lowell George outfit reconvened to Let It Roll in 1988.

There will, of course, be those who’d question the need for any of these rebundlings, and that’d be a fair point if the Feat were inclined to regurgitate exact facsimiles of their studio output. As they don’t, it’s a matter of whether you like your Feat live (I do, mileages will vary), whether you need a bit more live material to go into the iTunes playlist (ditto) and whether you’re willin’ to pay the asking price (@ $16.99 over at iTunes you could say it’s a bit steep, but I can afford it, so...)

As far as the contents go, Barnstormin' Live Volume One has a fairly straightforward reading of Rocket in My Pocket, followed by a tasty trumpet (Fred Tackett) intro to Keepin' Up with the Joneses. Changin' Luck surges along just fine, with Shaun Murphy in characteristically fine voice, Spider's Blues is a spirited run through a relative obscurity and the album’s showpiece comes in the form of One Clear Moment > Just Another Sunday, an extended fifteen minute workout through two of the best post-Lowell era tracks. Your mileage may, of course, vary, but this is how Hughesy likes his twenty-first century Feat (right down to the bit of Representing the Mambo thrown in round off Just Another Sunday).

After that little tour de force you need a little light and shade, and Walkin' as Two provides just that. Sam Clayton growls his way through Little Walter’s Last Night and Paul Barrere leads a languid quest to Roll Um Easy. The Blues Don't Tell It All lifts the tempo a tad or three before Why Don't It Look Like the Way That It Talk lands things back in the languid zone to close things out.

Overall it’s a tasty sample that visits some of the less frequented quarters of the repertoire.

Barnstormin' Live Volume Two is a bit further away from the laid back side of things, opening with a jaunty Down on the Farm > Candy Man Blues before Bill Payne drops things back with a restrained reading of Under the Radar in its original rather than the subsequent reggae influenced incarnation. The restraint continues as Paul Barrere takes the vocal lead on Fool Yourself with a little vocal help from Fred Tackett and Shaun Murphy. It’s a tasteful reading of one of those Feat numbers that tends to be overlooked in favour of the usual suspects (Easy to Slip is another one).

There’s a rather nifty guitar, mandolin and understated swirling keyboards intro to Sailin' Shoes, and though Paul Barrere and Shaun Murphy go verse for verse through the song the version’s close in feel to the original second album version. After a couple of slower numbers, a tempo change is probably needed, and it comes with a rollicking Night on the Town, before things drop back a notch for an old favourite in Apolitical Blues, with a bit of Muddy Waters’ Long Distance Call inserted midstream. Shaun Murphy gets a spot of limelight for A Distant Thunder, and there’s a jaunty reading of Down on the Farm’s Six Feet of Snow. Bill Payne heads off Fighting the Mosquito Wars, and things are wound up neatly with A Day at the Dog Races, which Mr Barrere, judging by his comment at the end of the eleven and a half minutes, thoroughly enjoyed.

Rocky Mountain Jam kicks off with a spirited six and a bit minute Marginal Creatures, follows it with close to a dozen minutes of One Clear Moment > Sunday Jam, which is probably where anyone who isn’t into lengthy jamming will want to jump ship, since Spanish Moon > Skin It Back fills a solid quarter of an hour and the take on Dixie Chicken tips the scales at just over twenty-one minutes. In the light of those two, close to seven minutes of Rocket In My Pocket and a slightly leaner Feats Don't Fail Me Now might be seen as light relief, but if you’re Jam-averse, Rocky Mountain Jam ain’t gonna be your scene (man).

On the other hand, if you’ve heard a lot of sub-par mindless boogie with limited dynamics you might just be inclined to have a listen to what half a dozen musos with substantial playing chops (check the list of collaborations for individual members here) can do when they’ve decided to stave off boredom with tracks they’re probably expected to play every night (Dixie Chicken) or have to include in the setlist on a regular basis (Spanish Moon, Skin It Back, Rocket In My Pocket, Feats Don't Fail Me Now).

Mightn’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but it goes down just fine in these parts, and if it sounds like the sort of thing that floats your boat comes with a hearty recommendation from the Little House of Concrete.

Hans Theessink and Terry Evans "Visions" (4*)

There’s always room in a discerning collection for low-key playing by performers who know what they’re doing, and with around forty years playing the blues across Europe and America with around twenty albums under his belt Dutch-born Vienna-based guitarist Hans Theessink certainly knows his stuff. Throw in Terry Evans, one half of the vocal duo who provided much of the background vocal action for the R&B content on Ry Cooder’s albums from Chicken Skin Music on and you’ve got a combination that won’t be earth-shattering but certainly comes across as a mighty fine blend.

Two voices, two guitars, two days in a studio in Los Angeles in December 2007 with two guest spots from Richard Thompson (Mother Earth and Let The Four Winds Blow) and a bit of harp from Hans, and the result is a warm conversation between musical peers where egos have been left at home. Add a smidgen of percussion and the result is a a relaxed, predominately acoustic blend of classics (Mother Earth, You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover, Let the Four Winds Blow, Dark End of the Street, Trouble in Mind and Glory of Love) slightly more obscure covers (Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You, Talk to Your Daughter) and original material.

There’s nothing earth-shatteringly original on offer here, just a good honest blend of soul, blues, gospel, and roots music, crisply recordings that sound like they’re right there low-key in your living room or out on the neighbour’s back porch with a couple of beers close at hand. File under laid back and casual, Classy.

Terence Blanchard "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)" (4*)

I was more than slightly nonplussed when I clicked on the link that took me to After the deluge: 29 remarkable works inspired by Hurricane Katrina and found a complete absence of James Lee Burke's The Tin Roof Blow Down, a novel that burned with an almost incandescent rage (at least that's the way I recall my reaction when I read it back in the pre-blog era).

Yes, there were most of the other obvious inclusions (Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint's The River In Reverse, Dr John's City That Care Forgot and the Treme TV series) scattered among the rap, hip hop and other musical items, and I've added historian Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge, Dave Eggers' Zeitoun and a couple of titles by Tom Piazza (Devil Sent the Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America, City of Refuge and Why New Orleans Matters) to the chase these up in the Kindle Store list.

At around $30 for the DVD I'm not quite so sure about the Spike Lee documentary When The Levees Broke (2006) and it looks like the sequel If God Is Willing And The Creek Don’t Rise (2010) hasn't made it onto DVD but a reference to Terence Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), based around the soundtrack compositions Blanchard contributed to When The Levee Broke had me heading over to iTunes.

While there was something familiar about the name, a quick check in my iTunes library revealed a total lack of Terence, and resulted in a bit of checking around the ridges.

He gets a brief name check on p. 209 of Samuel Charters New Orleans: Playing a Jazz Chorus, citing him as one of the roster of talented young trumpet players who have had to leave New Orleans to make a living with their music and acknowledging his work with Spike Lee on film scores along with his own solo career.

You'd expect the odd reference in Rick Koster's Louisiana Music as well, and there they are, citing remarks by Irvin Mayfield about players including Wynton Marsalis and Blanchard who grew up with the traditional funerals and parades and are using those elements but going forward with them. It's kinda like having a big family and some of them work at a museum that's been around for years. (Location 631)

Location 828 has an eight-year-old Blanchard who'd fooled around on piano before he had an epiphany during a visit to his elementary school and subsequently focused on the trumpet, shortly before he met Wynton Marsalis and attended the New Orleans Centre for the Creative Arts, developing his molasses-smooth tone and expanding his New Orleans roots with a fascination for other types of music.

That process took him to New York and a stint with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers before forming his own sextet and heading off into film and television score work, which probably explains why there's nothing of his work in environments like the City of Dreams or Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens box sets.

I took a brief glance through the booklets that accompanied those two collections, and while I might have missed a credit in there somewhere, they're not exactly environments where you'd expect to find exponents of modern jazz or hard bop, are they?

All of which explains why I wasn't previously aware of the player who has been kept busy writing the scores for every Spike Lee movie since 1991 (overall he has more than forty film score credits) and whose current position as Artistic Director at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz had a lot to do with the post-Katrina relocation of the Institute from the University of Southern California to Loyola University New Orleans, a move that stemmed from an expressed desire to help jazz and New Orleans flourish once again.

From the opening Ghosts Of Congo Square, an Afro-Cuban celebration of the only place Crescent City slaves were allowed to gather and openly celebrate their African roots, titles like Levees, Wading Through, In Time of Need and Ghost of 1927 provide a fair indication of the overall mood explored here, with a fair degree of retrospectivity thrown in among the melancholy and yearning for renewal and revival after tragedy. It’s a case of the aftermath rather than the storm itself.

Based on A Tale of God's Will I'll be keeping an eye out for future releases, and will probably be heading back into the discography. There's always going to be room in the music library for more along the lines of this collection of quietly melancholic pieces, but the problem has always been finding them. Now, at least, I have an idea of where to start looking.