Trombone Shorty "Say That to Say This" (3.5*)

Well, here we are on the point of parting company with Troy Andrews, at least as far as automatic buy this status is concerned. The third outing under the Trombone Shorty imprint is impressive in spots, lacklustre in others. We twigged a fair while back that there’s a conscious pursuit of mainstream success operating hereabouts, and, increasingly, there’s content that doesn’t fit comfortably into what I’m interested in listening to.
The loping groove that kicks off the title track is just fine. Keep rolling those out, Shorty, and Hughesy will be buying. Say That to Say This offers just under three minutes of blaring brass over a pile driving riff. Tasty. You and I (Outta This Place) has some of those elements lurking under the contemporary R&B vocals that persist through Get the Picture. The problem is that it’s starting to sound a little too much like R&B by numbers with the horns relegated to the background.
Vieux Carre, two minutes forty-five of jazzy Caribbean instrumental groove sets things back to where I’d like ‘em, and the cover of The Meters’ Be My Lady has the original New Orleans fonk masters appearing on record for the first time since 1978. So you can see where he’s coming from, you’ve got a fair idea where he’s headed, but some of us have reservations about the route.
That’s particularly the case with Long Weekend, written by album co-producer Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson. Pleasant enough in its own way, but largely generic and essentially lightweight. Fire and Brimstone has a little more bite to it, a streetwise celebration of survival, with the trombone hauled out for the instrumental break.
Following that, the instrumental Sunrise, while again pleasant enough, is a tad too laid back for its own good. It’s back to R&B by numbers for Dream On, which has no chance of advancing too far in the play count stakes, though the instrumental break’s tasty enough. I’m just not so keen on what you have to navigate to get there.
Far better is Shortyville, just under four and a half minutes of grooving instrumental that could have been a little more energetic but lopes along quite tastily with the brass motifs to the fore. Nola Luck winds things up with a vocal that’s of a piece with its counterparts throughout the set.
As a mix of grooving instrumentals and relatively insipid pop-R&B with close to generic lyrics Say That to Say This switches the four way blend of jazz, funk, rock and hip hop that characterised Backatown and For True for an increasingly R&B-oriented product, which is fine if that sort of thing floats your boat.
Unfortunately, the vocal content here doesn’t float mine. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Allen Toussaint "The Bright Mississippi" (4.5*)

Given the likelihood that the natural move when looking at an Allen Toussaint set exploring his influences would be to place the man in a Crescent City studio with an outfit drawn from New Orleans’ finest instrumentalists it makes sense, at least from where I’m sitting, for producer Joe Henry to head out of town and cut the album with a group of highly rated New York session players and guest artists.

The Bright Mississippi isn’t Toussaint’s first excursion into the world of jazz, but given the limited distribution of 2005’s Going Places, released on a small label run by his son, it might as well be. It also acts as the follow-up to Toussaint's high-profile 2006 album with Elvis Costello, The River in Reverse (also produced by Joe Henry). That time they used Costello’s Imposters alongside an array of New Orleans instrumentalists, but here there’s a horn section that approximates modern jazz royalty (trumpeter Nicholas Payton, whose father played bass on Lee Dorsey’s Working In A Coal Mine and clarinetist Don Byron), a stellar rhythm section (David Pilch on upright bass and Jay Bellerose, drums) with Marc Ribot, in all-acoustic mode on guitar. With Toussaint on piano and guest appearances from pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonist Joshua Redman that’s the instrumental lineup sorted.

As far as the material is concerned we’re looking at covers of classic pieces by Jelly Roll Morton (Winin' Boy Blues), Sidney Bechet (Egyptian Fantasy), Louis Armstrong (King Oliver’s West End Blues), Duke Ellington (Day Dream and Solitude), Django Reinhardt (Blue Drag), Thelonious Monk (The Bright Mississippi) alongside the traditional St. James Infirmary and Just A Closer Walk With Thee and Leonard Feather’s Long, Long Journey.

Sidney Bechet’s Egyptian Fantasy comes across as a brassy jazz funeral march, Byron's clarinet and Payton’s trumpet ragging around each other before a Toussaint piano solo over a barely audible tambourine in the background. Dear Old Southland riffs off Summertime throughout, opening with Payton playing a Dixie lament over Toussaint’s piano before another unaccompanied piano solo with Payton coming back soft and eloquent to round off an impressive six plus minutes.

The rolling piano in St. James Infirmary swings over Piltch's upright bass, Ribot's acoustic guitar and Bellerose's percussive punctuation, Ribot gets a solo and there’s an immaculately executed call and response to and fro around the main theme as Toussaint’s piano prodding Ribot's guitar on the way out.

Payton's back in the foreground for Singin’ the Blues with the rhythm section right on his heels and Toussaint comping along behind in a version that could have come straight out of Preservation Hall, and Jelly Roll Morton’s Winin’ Boy Blues is reworked as a piano duet with Brad Mehldau joining Toussaint behind the ivories.

Mention King Oliver’s West End Blues to anyone who knows their traditional jazz and the immediate response will probably mention Louis Armstrong and, predictably, Payton’s trumpet brings New Orleans’ most famous musical ambassador to mind from the opening five-note theme. Toussaint’s piano underpins the whole exercise and Ribot’s guitar is crisp and concise, as it is on Blue Drag, which, of course, it should on a Django Reinhardt number.

Byron’s clarinet takes the lead on the traditional Just a Closer Walk with Thee, with just a hint of playfulness as the stride piano plays off the gospel patterns as the clarinet loops back and forth across the top.

Thelonious Monk’s Bright Mississippi gets a down home treatment, with a touch of funk in the second-line drum groove and a buoyant strut in the horn arrangement. There’s none of that in Joshua Redman’s tenor sax on Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Day Dream, which gets the three-in-the-morning smoke-filled night club yearning treatment as Toussaint and Redman play off each other.

The album’s only vocal arrives in Leonard Feather’s Long, Long Journey, a weary blues with muted trumpet over a brushed snare drum stroll with slide guitar, subtle and understated and eases gently into Duke Ellington’s Solitude, a late night duet involving Ribot’s guitar and Toussaint’s piano picking their way around the theme in five and a half minutes of stop-start interplay. It makes for an elegant finale to an exceptional outing.

Cut live in the studio over four days (and it definitely sounds that way) The Bright Mississippi delivers a neat and innovative exploration of modern and traditional jazz elements that casts a glance back to the music’s roots and still sounds contemporary, delivers soul with elegance, and matches a good time feel with supper club sophistication. It’s a class effort that underlines the riches of the New Orleans tradition by taking the material, filtering it through one of the city’s musical giants and rolling it out through an instrumental outfit familiar with the feel but not bound by the musical geography.

It’s an exercise one might definitely be tempted to repeat (and my music collection could definitely handle further explorations of the same themes in a similar manner) though one suspects lightning might not manage to repeat the strike location.

And if it doesn’t, this will do quite nicely, thank you...

Bob Andrews & RKR-CB "Invisible Love" (4.5*)

While I haven’t lined up for a copy of the book that accompanies this latest episode of doggy derring-doo on the strength of the music herein I’ll be grabbing the musical component of subsequent releases as soon as I’m aware they’re out there. The second episode follows five months after the first, and there is, by all accounts, significant progress (including titles) for a third and fourth title in the developing series.

Like Shotgun, what we’re looking at here is part of an ongoing concept blending photography in and around the Marigny and Bywater neighbourhoods of New Orleans and a story line involving two black Labradors (Guzzard and Mr. Poo) with sequential sets of lyrics from RKR-CB (lyricist/producer Robin Hunn) set to music and performed by Andrews and a select cast of New Orleans musos, including Alex McMurray (guitar) and his Royal Fingerbowl confederates Carlo Nuccio (guitar, drums) and Matt Perrine (bass, tuba) and slide guitar from John Mooney. Andrews contributes vocals, keyboards and guitar and there’s a bit of extra work around the drum kit from Jermal Watson, plus saxophone action from Derek Huston.

John Mooney’s slide guitar drives Invisible Love into Exile on Main Street Stones territory, and things stay in the same postcode for Don't Stop. She Drives Me To Drink could probably use a dash more bravado and a a bit of Graham Parker sneer, but that wouldn’t have worked on DeFleured Me where the joys of pleasure are measured against the consequences. Where You Gonna Go has some rather classy piano work as Andrews ponders the question and Robin Hunn steps up to the vocal booth for a sleazy Bone, five and a bit minutes of leaving very little to the imagination.

There’s a tasty slide solo and a fair chunk of Sea Cruise in Beat Up The Memories, a brass section providing the punctuation on Suck My Pipes and a distinctly canine vibe (as you’d expect from the title) to Mutt Not Smut. Pretty In My Dreams takes a look at the gap between self image and external reality, Dynamite Doll rocks along in fine Jerry Lee Lewis fashion and Third Line My Heart has the brass section back to the fore as Andrews works New Orleans parade territory. It’s an upbeat and uplifting way to wrap up proceedings.

Invisible Love mightn’t be the destination you’re seeking if you’re after something flashy and spectacular, but if you’re after a fairly classy meld of New Orleans R&B and vintage rock’n’roll you could do much, much worse. When’s the next instalment?

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.

The Hot 8 Brass Band "The Life And Times Of…" (4.5*)

Five years on from the rerelease of their debut album on the British Tru Thoughts label, the second recording from New Orleans Hot 8 Brass Band (the third if you count their contribution to The Blind Boys of Alabama Down In New Orleans in 2008) continues the Hot 8 tradition of recasting New Orleans marching music by filtering more contemporary material through a second line sensibility.

Last time around it was Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing and Snoop Dogg’s What’s My Name? This time Basement Jaxx’s Bingo Bango and The Specials’ Ghost Town get the Hot 8 treatment but from the opening of Steaming Blues it’s obvious we’re still looking back at the same roots, hot straight-ahead New Orleans jazz, with the writing credit going to former Hot 8 member Joseph Williams, whose death at the hands of the New Orleans Police Department is the subject examined a few tracks later on Can’t Hide From The Truth. The tuba growls, the horns blaze and the hollers and percussion deliver a sound that’s a 100% New Orleans fusion of traditional jazz, Afro Cuban, brass band and funk elements.

It would have been easy to do a Trombone Shorty (not that I’m knocking Trombone Shorty, just pointing out a difference in approach) to have headed into and Heavy Friends territory, rousing up guests but no, the Hot 8 work much the same territory as their debut, and you won’t find a featuring in the track listing.

There’s a fine funky tuba and snare drum driven start to Fine Tuner, a percussive groove with call-and-response vocals that builds gradually to a joyous fusion of parade music, R&B and old-fashioned swing. Basement Jaxx's Bingo Bango gets a Latin-tinged makeover, blending Afro-Cuban and New Orleans elements, jazz and funk influences and braying horns into a joyous salsa before a rap intro runs into New Orleans (After The City), a gospel-derived hip-hop assertion that, basically, there’s no place like home and home is where the Hot 8 want to be. At the same time things aren’t all rosy on the home turf.

New Orleans police shot and killed band member Joseph Williams and Can’t Hide From The Truth castigates the culprits and those who know what went down. Anger and bitterness run deep, and not without reason, though the truth will set you free. Sure, there’s hurt and bitterness in there, and it comes out in the music, but there’s also a solid New Orleans second line vibe as the drums rattle and the horns deliver a message that’s equal parts protest, tribute and call to celebration. It’s a potent blend of seemingly contradictory emotions.

Given some of the redevelopment issues that formed one of the major plot lines for the Treme TV series, you’d possibly have thought someone would have picked up on the idea that The Specials’ Ghost Town is a rather obvious fit for post-Katrina New Orleans, The Hot 8 shift it firmly into the casbah with a Moroccan intro that has virtually nothing to do with conventional N’Awlins notions but works just fine anyway when they start ragging on the theme and bring it back home.

Issues with heroin come up in Let Me Do My Thing as Hot 8 trombonist Tyrus Chapman addresses the war on drugs in a righteous spray that blends elements of soul, jazz, hip hop and reggae, but the rap towards the end might tempt the rap-averse listener to press the shuffle button. In my case the sentiments are sufficiently righteous to avert that, but mileages may vary.

The shuffle button will almost invariably come into action if it’s within reach when Skit comes around, not that I’ve got anything against a band shooting the breeze in the studio, you understand, but there are some things that fit into the programming but don’t necessarily float your boat when you remove them from that context.

The context, however, is fairly obvious when you get to War Time, a blast of infectiously catchy, percussive sound, with blaring horns, snappy drums, whoops, hollers and handclaps in a fusion of traditional jazz, parade music, R&B, funk and Afro-Cuban elements that winds things up in the best way possible, leaving the listener looking for more.

The Life and Times Of ... delivers nine slices of prime twenty-first century New Orleans music that couldn’t be cut any way other than live in the studio, with a definite sense of community that invokes a tradition of marching band music that stretches back well over a century to the pre-jazz era. The Hot 8 matches a brassy blast of joyous grooves with Dixieland, jazz, R&B, rock, funk, Afro Cuban and hip-hop elements to produce something that’s simultaneously contemporary and traditional, a great expression of second line fonk.

It is, according to reports, half of a pigeon pair of albums, with the sequel apparently intended as a more reflective tribute to fallen friends delivered through a collection of traditional brass band material. That’s a prospect I’m looking forward to with considerable anticipation, though Tombstone, due 20 May doesn’t, judging by the track listing (there isn’t too much that’s recognisable about the names, anyway) doesn’t seem to be too traditional.

The preorder will, however, be going in regardless...

Irma Thomas "Simply Grand" (4*)

There are some things that are best kept simple.

When, for example, I have the opportunity to open a really good bottle of red wine I’m inclined to line it up beside a sizeable chunk of Tasmanian eye fillet or rib on the bone, thoroughly sealed on both sides and finished in the oven. When that’s done, deglaze the pan juices with water and a tad of the red (I’m not in the habit of overdoing the sauce when I’m looking at a $50 plus Halliday 95 or 96 pointer) and serve with some mashed potato and steamed broccoli or zucchini. It’s something that allows you to enjoy the complexities of the wine and the fall apart tenderness of the beef without having too many other factors getting in the way.

Given Irma Thomas’ status as arguably the greatest of the female R&B and soul voices to come out of New Orleans you might be tempted to surround her with upbeat fonk, heavy on the horns and it would probably come out OK. Thomas, however, always comes across as a little understated, medium rare as opposed to well done to continue the steak analogy, and those vocal tones work best, for mine, over a minimalist, uncluttered backing.

Here, the concept is straightforward. Take Irma, give her some ballads and set her beside a piano, bass and drums trio and let things run their course. This could have worked pretty well with any one of the ivory-tinklers on display here, but rather than sticking with one player they’ve recruited the pick of the New Orleans piano practitioners (Henry Butler, Dr. John, Jon Cleary, Tom McDermott, David Egan, Ellis Marsalis, Davell Crawford and Marcia Ball) and a couple of notable ring-ins (Norah Jones, John Medeski, Randy Newman) and only one notable absence (Allen Toussaint).

John Fogerty’s River Is Waiting with Henry Butler on piano and a gospel trio in the background is straight out of church, which the following track, If I Had Any Sense I'd Go Back Home, a Louis Jordan cover, isn’t as Irma and Dr John give the lyric a resigned reading. Jon Cleary’s the guest pianist on Too Much Thinking as Irma addresses the problems you have when you’re too busy to worry about minor considerations like rent, bills and all those other things you can’t do anything about.

It’s back to Louis Jordan territory for Early in the Morning with Tom McDermott looking after the accompaniment on a track that lacks the fire of some other readings. It’s one that may be getting the shuffle treatment when it turns up by itself a a little further down the track. I’m not entirely convinced by the Burt Bacharach co-write What Can I Do either.

Lil' Band O' Gold‘s David Egan provides Underground Stream and looks after the keyboard duties on a gospel call for regeneration, complete with choir, and the combination works better than the two tracks that preceded it. One that’ll work its way into myTop 1500, and if I was still doing the radio bit it’d be getting a regular spot on the airwaves.

Norah Jones takes over the keyboard for Thinking About You, which is a little restrained after the preceding track. Better, and more assertive is Dr John’s contribution to Be You, a track he co-wrote with the great Doc Pomus, originally intended for Etta James. Dr. John played on Irma’s first recording session (You Can Have My Husband But Don't Mess with My Man) back in 1959 and his work here delivers a playfully funky counterpoint to a playful shimmying vocal.

This Bitter Earth was a hit for Dinah Washington some fifty-plus years ago, and gets a smoky nightclub style treatment here with elegant but quite restrained backing from Ellis Marsalis and delicate upright bass and hi-hat action on the drums, and it’s a similar story when David Torkanowsky returns for Cold Rain (he’d provided the piano part for the Bacharach number) the combination works much better than it did earlier as Irma meditates on the cleansing that follows a storm.

Allen Toussaint wrote Somebody Told You and Irma recorded it way back in 1962, but this time it’s John Medeski rather than Toussaint providing the backing while Thomas testifies. Overrated features Davell Crawford on an R&B ballad that’s rather soft around the edges and in danger of attracting smart-arsed references to the title. Along with What Can I Do, it’s one of the weaker tracks on an album that’s pretty consistent otherwise. There’s a more spartan turn around the eighty-eights from Marcia Ball on Don Nix’s Same Old Blues, though there’s a gospelly twist there that definitely ain’t the same old barrelhouse variety.

But the album’s highlight comes when Randy Newman slips onto the stool in front of the keyboard for I Think It's Going to Rain Today. Newman’s bleak vision, with hope and desolation presented as opposite sides of the same coin makes for a moving meditation in the aftermath of a disaster, and Thomas’ understated vocal delivers a poignant combination of heartbreak and vulnerable dignity. Stunning.

And, when you look at the title, the title says it all. Simple, slightly modified to fit grammatical requirements and grand, as in piano, and also as in the dictionary definitions.

Take your pick from:
magnificent and imposing in appearance, size, or style
of high rank and with an appearance and manner appropriate to it
used … to suggest size or splendour
of the highest rank
very good or enjoyable; excellent
all of which are taken from the Dictionary app on my Mac (which, in turn, is taken from the New Oxford American Dictionary, so we're talking authoritative here, folks.

Authoritative. That's another descriptor that fits like a glove...

The Hot 8 Brass Band "Rock with The Hot 8 Brass Band" (4.5*)

Right from the start of What's My Name (Rock With The Hot 8), six and a half minutes of marching band mayhem (check the interjections, this mother must have been cut live in the studio) it’s obvious there’s something that kicks serious ass looming.

While there’ll be elements in this blend of marching brass, traditional New Orleans jazz, Crescent City funk, old style soul and contemporary hip hop beats that won’t be to everyone’s taste, it’s a case of the whole being more than the sum of the parts and there’s the old shuffle button if there’s something that doesn’t quite cut it as far as you’re concerned.

Take, for example, the start to Joseph Williams’ It's Real. You mightn’t like the generic sounding starting rap, but once the brass kicks in there’s no doubt where you are and it’s of a piece with the opening track which is, I gather a cover of a Snoop Dogg number. Click on the shuffle button when the rap comes back in and you’ll miss the exuberant ending that runs nicely into the traditional Fly Away, where the vocal fits comfortably into the song’s gospel roots as the band whoop and holler in the background.

I Got You kicks off in R&B territory before the brass steps in, and you can say much the same about the cover of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing, close to nine minutes of unadulterated fonk complete with an uptempo a capella run through the lyric line (assuming a capella allows handclaps).  The band’s Keith Anderson contributes Jisten To Me, while We Are One is an R&B cover dating back to the early eighties. Both are delivered with the same exuberant verve that runs through the rest of the album, as is the group composition Skeet Skeet, and you don’t need to be Einstein to identify the reggae roots of Rastafunk, credited to Hot 8 member Joseph Williams, shot dead by police in controversial circumstances in 2004.

E Flat Blues sits firmly in traditional territory, and will be working its way up towards Hughesy’s Top 1500 most played, which is more than be said for Ziggly Wiggly’s Skit # 1, a forty second denunciation of tight-fisted parade organisers who fail to cough up for the band. I can sympathise, but it’s going to attract the shuffle button on a regular basis, specifically because it precedes a great Love Don't Live Here, which demonstrates what the Hot 8 are capable of doing to a late seventies chart topper. Finally, Get Up (credited to Hot 8 snare drummer Dinerral Shavers, fatally wounded while driving with his family in 2006) winds things up in suitably upbeat fashion as the band rags, the handclaps, whoops and hollers continue and the second line rhythms run on for close to seven minutes.

Rock with The Hot 8 does a rather wonderful job of delivering a brass band that’s definitely contemporary, and while the hip-hop elements are something I could probably do without taking them out of the mix would detract from what is a very impressive restatement of New Orleans tradition in a twenty-first century setting. If you’re looking to deliver traditional styles to new audiences this, I reckon, is the way to do it.

Dr John "City That Care Forgot" (4*)

There are some artists you naturally associate with a particular city, venue or other environment, but I can’t think of any that spring to mind as naturally as Dr John and New Orleans. As a teenage session muso in the late 50s, Mac Rebennack was an integral part of a scene he had to get out of due to issues with the law in the mid-60s and when he needed an avenue to provide a gig for assorted transplanted Crescent City music identities based in Los Angeles in the late sixties, the city and its traditions provided the basis for the Dr John persona that has provided him with an ongoing forty-plus year career.

Over that time he hasn’t always lived there, but he’s maintained a constant liaison with the city and its music, even when venturing off onto tangents involving Duke Ellington or Johnny Mercer. Given those ongoing links you wouldn’t be surprised by the tone of 2008’s City That Care Forgot.

Looking back over an extensive discography that’s dominated by Louisiana fonk, even the most ardent fan would have to agree that he’s been hit and miss and the average fan’s mileage is likely to vary with the amount of perceived effort that’s gone into the session. There’s almost invariably something of interest somewhere on a Dr John album, but the strongest material tends to come when he’s got a particular bee in his bonnet (Gumbo, Goin’ Back to New Orleans) or a particularly strong collaborator (In the Right Place). The City That Care Forgot delivers both.

Given the events that followed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, of course, it’d be difficult not to have a bee in your bonnet, but from the start of Keep On Goin' to the end of Save Our Wetlands there’s a strong slow-burning anger that delivers what is arguably his strongest collection of original material.

As anyone who’s been through a natural disaster would know, as you set about trying to get over the destruction, there’s only one thing you can do, and that’s to Keep On Goin' and the album kicks off with a low key funky starter in a situation where you could well be tempted to come out swinging right from the start.

He doesn’t, however, take too long to focus on his targets. It’s not the destruction itself that’s got him riled, it’s the lack of environmental concern and responsibility and a need for corporations and government be held to account, and Time For A Change makes no bones about it over a rolling R&B groove with crisp horns and guitar work from Eric Clapton to underline the message.

And when you’re looking for those responsible, head straight to the top of the tree. The road to the White House is paved with lies is the first line in Promises, Promises as the Doctor and Willie Nelson take alternate verses attacking the administration and the cronies who lined their pockets in the wake of disaster.

Life is a near-death experience is the opening line of You Might Be Surprised, just under four minutes of ballad in an R&B vein that espouses the power of positive thinking. All you gotta do is want it bad enough and you just might be able to take action and the repetitive cycle of disaster and corruption that characterises the history of the Crescent City.

The five minutes of Dream Warrior rails against the injustices that followed in the wake of Katrina and the hypocrisy that meant the city was still more or less in ruins three years after the storm. It’s the same passion that burns through the first two series of Treme, and the reason for the continued neglect comes through in Black Gold, a denunciation of the Iraq War and America's dependence on oil and the coverup that followed the Gulf oil spill.


The state of post-storm New Orleans is again the theme in We Gettin' There, with moody trumpet from Terence Blanchard, and if it seems everything’s hunky dory down there, the chorus sets things rather straighter. And if ya wonder how we doin', short version is we gettin' there, and if you wonder how we doin', is we gettin' mad.

What was there before and who was responsible for its disappearance delivers the theme for the next three tracks. Stripped Away tackles the cleansing role of the floods that washed away the rot and decay of the old city and that will, hopefully, be reborn eventually, but Say Whut? balances the picture. It’s a four and a half minute demand that somebody be held to account for the crime, tragedy and devastation that should have been avoided, and speaking of things that need fixing My People Need A Second Line looks at the traditional New Orleans funeral procession that’s being regulated and harassed out of existence as the new wave of carpetbaggers look to profit from the city's culture while doing away with the influences that shaped it.

That, of course, is all part of the Land Grab, with Terence Blanchard’s trumpet featuring again as the Doctor’s vocals nail the issues involved with disappearing neighbourhoods, and opportunistic developers looking for a quick buck through gentrification. An Ani DiFranco backing vocal underpins City That Care Forgot while the lead vocal's gruff denunciation enumerates his disillusion with the fact that an area where music and laughter once filled the air has been drastically changed by politicians and profiteers. The album concludes with environmental pleas to Save Our Wetlands and protect Mother Earth, themes that don’t just apply to New Orleans.

He mightn’t have been there when Katrina struck, but given the fact that the disaster has provided plenty to become agitated about it’s hardly surprising to find the Doctor inclined to rant about mistreatment and failure to deliver.

Overtly political? Possibly, but given the magnitude of the issues and the dissatisfaction produced anything less than fervent vitriol and pointed comment really isn’t going to cut it.

File under: Trademark New Orleans musical gumbo seasoned with righteous indignation.

Bob Andrews "Shotgun" (4.5*)

As someone with a long term interest in The Rumour, Graham Parker’s one-time backing band (their three albums on their own, Max, Frogs Sprouts Clogs and Krauts and Purity Of Essence occupy a significant place in Hughesy’s list of criminally underrated albums) who also worked as the Stiff Records house band I really should have done a better job of following the individual members of a mighty fine outfit over the thirty years since they broke up in 1981.

Keyboard player Bob Andrews was the first to fly the coop, splitting in 1979 and subsequently absent from Purity Of Essence and has gone on to play on over a thousand recordings with engineering and production credits for more than fifty artists, facts I was totally unaware of until a review of this album on the Burning Wood blog had me rocking over to iTunes to grab a copy.

Twenty years ago he ended up settling in New Orleans, and has, by all accounts, become a fixture in the Crescent City music scene with a regular gig at Dos Jefes Uptown Cigar Bar at 5535 Tchoupitoulas Street, frequent appearances on the local community radio station (WWOZ)and at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He has, along the way, acted as a side man for, among others, John Mooney, Jumpin' Johnny Sansone and Marva Wright and played several gigs with Allen Toussaint.

This album, inspired by a book of the same name about the unique shotgun architecture of New Orleans, Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods, isn’t quite the New Orleans extravaganza you might expect, although it does feature its share of New Orleans identities. Apart from Hughesy’s recent new favourite Alex McMurray on guitar, and Johnny Sansone on harmonica there’s one of Jon Cleary's Absolute Monster Gentlemen (Cornell Williams) on bass, the New Orleans Blues Department’s Red Priest on guitar, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’ s Jermal Watson on drums and up and coming saxophonist Calvin Johnson. Andrews handles keyboard and vocal duties, and contributes some guitar for good measure.

So, what’s it all about?

You’re looking, believe it or not, at a musical rendering of the adventures of Guzzard and Mr. Poo, New Orleans lyricist/author and healthcare consultant Robin Hunn’s black Labradors. The illustrated book sets the song lyrics that recount two dogs’ antics beside photographs of the Marigny and Bywater neighbourhoods with additional graphic elements from Atom Davis.

Hunn, who formed a company (RKR-CB Productions) to promote New Orleans music and help musicians delivered the set of lyrics to Andrews, who came up with the tunes, and came up with the photographs. The saga of Guzzard and Mr. Poo will continue with another book/CD combo, Invisible Love, described as edgier and more adventurous

Musically, the eleven tracks deliver a tasty fusion of Andrews’ Brinsley Schwarz and The Rumour pub rock roots and New Orleans blues and funk, deliberately looking to put the musicians in places they don’t normally go.

The title track kicks things off nicely with a Brinsley Schwarz groove, which then falls comfortably into a bit of salacious funk on Man In The Man Position and additional raunch included on Put Out or Shut Up (no explanations necessary there, folks). That’s also the case with I Knew It Was Wrong But I Did It Anyway though it’s not immediately evident we’re talking canine rather than human misbehaviour. Black Alligators mines a a dirty little New Orleans groove with tasty harp from Johnny Sansone, while Local Lover, Doghouse, Entitled to Love and Hit Me With A Bus choogle along merrily. Around the Corner and Only Lovers Do wind things up nicely, and the whole exercise hangs together rather nicely even without the book which was, I must admit, a disappointment when it arrived.

While there are language advisory issues with some tracks the rest of them would have been getting high rotation if I was still presenting on the local airwaves which is, I think, about as high a recommendation as I’m able to deliver. There’s a raffish charm that runs through the album that sufficed to have the sequel Invisible Love downloaded as soon as it was sighted on the horizon.

Royal Fingerbowl "Happy Birthday, Sabo!" (4.5*)

The first episode in the Alex McMurray story comes in the wake of a quest for a gig in 1995, McMurray apparently informed the management at a Thai dive bar called the Dragon's Den on the edge of New Orleans’ French Quarter that he had a band, got the gig and therefore needed to find a rhythm section. Royal Fingerbowl was, essentially the result, with McMurray’s guitar and vocals supported by bassist Andrew Wolf and Kevin O'Day on drums, both of whom, like the leader, landed in New Orleans to further their  educations and ended up exploring the city’s musical traditions.

Two years later a demo recorded live during the day time in a deserted club delivered a contract with New York's TVT label, and Happy Birthday Sabo! followed shortly thereafter. Nothing But Time is a tasty opener, delivering a handy primer to some of McMurray’s lyrical concerns but the languid Manahawkin is the first sign that there’s something out of the ordinary on the horizon. There’s a drowsy summertime feel to a song that appears to deal with a kidnapping aimed at recovering lost emotional and financial capital.

At least that’s what I think it’s about. McMurray’s songs tend to wrap themselves around some odd ideas. Month of Sundays, for example, isn’t the sort of title you’d associate with your common or garden love song.

Which, of course, is fine because McMurray doesn’t write them. You’re so ugly my dog is afraid of you/But I can’t help thinkin’ I want to get next to you, he intones over a marching band brass section and rattling snare drums and before long he’s offering to teach the object of his affections how to do wheelies on her bicycle and we’re obviously talking kiddie for kiddie lust over the long summer vacation.

What happened to that dress that I stole for you/and Why can’t you fix your face like I told you to are the opening lines of Big Whiskey, a lethargic roam through Crescent City bars delivered in McMurray’s bourbon soaked drawl while Ozona, TX has an old man in an old house unable to dream an old cowboy dream. There are Homeric references in Rosy Fingered Dawn (McMurray’s background in Literature and Philosophy presumably kicking in there) and an easy shuffle leads into Fistful of Love, a swinging little ditty that’s probably about what you think it is.

My Money shuffles along as well, with McMurray specifying what he’ll do when he makes it big and strikes it rich and what Rick Koster describes as a Kurt-Weill-Lives-In-A-Rampart-Street-Flophouse-and-reads-Charles Bukowski approach to tunecraft (Louisiana Music p. 231) continues through Muenchentown, where the Octoberfest oompah backing builds to a feverish cacophonous ending.

Runaway psychopath Otis seems to be a recurring character and when Otis Goes Postal the situation is related to something about the moon that ain’t right, and he’s preparing for the Armageddon as the SWAT teams are poised to go into action.

Grandiose schemes are the ongoing order of the day in Toby, where someone’s planning to highjack a freight train and drive it to Rio or some such place, and Carny Boy, fairly predictably, takes a look at life in a travelling circus with fairground laughter lurking in the background. It’s a vaguely unsettling touch.

Winding things up, Magnets delivers a nine and a half minute meditation on the influences that operate just under the surface of the protagonist’s life, a languid reflection that turns unsettling as McMurray does a reasonable impersonation of a howling wolf. It’s not his fault, it’s those damn magnets.

Track by track Happy Birthday Sabo! stacks up pretty well against just about anything I’d be inclined to line up beside it. McMurray’s vocals have a fine low rent rasp to ‘em, while the band locks in behind them in a way that serves the song just right. McMurray’s guitar doesn’t head off into virtuoso extravagance, but it does what it needs to do when it needs to be done, a model of restraint on something like Manahawkin that put me in mind of Steve Cropper on Dock of the Bay.

But the greatest strength is the material McMurray are working with. The dude can write, and while things lean musically towards mid-tempo blues and jazz the songs, set in places where the buses might run but services are on the infrequent side of occasional and populated by people who might have heard of mainstream society but haven’t got within cooee of the concept are the real strength.

4.5* because I want room for a higher rating when he really hits his straps...

Anders Osborne "Black Eye Galaxy" (4.5*)

There’s inevitably a point where writing from and about personal experience threatens to tip over into too much information territory, and when confronted with the opening track of Anders Osborne’s latest recording you can’t help thinking things are definitely about to tip in that direction. Send Me A Friend kicks off with a thunderous riff straight out of Led Zeppelin territory, a howl of psychic torture pleading for assistance in the face of addiction.

If that’s how he starts the album where does he take it from here? might be an obvious question, but I, for one, was hoping it wouldn’t be more of the same. The prospect of spending a little under an hour faced with pile-driving riffs and tormented wails doesn’t hold much attraction these days, but fortunately Osborne understands the need for light and shade.

After that bludgeoning start, the personal experience bit continues through Mind Of A Junkie, seven and a half confessional minutes that threatens to head off into too much information as far as the lyrical content is concerned but sets things up for a lengthy guitar solo that’s a masterpiece of transcendental restraint and verges on the best aspects of Neil Young territory.

After the dark on the first two tracks the lighter side of things kicks in on Lean On Me/Believe In You and When Will I See You Again? Two love songs with a sunny West Coast groove that brings the Laurel Canyon troubadour school to mind in much the same way as the previous track invoked Neil Young work nicely as a contrast to what’s gone before and what’s in store.

Co-written with Little Feat’s Paul Barrere, a man who’s fought his own inner demons and come through pretty well, Black Tar reads best as another reference to former addiction but works almost as well if you read it as a reference to the notorious BP oil spill in the Gulf. Either way it’s big on Led Zep lurch and thunderously buzzy guitar riffage.

After that, there’s an understandable element of winding things back down in eleven and a bit minutes of Black Eye Galaxy, a track that starts off in the same territory as Lean On Me/Believe In You and When Will I See You Again?  and then, around the 3:40 mark meanders off into a lengthy solo that has definite elements of late sixties Jerry Garcia. Think Dark Star and you’re in the right postcode and I’d have thought Black Eye Galaxy > Dark Star was a dead giveaway as far as titles and influences go in this instance. There’s a dash of the old Jimi Hendrix 1983 just before the vocals come back for a final chorus.

A harmonica intro to Tracking My Roots leads into another folksy effort that looks back to Osborne’s Swedish origin and his subsequent wanderings, a theme that persists through Louisiana Gold and another Osborne-Barrere co-write in Dancing In The Wind sets things up for a strong finish, a sweet acoustic love song that contrasts nicely with much of what has gone before.

Co-written with New Orleans pianist Henry Butler Higher Ground closes the album with a gospel testament where the string section owes more to contemporary classical music than the blues or New Orleans tradition. With his daughter and wife singing in a choir of friends and family it closes the song cycle on a note of triumph and personal salvation that could be extended to take in his adopted city’s resilience in the face of the worst the weather, fate and humanity can throw in its direction.

Recorded at Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana, and co-produced by Osborne, Galactic drummer Stanton Moore, and engineer Warren Riker, Osborne handles most of the instrumental work with assistance from Moore and Eric Bolivar on drums and percussion, Carl Dufrene (ex-Tab Benoit’s band) on bass and additional guitar from Billy Iuso.

Where American Patchwork dealt with Osborne’s past struggles with addiction, Black Eyed Galaxy offers the prospect of recovery and delivers a song cycle that runs from the close to too much information situation in Send Me A Friend to a sense of that’s good, hope he makes it at the end. It’s a journey from addiction to sobriety, dark into light, storm into calm and suggests Osborne is hitting his straps in the writing department alongside his considerable instrumental chops and heartfelt vocals. I’ll be watching eagerly for the next instalment.

Johnny Sansone "The Lord Is Waiting the Devil Is Too" (4*)

Here's one firmly in the less is more school of record production. Recorded live in the studio, with a very basic lineup (Sansone on chromatic and diatonic harmonicas and vocals, producer Anders Osborne on guitar with Galactic drummer Stanton Moore pounding the skins), The Lord Is Waiting the Devil Is Too apparently comes in the wake of a broken marriage and delivers some of the best overdriven blues I’ve heard in quite a while.

The pattern’s set from the start of Sinking Ship, four minutes of impassioned vocals, great globs of overamped harp and a guitar riff that probably doesn’t move out of the red zone on the old VU meters. The harp-dominant instrumental Corn Whiskey repeats the formula, though with the guitar dropped down in the mix, and gives a thematic intro to the gritty vocal on Down, with its meet me at the bottom because that’s where I’m gone chorus, and the issues related to homelessness that get done over in the darkly moody Invisible, with the backing dropped right back and Sansone’s voice and harp front and centre.

The casual listener isn’t, of course, going to know how much real life is reflected in the lyrical content, but there’s no doubt what we've got here is the sound of a man howling his anger, despair and frustration and blowing the hell out of the harp to vent just a little bit more. The side men are locked right into the same mode, Moore’s drums pounding away in the introduction to Johnny And Janie, a tale of betrayal and love gone down the gurgler with Osborne rumbling away down below.

Requests to Forget about You Know Who and questions like Where’s Your Heart? slot into that breakup scenario well, while The Lord Is Waiting the Devil Is Too comes across as a timely reminder that you need to make the right choice when decision time rolls around.

And since the protagonist has no intention of remaining in the vicinity Without Love, it seems fairly logical the final track should be titled Leavin’ and closes things out with a not quite slow drag instrumental. Last time around on my way out the door sort of territory.

In the wake of three and a half million well I woke up this mornings, the album serves as a reminder that heartache and inner turmoil were, after all, the wellsprings the blues came from. Sansone’s delivery, a gritty, stripped down, straight from the heart yowl of anguish, the stripped-down trio format producer Osborne apparently insisted on, and the live in the studio approach combine to deliver something that isn’t exactly easy listening but works just fine with the volume cranked and a therapeutic beverage at hand.

And the harp work, while it’s not quite Magic Dick on the lickin’ stick (the J. Geils Band’s harp man has long been Hughesy’s yardstick of harmonica virtuosity) is tasty enough to have me eyeing Sansone’s back catalogue, which definitely seems worth investigating.

Trombone Shorty "For True" (4*)

There’s a school of thought suggesting the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina is going to be followed by an equally destructive reworking of New Orleans’ musical traditions, and you’d probably have every reason to believe that, yes, with the forced removal and relocation of so many previously tight-knit communities things aren’t going to be the same in the future.

Here, on the other hand, we’ve got a reminder that while you might take the kid out of New orleans you won’t necessarily be able to get the New Orleans out of the kid. At the ripe old age of twenty-six Troy Andrews (a.k.a. Trombone Shorty) is coming off two decades of involvement with New Orleans jazz and funk. When the influences are in that deep you don’t get them out unless you’re willing to consider major surgery.

Sure, there are the rap and hip-hop elements, but you’re likely to get them lurking in anything musical that’s coming out of America these days. There’s a rap in the middle of the latest Springsteen, and at that point I rest my case.

The real point is, however, that when outside influences things get to the Crescent City they tend to be reworked through a New Orleans sensibility. I’ve been listening to Heavy Sugar, and while you could look at it and label it as reasonably generic fifties and early sixties rock’n’roll and R&B there’s a stylistic thread running through the hundred and fifty tracks that, basically, says N’Awlins.

These things tend to run in families, or at least they do in New Orleans. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill (the man who played drums for Professor Longhair and Huey "Piano" Smith, wrote Ooh Poo Pah Doo, moved to California to work with Harold Battiste and Mac Rebennack and wrote songs recorded by Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher, and Willie Nelson).

Hill’s grandson grew up in Tremé, started playing trombone at age six, attended the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, picked up a gig in Lenny Kravitz's horn section in 2005 and put his current pop/funk/hip-hop outfit Orleans Avenue (Pete Murano, guitar, Mike Ballard, bass, Dan Oestreicher and Tim McFatter, saxes, Joey Peebles, drums, and Dwayne "Big D" Williams, percussion) together in 2009.

2010’s Backatown hit Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Chart at #1 and held that spot for nine weeks. With that under his belt, tours across the Americas, Europe and Japan and Brazil (opening spots for Jeff Beck’s U.K.tour and Dave Matthews Band in the U.S.A.) and recording sessions with Galactic, Eric Clapton, Lenny Kravitz and Dr. John have started to build up an impressive musical CV.

He’s managed to acquire an impressive array of friends in the process, and For True, produced by Ben Ellman from Galactic (he also filled the role for Backatown) along with Orleans Avenue, there are guest appearances from the Rebirth Brass Band, Jeff Beck, Warren Haynes, Stanton Moore, Kid Rock, Ellman, Ivan and Cyril Neville, Ledisi and Lenny Kravitz to add extra dimensions to the Trombone Shorty Supafunkrock.

The result is a blend of traditional New Orleans jazz, funk and soul, intertwined with hard-rock power chords and hip-hop beats, fourteen tracks written or co-written by Andrews, who plays trombone (predictable), trumpet (he’s equally impressive there), organ, drums, piano, keys, synth bass and percussion. He’s no slouch as a singer either, and while he’s not quite up there with the very best of them when he’s that good instrumentally he doesn’t have to be.

All the same, compared to Backatown you get the feeling Shorty’s out to carve himself a niche in the mainstream. Tightly focussed, aimed straight for the dance floor or a standing only concert venue (this stuff ain’t gonna work as well with a sedentary audience) in the same way the recent Robert Randolph, For True is the basis you could build a killer live set around and then move copies at the merch booth as the punters are on the way out.

From the opening notes of Buckjump with added funk from the horn section from Rebirth Brass Band we’re firmly in contemporary territory, with rap interjections from some dude called Fifth Ward Weebie, a combination that’d probably having Hughesy turning off if it wasn’t so obviously New Orleans. Bounce is the local take on rap and from the evidence here and on Galactic’s Ya-Ka-May, it hits close enough to the New Orleans past to maintain a rap-negative old bloke’s interest, largely thanks to those street-parade  horns and a rubbery bass line that’s almost guaranteed to get the old booty a-shakin’.

Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule, a bloke who turn up all over the jam band scene in the USA) adds his trademark slide to Encore, which is the second track rather than the finale, co-written with Lamont Dozier (the Motown legend, no less),  grounded in a B-3 groove with Haynes over the top and intermittent brass punctuation.

Electric guitar, in fact, gets a fair run through the early part of the album, with Pete Murano channeling his inner Dick Dale on For True over a hip-hop beat and spitting trumpet from Andrews, while Jeff Beck comes to the party for Do to Me, chipping in with an obviously Jeff Beck or someone with very similar musical DNA solo to go with the Orleans Avenue bounce on a horn-heavy sing-along.

In Crescent City parlance, a lagniappe is a small bonus given to a customer (an extra doughnut when you buy a dozen, that sort of thing) and Lagniappe, Pt. 1, at a tad over a minute probably fits into that definition rather well. House party mode and the dance floor groove continue through The Craziest Thing, which, again, bounces along in house party mode, complete with big beefy blasts of booty-shaking brass.

Dumaine St. and Mrs. Orleans work the same territory, though I could have done without the Kid Rock rap on the latter, there’s a New Orleans superstar presence on Nervis as Cyril and Ivan Neville do their thing through a groove that hearkens back to the seventies.

Roses fits, more or less, into the same slot as Backatown’s Show Me Something Beautiful, and is, more or less Beautiful Mark 2, but the instrumental  Big 12 (a tribute to big brother James) with layers of horns piled on top of each other is straight back into solid groove territory, as is the Balkan tango Unc. A guest vocal from Ledisi on Then There Was You  brings the main proceedings to a close before another Lagniappe winds things up completely.

While there are bits and pieces here that will more than likely give a died in the wool traditionalist a fit of the screaming abdabs, For True captures the vibe of a high voltage rave in some New Orleans club, blending tradition and innovation, rock and funk, hip hop and Mardi Gras. More mainstream (or aimed at a wider audience) than Backatown it’s still a vibrantly eclectic of a continuing tradition. When’s the next one due?

Valparaiso Men's Chorus "The Straits of St Claude"

Alerted to the existence of this bunch of alcohol-fuelled degenerates (the centre of their social universe is apparently Saturn Bar on New Orleans St. Claude Avenue, hence the Straits of St. Claude) while trying to dig up some hard information about leader Alex McMurray, the concept of a bunch of New Orleans musos playing the likes of Bound for South Australia piqued my curiosity, and this collection of fifteen sea shanties is rapidly working its way up the play count on Hughesy’s iTunes.

Now, you might look at this and give the whole concept a quick Why bother? but there’s a simple answer to that question.

There have been any number of variations on the get a bunch of inebriates to roar into singalong mode with lyrics that’ll attract an Explicit tag in the iTunes Store, but there aren’t too many that have an instrumental backing that’s straight out of the New Orleans second line. Alex McMurray’s Tin Men provide the nucleus of the backing, with washboard. sousaphone, penny whistle and accordion prominent, along with the mandatory trombone in the instrumentation and close to twenty voices in the chorus.

X-rated sea shanties meets a New Orleans marching band. What’s not to like?

Galactic Ya-Ka-May (3.5*)

They didn’t get a guernsey in Samuel Charters’ New Orleans: Playing a Jazz Chorus (hardly surprising, they’re not exactly a jazz outfit) and attracting a one line assessment in Rick Koster’s Louisiana Music (crosses the jam band tendencies of Phish or the Dead with serious funk nuances and jazz chops) but I’ve had the outfit that formed as an octet back in 1994 under the name Galactic Prophylactic filed under Check these out for a while.

The most recent reminder came with Ben Ellman’s gig as producer for the two Trombone Shorty albums, but I’ve also picked up live material featuring drummer Stanton Moore sitting in with various collaborators, so some sort of investigation was always on the cards.

Galactic’s origins date back to the early nineties, when guitarist Jeff Raines and bass player Robert Mercurio moved from Washington D.C. to New Orleans to study at Tulane and Loyola, encountering the local funk scene, influenced by The Meters, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the enduring legacy of Professor Longhair.

The current lineup is rounded out by drummer Stanton Moore, saxophonist/producer Ben Ellman, and Rich Vogel on Hammond B3. Until 2004 there was also a vocalist in the form of Theryl DeClouet, but since then they’ve been predominantly an instrumental unit with guest vocals from Corey Glover from Living Colour and assorted other New Orleans and related luminaries as their style moved from New Orleans funk to a fusion of hip hop, electronica, fusion, and jazz. 

The guest vocalist roster on Ya-Ka-May includes Irma Thomas, Chief Bo Dollis of The Wild Magnolias, Allen Toussaint and Walter Wolfman Washington, Trombone Shorty, Corey Henry, John Boutté, Josh Cohen and Ryan Scully of Morning 40 Federation, and Glen David Andrews, as well as Bounce artists Cheeky Blakk, Big Freedia, Katey Red, and Sissy Nobby and extra horns from the Rebirth Brass Band.

Ya-Ka-May, in case you were wondering is a noodle soup, possibly of Chinese origin also known as Old Sober due to alleged hangover-curing properties, where whatever meat you have on hand is simmered with green onions, noodles, hard-boiled eggs and the predictable Cajun-Creole blend of spices(more details here).

The fifteen tracks on the regular Ya-Ka-May (the iTunes version has two bonus tracks) give what sounds like a fair cross-section of what’s happening in N’Awlins. 

Once you’ve got the minute and a bit mad scientist rant Friends of Science out of the way, Boe Money kicks the musical side of things off with a bang as the horns of the Rebirth Brass Band lead through an instrumental that’s part dancehall jam, and part street parade. The rap and hip-hop bit kicks in with Double It with rapping from some dude named Big Freedia over an energetic dancehall groove that I personally could do without, but mileages, of course vary.

Much more to Hughesy’s taste is the Irma Thomas vocal on Heart of Steel, which hovers over the border between R&B and rap and Wild Man, two minutes of Big Chief Bo Dollis vocalising that’s recognisably coming out of Mardi Gras Indian territory via the dance floor and Bacchus where Allen Toussaint’s characteristic vocal and piano riffing bumps itself up against the rap elements, sort of Gil Scott Heron meets New Orleans over interesting rhythmic patterns from drummer Stanton Moore.

Moore kicks off Katey vs. Nobby with fairly traditional marching drums before New Orleans rappers Katey Red and Sissy Nobby jump in for a vocal cutting contest. Not being the world’s greatest hip-hop fan, Hughesy lost interest around the ten-second mark, though the marching band drums keep going under the street brat rapping. 

Cineramascope, on the other hand, lands us back in more familiar marching band territory as the Rebirth horns groove along over a funky riff with Rich Vogel’s B3 underpinning things. The John Boutté vocals on Dark Water work rather nicely as well, but from the start of Do It Again, what we used to refer to as a language advisory situation back when I was on the radio has Hughesy hitting the shuffle button. That might read like a bit of wowserism sneaking in, but there’s a definite ear worm in the rhythm and there are some things you’d prefer not to have running through your head, compris?

Liquor Pang is another track that’ll be pushing to find its way into Hughesy’s Top 1500 Most Played, with  singer Josh Cohen lamenting the bad decisions with the money I earn, but thirty-three seconds of Krewe d'Etat and four minutes of You Don't Know with gritty vocals from Glen David Andrews over wailing Dixieland horns are going to be lurking on the fringes thereof, as will Speaks His Mind, an interesting mix of rappy vocalising over an intriguing instrumental track with fluttering guitar though we’re back in hit the shuffle button mode for  Do It Again (Again) where those language advisory issues raise their ugly head again. 

The bonus tracks, Muss the Hair, an almost traditional-sounding excursion into Allen Toussaint’s regular territory and Sandor’s Revenge, an instrumental based around Moore’s driving syncopated drums don’t quite fit into the vibe of the rest of the album (presumably that’s why they’re bonus tracks, eh?) They’ll fit, on the other hand, rather handily into Hughesy’s iTunes Fat Tuesday playlist, so that’s fine with me.

In live performances Galactic, by all accounts, jam their way through marathon dance medleys, and what’s on offer here is probably going to provide the basis for on-stage extension, with three to four minute themes that can be linked and extemporised around, a set of party songs strongly influenced by New Orleans bounce rap that’ll also work when filtered through the DJ booth in a club environment.

There’ll be tracks from the album that’ll find their way to the top of Hughesy’s iTunes playlists (Boe Money, Heart of Steel, Wild Man and Bacchus for starters) and if we were still polluting the airwaves Galactic’s ghetto-funk and hip-hop elements would be a useful addition to the musical terrain.

If you’re into New Orleans music it’s worth an evaluatory listen. Approach with caution, maybe, but worth approaching, though the approach may not result in a purchase...

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.

Heavy Sugar: The Pure Essence of New Orleans R&B

Various Artists Heavy Sugar: The Pure Essence of New Orleans R&B Parts 1, 2 and 3;
Various Artists Heavy Sugar Second Spoonful: More Pure Essence of New Orleans R&B (all titles 4.5* for New Orleans fans, 3.5 otherwise)

The casual visitor to The Little House of Concrete, where these four sets are on high rotation might counter Hughesy's enthusiasm for the joys of New Orleans R&B with well, Hughesy, that's all very well but deep down it's just old style rock'n'roll isn't it?

And the casual visitor would, in part be right. An awful lot of what we've come to know as old style rock'n'roll originated in recording studios located in and around New Orleans. If the casual visitor still isn't convinced I'd offer two names - Fats Domino and Little Richard.

Those two names say a fair bit about what happened as that first wave of R&B boomed out over the late night airwaves on stations like Nashville's WLAC where the  daytime playlist was aimed at white audiences, but after dark the station beamed rhythm and into thirty states from the Gulf of Mexico and across the Caribbean to Jamaica, as far north as Buffalo, New York,  and  west to the foot of the Rockies, reaching the ears of, among others, Bob Dylan, The Band’s Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Levon Helm. Mother Earth singer Tracy Nelson, growing up in Madison WI was another listener.

It wasn't long before Fats Domino was being firmly set in the mainstream, close enough to white bread to avoid being pushed to the sidelines (though one notes the frequency of white bread covers of Fats' material) and ending up as a fixture in Las Vegas. Those interested in pursuing the subject are respectfully pointed towards Rick Coleman's excellent Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n' Roll.

Little Richard may have grown up in Georgia and started recording for the Houston-based Peacock label (ironic, that, you'd be pushed to find a better descriptor than peacock when it came to Richard's stage presence) before moving on to Specialty (based in Los Angeles) but his biggest hits were cut at  Cosimo Matassa's J & M Studio in New Orleans with studio players who had worked with Fats Domino (drummer Earl Palmer and Lee Allen on sax for starters) rather than using his own road band. For both, recording for labels with a wider distribution brought success that wasn't possible for some of their Crescent City peers.

There are half a dozen offerings from each scattered through the hundred and fifty tracks here, and the enthusiast who wants to explore either man's extensive catalogue would be best advised to head elsewhere. There's an almost bewildering array of Fats Domino compilations out there, and Hughesy's copy of The Fat Man box set, acquired fifteen or so years ago is comprehensive enough to save me the effort of investigating those options further, and if I need more Little Richard there's always the ninety track The Complete Rock'n Roll Years '51-57 for $9.99 at iTunes.

But Little Richard and Fats Domino isn't what this series of compilations is all about.

There's a wealth of material out there, some of it bordering on the well known (Roy Brown's Good Rocking Tonight, Smiley Lewis' Little Liza Jane, Professor Longhair's Go to the Mardi Gras, Art Neville's Cha Dooky Doo and Zing Zing, Don't You Know Yockomo by Huey 'Piano' Lewis with His Clowns), but the real delights are the obscure gems that, for one reason or another, failed to hit the big time. Huey 'Piano' Smith's Beatnik Blues, for example.

New Orleans classics that are better known in other incarnations turn up in disguise. Junco Partner gets morphed into Roland Stone's Preacher's Daughter, with the junkie references neatly scrubbed out and replaced by knowing nudge nudge notions of undying love while Charles Brown delivers a lively run through It's A Sin To Tell A Lie.

Those of us who remember Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) will come across John Fred with and without The Playboys/Playboy Band and there's plenty more to explore if you've got the inclination to do so.

That inclination may well depend on how much of this material the enthusiast has already, but at $9.99 for the three volumes of Heavy Sugar: The Pure Essence of New Orleans R&B (25 tracks on each) and $14.99 for the seventy-five tracks on Heavy Sugar Second Spoonful, you're hardly up for an arm and a leg, and there's almost certainly a swag of stuff you won't have.

Those with an interest in New Orleans music could do far worse than this as a starting point, fleshed out with the four disk Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens: The Big Ol' Box of New Orleans (buy the hard copy, the booklet is wonderful), Rounder's four disk City of Dreams compilation and the Kindle version of Rick Koster's excellent Louisiana Music.

You'll need deep pockets and/or a substantial balance available on the credit card if you were going to do that, but these four titles aren't a bad place to start.