New Orleans Day 2

On Monday we headed down to the river walk for the free “mardi gras week” music and festivities and then drove thru the garden district. Man there are some serious mardi gras parade goers in New Orleans. People had staked out viewing areas with tarps and special ladders to help catch “throws,” the beads and crazy stuff they throw at the crowds from the parade floats. We then returned to the French Quarter and I hit a jazz club and headed out to take more photos

 A Real Zulu Group from South Africa

Mardi Gras is one giant costume party where anything goes

Bourbon Street mid day 

Your basic balcony bead throwers 

Everyone seems to want to pose with the craziest people. . . . I love taking pictures of people having their picture taken 

Is this guy sharp or what? I love the bottle in the bag!

Nice Mardi Gras Bow tie 

These guys were partying on the Gay end of Bourbon street and they were having too much fun. I asked them if I could take there picture and where they were from. They told me Chicago and I jokingly said they looked more like they were from my home town, San Francisco, and they totally cracked up 

This is 22 year old trumpeter Steve Lane with his group. He is from Baton Rouge and is largely self taught which is pretty much unheard of on the trumpet. Oh by the way, he was burning!! He had some Miles, some Clifford and some Freddie goin on. He told me to go grab my horn and come back and sit in . . . not today, he would have smoked me. 

Oh and this is me creating art !! LOL 

Monday night we were invited to the Lundi Gras dance that is sponsored by “Your Friends,” the African American social club that Ray belongs to. When the officer’s procession happened we quickly learned that Ray was not only a member but CEO of the club. Hello!

Thats Dr Raynard Sanders leading the processional (iphone photo y'all) 

 Shake Shake Shake . . . .Shake your Bootie 

This is funny. Ray told us to dress up for the dance and so we put on the one nice outfit we each brought on the trip. We put on our mardi gras beads as well and headed into the hall where the dance was happening. Upon entering we observed a few hundred very well dressed African American professionals, most in their 40s 50s and 60s none of whom were wearing any mardi gras “stuff” at all so we slipped out quietly to unload our excess jewelry.  We had a great time after that meeting some wonderful folks and I sat in with the band on a couple of tunes which was lots of fun. 

New Orleans and Mardi Gras Part 1

Hi friends, well what can I say but we are having too much fun. I think I set my own “Blog Bar” too high but here we go. I never have time to write because we are either exhausted or out doing more stuff. You don’t even wanna know how much time I have spent practicing my trumpet . . . .ouch.

Welcome to New Orleans. Our week in the Big Easy was just about perfect thanks to our new dear friend Dr. Raynard Sanders, life long New Orleans resident, community organizer, former high school principal, housing activist, traditional jazz fan, history buff, and man about town. Ray is good friends with our friend Kalima Rose who works for Policy Link and has spent much of the last 5 years working on Post Katrina housing issues in New Orleans. Ray spent the better part of the week with us taking us on a fantastic tour of the city and introducing us to an extraordinary number of people.

So here we go

Our late arrival in New Orleans was followed by a sleepless night. Our RV park was packed for Mardi Gras and located next to a major freight train depot. After finally getting used to the train noises we were awakened again at 1 AM when the yahoos camping next to us got back to the only tent trailer in the RV park and started an all night party, drinking and singing along with bad country music. . . .ouch.  

We somehow dragged ourselves out Sunday morning and met Ray in the French Quarter at his favorite watering hole, the Chart Room. After a drink . . . .or two. . .  we headed out to the Louisiana Record Factory, a French Quarter record store with more local music than you have ever seen and a sort of sister store to Down Home Records in El Cerrito. After browsing and meeting the owner, we popped over to Canal St for a bit of our first Mardi Gras parade and learned that African Americans were discouraged from watching parades from the downtown area as recently as 1970. When Ray was a kid they weren’t allowed to watch the parades on Canal Street.

After catching our first ever mardi gras beads Ray took us on an amazing walking tour of the Quarter that included a trip past Cosimo Matassa’s studio where Little Richard, Prof. Longhair, and Fats Domino recorded creating the classic New Orleans R&B sound. We learned about the architecture of the Quarter including private homes and their adjoining slave quarters. 

Classic French Quarter private home dressed up just a bit for Mardi Gras

Hard to photograph but you can see the slave quarters (left)  behind the main part of the house 

While we walked around the Quarter we must have run into 10 people that Ray knew including a highly respected New Orleans author, Keith Weldon Medley, who just completed a new book “We As Freemen” about the history of free men of color in the 1800s. The irony of this was that Ray had just been telling us about this book and the important history it covered and then boom. . . .here comes the author walking down the street. This is the story of our trip. (Whoops missed to photo op)

After the best bread pudding I have ever had we did a short driving tour of some neighborhoods and headed over to the Zulu Club. Now this was too cool. The Zulus are the most famous African American Mardi Gras Krewe and have been a benevolent Black social club since 1909.  All of the Krewes in New Orleans are now intergrated but until the 1960s the Black clubs were not permitted to parade thru the downtown area. Upon our arrival at the club Ray was introducing us to a number of his friends when a Black woman came running up to me, grabbed my hand and said, “come with me, there are some other white people here who think that whites don’t come to Zulu so I want you to meet them.” Ray was highly embarrassed that anyone there would be so crass but I just thought the whole thing was too funny.

Party time at the Zulu Club!

We headed into the club where we met, get this, the Minister of Fun. Now that has to take the cake . . . .literally. When I was growing up my mom was always criticizing me for only caring about having fun and now here we were meeting someone whose job was exactly that!! 

Dr. Raynard Sanders and Larry L. Roy, the Zulu Club "Minister of Fun". . . I want that job!

We next met, just by chance, this year’s king of the Zulus, Elroy James. Even Ray couldn’t believe our good fortune that the king had dropped by just when we did. The king is elected annually and it is considered a very prestigious position. In the 1940s Louis Armstrong was king one year and Louis said it was one of the greatest moments of his life. 

Kate with this year's King of the Zulus, Attorney Elroy James

Is that cool or what!!  "King Zulu '12

Inside the Zulu Club, the wall on the left is covered with framed pictures of past kings

One hundred and 3 years and counting !

After another adult beverage, a lot of that goes on in New Orleans, we headed to the Palm Court, the best place in New Orleans to hear great trad jazz and eat some amazing food. I met Mark Broad, one of New Orleans finest trumpeters and after a few sets we headed to the RV park at 12:30 PM. . . .and that was only day one . . . .oh my!!!!

The Sunday night house band at the Palm Court 

(More about the music soon) 

On the Road from Navasota to New Orleans 2 / 17-18 /12

We left Navasota at around 4 PM on Friday afternoon with a naïve plan to bypass Houston by circling around the city on 2 lane roads heading for Galveston. It was a rainy Friday night. . . . Need I say more? What a mistake. We sat in traffic for like ever and finally, finally made it out of the greater Houston area. After a quick stop for some take out at a good Jewish grocery chain,

(Ok so it really stands for "here everything is better" but it still sounds like a bigoted ethnic slur to me)

we decided to spend our first night at America’s favorite free RV park.

Is this art or what? I shot this at around one AM with my tripod. . . .

Other than the truck noise, train noise that shook the MPG and the spotlights it was a bucolic spot and the bathrooms were open all night . . . . Sweet.

These tracks were about 75 feet from the MPG. . . . .whoops 

The next morning we headed towards the Galveston ferry. It started raining in the morning again and never stopped for 10 hours. The Galveston ferry was almost flooded and the roads were impassible but we found alternate routes and finally made it across the Bay. Unfortunately our scenic drive along the Gulf coast was obliterated by the endless rain and low visibility.

By four PM we were toast and decided to stop for a minute in Beaux Bridge Louisiana for what our food guide claimed were the best beignets in America. Well they were sold out but we did get the suggestion of an alternative route that made our final push to New Orleans a treat. The rain tapered off and as we listened to a local radio station playing New Orleans style R&B we were welcomed by this sight, our own double rainbow straddling Louisiana Highway 90. 

As my daughter would say. "What the Heck!" this is way too cool. I guess we were headed the right way 

Shortly after this we drove past our first swamp and next we drove by our daughter’s own town . . . .

iphone shot

and finally made it to our New Orleans RV park site at 10PM. Oh my!

Austin and Navasota 2/16-17/12

We next headed for Austin for a very short visit that included a stay in McKinney State park and a visit to the art museum at the University of Texas for an exhibit of paintings of the American West. Austin has more than doubled in size over the last 30 years growing from 325,000 to close to 800,000. I hadn’t been to Austin since 1980 when I spent a week sitting in with Texas blues singer and pianist Marsha Ball with my good friends guitarist Danny Caron and singer/saxophonist Craig Knudsen who were working with Marsha at the time. 

Kate and I had drinks on 6^th Street where there are more music venues per square inch than anywhere in the world but we were so overwhelmed by the choices and underwhelmed by the music we heard coming out of numerous open doors that we didn’t even go to a show.

Sixth St at Dusk 

There was still one more stop in Texas that I insisted on, Navasota, the home of songster Mance Lipscomb and the Navasota Blues Alley Museum/giftshop/antique store. Mance Lipscomb was a farmer and musician who played guitar and sang in a variety of styles including country, blues, ballads, string band music and virtually anything you could think of. Historians refer to him as a true American “songster.”  He was discovered and recorded by my Richmond neighbor, roots music song collector and historian Chris Strachwitz in 1960 on one of his first trips in search of rural music. In fact this recording became the first on Strachwitz’s legendary roots music label Arhoolie records. (Definitely worth a trip to the website)  http://www.arhoolie.com/about-us.html?sl=EN  

Like so many small towns in Texas, Navasota is economically depressed with a small historic downtown that includes many shuttered store fronts and yet an attempt has been made to capitalize on the rich blues history of the area including a wonderful life size statue of Mance and the annual Navasota Blues festival.  The Blues Alley museum was started by Navasota immigrant, artist Russell Cushman, who moved to Navasota from Houston about 10 years ago. In rural Texas 10 years in a small town is equal to about 2 weeks and Russell has, as he put it, had some issues with being accepted by the community. There is an annual blues fest in Navasota but he can’t even get on the festival board and there is only minimal connection between the festival and the museum.

 Russell Cushman at the Blues Alley Museum 

This story turns out to be a recurring theme that we have seen repeated over and over in small towns with rich cultural histories. Outsiders will come to town fascinated by the history and see the opportunity to develop it into a local resource for tourism and commerce while locals remain skeptical and in some cases openly hostile to what they see as someone “messing in their business.”  In some instances there is also a reluctance by the local, largely white, community leaders to promote the status of a town’s African American History and place it into full view. Many white folks in the rural south remain quite uninterested in remembering their racist past or even acknowledging its existence.

By the way I am writing this 3 weeks later in Clarksdale, MS where this is even more relevant and controversial. The state of Mississippi has made a point of marketing their rich blues heritage while often downplaying the true story of “the rampant rural poverty, the wide disparity between rich and poor, and the insidious racism . . .” (Stephen King, “I’m Feelin the Blues Right Now: Blues Tourism and the Mississippi Delta,” U Press of Miss 2011)

Russell continues to persevere but expressed his frustration that he was unable to make any inroads with the promoters of the blues festival. He had hopes of holding a “Chris Strachwitz Day” in Navasota and bringing Chris out to honor his work but was getting no traction. His museum remains a labor of love and we wished him the best of luck as we headed towards New Orleans

Just for fun . . . . lunch in Navasota

The Filling Station Restaurant in Navasota and their special. . . .that's what I am talking about! Sorry, we didn't order it.

Classy interior decorations 

My first (and so far only) Chicken Fried Steak of the trip,  'mm 'mm good!

Luckenbach. . . .Too Cool

(Hi friends I added a you tube link to a video we shot . . . . I finally figured out how to shrink it and upload it. . . . see web address below)

I have been talking about Luckenbach with lots of people in recent months using it as an example of the commodification of American music. The town of Luckenbach hardly exists and yet everyone knows about it from the Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson recording of the same name. I have to admit that I was quite misinformed about this very unusual place. I had always heard that it is a very small town and I was under the assumption (bad idea to assume anything as it makes an “ass” out of “u”  and "me") that the current country music venue was the result of the media attention generated by the popularity of the Jennings / Nelson recording. I never really did any research but I also thought that there was a relatively new large venue that had big shows and attracted folks from a large radius.

The Big Dance Hall  

In fact the history of the venue and the town is quite complex but the venue is actually supposed to be the second oldest dance hall in Texas. 

There is an eclectic gift shop/record store and a bar with no food and an outdoor performance space and the dance hall is only used for big shows a few times per month. The rest of the week there are outdoor picking sessions/jam sessions that are hosted by solo acts, duos, and trios. The crowd includes locals and tourists but the night we were there it was mostly locals who came to drink a beer and either listen or jam or both.

The performers hosting the session were Jon Hogan and Maria Moss and Sean "Cornbread" Andrews on washtub bass who play a folk style usually called “old time music.” There were at least 6 folks sitting in as well on guitar, harmonica, and singing some of their own songs. Hogan and the group were outstanding and I almost sat in myself but we hadn’t planned well and the music started at 5 so we assumed that there would be food. . . . whoops, no food in Luckenbach :)

I had a nice chat with them on their break and when I explained the focus of my trip Jon was very enthusiastic about it. This has continued to be true everywhere we go and with every musician I have spoken with. I asked him if they had much of a following as their music is certainly out of the commercial mainstream and he said absolutely. Jon then explained that although they play old songs from a wide range of styles, folk music, string bands, blues, early jazz, they inevitably add something of their own to the sound so it doesn’t sound stale or like a museum piece. Jon said that he was also working on a major project making a film of their music while traveling on a train . . . .or something like that.

Check out a song on You tube that we shot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J9v5vlYX80&feature=youtu.be

This was the perfect roots music experience if one is looking for the continuation of roots music traditions. Here we have young musicians playing old American songs, maintaining a historic thread to the past while acknowledging that the music needs to be fresh and energetic. Frankly I couldn’t believe how lucky we were yet again. The Luckenbach scene, at least the night we were there was one of the hippest, least commercial music experiences I can remember. I have heard that it can get pretty touristy but our experience was quite the opposite.

One of the locals playin and singin

When Bob's not relaxing at Luckenbach with a beer . . . .he is a local cop!

Only requirement for Luckenbach. . . the leather beer coosie! Only 20 bucks at the Luckenbach store

I have a great video clip of the music that I will try to post on you tube ASAP

West Texas Wrap Up. . . .1st Stop Fredricksburg

Hi friends I have been struggling a bit trying to synthesize and share some of the amazing musical experiences we have been having on this trip. The delay in posting these experiences is a good thing because it has allowed for comparison and reflection on what we have heard and seen.

Our trip through West Texas really culminated with our stops in Fredricksburg and Luckenbach. We had planned to spend more time in Austin and San Antonio as well but our Mardi Gras deadline forced us to push the trip forward. Fredricksburg in the heart of the Texas hill country is a beautiful town with lots of charm but it has become quite touristy. It is known for supporting an active live music and art scene but there are also too many gift shops. It reminded me of the Sierra Foothill Gold Country.

I tried to get Kate to pick this up to go with the new hat!

Kates new look. . . .whadaya think? LOL

Were talking crosses made of leather and belt buckles. . .  Oh my

No comment 

Sorry we didn't actually try this one. . . 

they were closed

You gotta love a convenience store called Bobbi D's !!

We saw this painting in a store window and well that was the best shot i could get but hey I wish this was hanging in my living room. . . .just think, maybe Mitt or Newt or Rick will be next . . . .you gotta love the life of the party. I'm sure they all share old Abe's values!!

Cool old stuff . . . .somebody used to live here