A Spring Retreat

lucky you Mike some day when I have time to travel I'll be down there in spring, would love to see the landscapes and music there before the heat of summer.

All I can guarantee you Mudwolf, is you'll gain ten pounds in a week :-)

It's a really good trip if you can wrap your head around music and food ...

This is the one time of year I'll let myself fall into any music that happens to come around, and every year I am rewarded with new things and new favorites.

Come on down :-)

Yeah, good food alone sounds worth it, but add in music..... heaven.

Mike: You're a such a lucky dude to be living close to the jazz capital of the world!

We are planning to hear John Cleary four times in the next two weeks. He is playing solo, with drums and bass, with Trombone Shorty, and with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

We both think he is the hottest thing in New Orleans Music at this time.

I'll have to get out my jazz albums I bought when Geoff was here in LA. Not the same I know. something about a buzzing hedge shearing gardener for the last 2 hours I think I"m gonna kill. It stops then starts again. Driving me nuts.

Mike, please do write about the performances. Your descriptions are so vivid / lucid that I can almost hear the music as I read your posts. I like reading your exchanges with Fred Simon. In the meantime, for those of us not lucky enough to be there, get this out:

The weatherman is delivering some bad news for this weekend, lots of thunderstorms. If it rains heavy, we won't be going to Jazzfest this weekend, as everything is in the open on outdoor stages.

Our alternative plan is to go to as many clubs as we can. All but one of the John Cleary performances is at a club.

Which John Cleary album would you recommend?

John Cleary made two albums with the Absloute Monster Gentlemen. One is called "Pin Your Spin" and the other has the painted image of a hand on the cd cover. They are both terrific. The one with the painted hand would be the first one I would go for.

So use "John Cleary and the absolute Monster Gentlemen" as your search argument.

Internet disruptions here until May 2. Cannot complete transactions with my favourite websites. Will place orders for the albums you recommended as soon as the connections are back to normal. In the meantime, what are your views of:

1. Soundtrack for 'The Mystic' which he co-recorded with Michael Leicht.

2. Moonburn (from the late 1990s).

3. Alligator Lips and Dirty Rice (from about four years ago).

4. The live album 'Mo Hippa'.

I don't know any of those :-)

I have the two albums I spoke of, and have heard him live four or five times.

You are a very lucky person! When the Internet connection is occasionally tolerable, I have managed to look him up in 'you tube'. Very 'groovy' / foot-tapping music. Do post about the gigs that you are going to watch.

Not many people in these parts know about him. There is very little of him in the mainstream press over here. If you did not mention him in this thread, I would have never heard of him. Thanks! Another great 'discovery'.

The first week of Jazzfest has been a bust. It rained like hell Friday, the race track was a mud field Saturday, and the only thing we wanted to see today is sold out.

Thank God for the Naim system, which is currently feeding us a lot of Willie T and Arron Neville.

The single most astounding thing about New Orleans music is the rhythm. There is more rhythmic diversity and intensity in New Orleans music than any music I have heard. The intensity is the result of the stunning accuracy with which the components of the beat are parceled out.

It's all about hearing the pulse of the music.

At any rate, it gets my heart going :-)

Weather wise, New Orleans sounds a lot like Malaysia. It rains here all the time, especially at my home town which is one of the wettest places in Malaysia. There is sweltering heat, humidity and mosquitoes. But then there is the wonderful food. But that's for another forum!

Is the diversity in New Orleans music due to it being a port city, hence importing all sorts of influences along with trade? Among the first few jazz artists that I listened to in my teens were Harry Connick Jr as well as Wynton and Branford Marsalis, all New Orleans natives I believe.

We get heavy rains in New Orleans in the spring time.

The prominent influences in New Orleans music are African, Caribbean, Spanish and French, in that order. There are also significant American Indian influences in the street music, which have seeped into everything.

Being a port city has a lot to do with it.

Everyone you mentioned is a New Orleans native.

Thinking of swapping rain for even more rain. If you fancy some 'World music', the Sarawak (technically East Malaysia, at northern Borneo) Rainforest World Music festival is on 9-11 July 2010. Here is the link to the festival website:

Sarawak Rainforest World Music Festival 2010

If I wanted a single album that would give me the real feel of clubbing (over 40) in New Orleans at its best, this would be it.

The sound of New Orleans lay in her daily rhythms, which are here in abundance, and played to perfection. Special kudos to the bass player and the drummer, who are well recorded here, and set a standard for accuracy in pitch and rhythm.

Whenever the bottom end does that, it sets the whole band on fire.

Special attention should be payed to tracks 3 and 5.

Enjoy.

It looks like Jazzfest is going to be a complete bust this year. This weekend is another full of rain, and every club show we want to see is sold out.

Hoping for better luck next year.

It still has been rejuvinating to put classical aside for a while and pay close attention to my New Orleans CDs.

Now I am beginning to feel an itch for the Beethoven Symphonies, and maybe some Bartok.

So closes this thread.

it's always good to take a breather, get off to something else and go back. Too bad about the rain, also too bad about the oil slick, that's going to be a huge disaster. One commentator said they'll be looking to past records of emails and if anything about saving money and not putting on one of those safety valves is in there he said the Goldman Sacks inquiry will be a minor footnote in history.


Now back to the music...