The whole film of Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s trip to Cuba to find the roots of New Orleans is watchable here https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/A-Tuba-to-Cuba/1074611 for a modest fees. Well worth it if you’re interested in the deep, deep roots of DJ history and the music we all rely on.
OK, I need help with the links and videos ‘cos they’re not looking right here on my iPad and with Safari. I used the little link icon - and the links seem to work, but some people get pretty graphics up on their posts. I want pretty graphics!
Moving right along - I won’t bother with all those Preservation Hall Jazz Band links again. But I believe they’ll work as straight links if you just click on them.
We have Dirty Dozen Brass Band with Whatcha Going To Do For The Rest Of Your Life. Dirty Dozen are about the most successful NO brass band, certainly the most recordings and one of the most innovative and exploratory. I’ll admit to liking this CD partially because the title is a question I have frequently had to ask myself.
Warning: a good part of the whole album is not very party-oriented. You could even hold off on several tunes for Ash Wednesday.
This popped into my mind as I was reading your thread. Seeing it on MTV was the first I remember hearing New Orleans music. I always tried understand the Creole lyrics.
I haven’t heard it since. Still sounds good. New Orleans 80s pop!
“Iko Iko” is one of the NewOrleans classics, originally done by The Dixie Cups, who were something of a one hit wonder, although I see there are claims otherwise. Why this, which I believe to be the original, is on the Sun Records channel (from Memphis you might assume) I don’t know.
It’s a much covered song - and as with so much NO music there are legends and myths and varying stories about it.
A little searching will bring up lyrics and details galore. But why should your fingers have to do all the work?
Sorry for all the dead air, the missed cue, had to lay in supplies for our threatened snow and soon to be below freezing temperatures up here in the PNW. Meanwhile, it’s 90 degrees in New Orleans and there are supposedly 1,000,000 people at the parades.
To get back in the groove, here’s an updated and Caribbean-ized version of Iko Iko by Haitian band Lakou Mizik in collaboration with various NO musicians including the thread openers Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
That is the album version - and I rate the whole album highly, but for those of you with more dance floor tastes there’s a set of four remixes, at least one of which, the Windöws 98 Dryades to Bèlè Mix, gives you the good old psychedelic voodoo sensation and I’d guess would be more to the taste of many of you. And if not, so sue me.
The whole set is at:
Yup, should be a different link if I didn’t screw up.
Lakou Mizik actually made the trip to our little island about a year and put on a great show. Those rara horns are something else - I can’t get enough of them. Real street-tech music making instruments.
More on rara in general:
Don’t know about that lack of preview warning (which isn’t there now once I posted), but hopefully the link works.
I am extremely lazy. No point in denying it. So, I’m taking a break and leaving you with a longish NO compilation.
I don’t think this was ever released commercially - just a promotional sampler, but easy to find. The selection is pretty wide ranging and basic NO and Louisiana tracks. Nothing particularly hard to find elsewhere, but well balanced in its choices. The caveat is that most of the tracks come from the Rounder Records catalog and I’ve always found Rounder’s sonic house style to be a little underwhelming. Their dub albums in particular just aren’t in the red zone. So, crank it, I suppose.
Includes The Dixie Cups with Iko Iko, but I also note that several other cuts are not the studio original recordings, but later live versions.
Poking around I see there’s also something called * Mardi 'Til You Drop '92* at
with many of the same tracks and some swap-outs that may be an improvement. Just saw that was also a promo-only, but looks readily available for cheap. You certainly don’t need both. Not even I need both! (And that’s saying something.)
And now I’m going to prove it by jamming two, count ‘em, compilations into one post.
First up, we have what I think is the best of the considerable series of fine NO releases from Soul Jazz Records, New Orleans Funk 3, subtitledTwo-Way-Pocky-Way, Gumbo Ya-Ya & The Mardi Gras Mambo - and I swear to you on a stack of vintage vinyl that it’s not only the subtitle that I like so much. One problem with NO music is that you tend to get the same 20 songs endlessly reshuffled on various compilations - and there are a lot of NO comps around. On this one, Soul Jazz and Stuart Baker, uncredited on the sleeve as far as I can see but Discogs gives it up, stretch out and find some lesser known gems. Nice sequencing, too.
The Dixie Cups reappear with “Two-Way-Pocky-Way” so not quite one hit wonders - actually the notes reveal that they were five hit wonders! Hooray for good notes!
Up next is a short but classic comp from the great city itself, Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Total solid. Indians ‘n’ Professor Longhair! What else you need? Had it on vinyl from the last century and had to freshen up with a CD a few years ago. What else do you need to know about me and my Extravagant music buying habits?
I learned about this in a music history class. It’s a piano piece written in 1859 telling the story of a parade of white Puerto Rican peasants. The music builds as they approach you from a distance, peaks as they pass in front of you, then decays as they march away. You hear how early the musical gumbo was alive in New Orleans, and how important those fusions are for American music. The attached liner notes tell the Louis Moreau Gottschalk story better than I can.
I opened a set in a bar with this once. It was the most phones I’ve ever seen up using Shazam. Helped me realize that it’s worth taking chances.
I somewhat remember their version from back when, but don’t seem to have it on the shelves or in the crates. Do have The Life & Times Of . . . The Hot 8 Brass Band with their version of Ghost Town. You may have nudged me towards breaking my fast on new purchases. Bad man!
That is a bit of a flat out rowdy tune. Duane Allman on guitar, I believe.
Scrolling thru’ Spotify I see many covers and am reminded that the good doctor, that’s Dr. John if I need to spell it out (unlikely), redid it for his last and posthumous release, Things Happen That Way. Several remasters of his original version according to the big Spot.
Gotta get into my studio and find Marsha Hunt’s 7" later.
