Day 7 26 June 2016
We
attempted to get out earlier the next morning and were mostly successful? We had our first little friction of the trip
and naturally, it was mostly my fault for being impatient. We weathered that and made it to the breakfast
building. Yes, the breakfast
building. It looked like perhaps other things
could happen there but between the inside and outside, a finer breakfast setup
I haven’t seen. It was as classic as the
dinner and definitely got us going. Kim
finished packing and I checked us out.
As I walked into the little office building, I saw guy coming out with
his back to me and making his way away down the sidewalk. I mention that because the young lady at the
desk was all squee because apparently, that was the Wolverine himself.
Once on the
road, we had 3 ½ hours of mostly rolling, beautiful Mississippi state scenic
byway then the same thing in Louisiana once we crossed the border on 61 near
Rosemound. It was then through St.
Francisville and Port Hudson before the outskirts of Baton Rouge. One can see the Capitol building from several
miles away. Once on Interstate 10, it
was southern Louisiana: flat, marshy, light-sprawl all the way to our exit at
Poydras St. Kim snapped a few signs of
local color along the way like “Fried Gizzards” and “Mac n’ Cheetos”, which
were apparently Cheetos poofies large enough to fit a few elbow noodles
inside. Unadvised is an understatement,
I think.
It was
quick drive through the edge of the Treme before we pulled up to the historic
and perfect Hotel Provincial at 1024 Chartes St. in heart of the legendary
French Quarter.
Stepping
out of the car I had another moment to be sure.
As you know, I’ve had a New Orleans style brass band up and operating in
Philadelphia since 1996. In all that
time, I have never been able to afford the money or time to get there. At long-suffering last, I was standing on the
hallowed Spanish-French-US soil of the birthplace of Jazz. The import of that moment did not escape me.
Directly
across the alley on Chartres St. is a fantastic little restaurant called
“Angeline”. We didn’t realize it when we
sat down for brunch but it is in the top tier of eating houses in the Vieux
Carre. Our brunch was fantastic as were the
bespoke cocktails. I had a French rolled omelet (packed with
amazing roasted vegetables), grits and a Hemingway Daiquiri and Kim had Eggs In
Hell (cooked in spicy tomato sauce with ricotta cheese) and their version of a Bloody
Mary, named “False Blood”. It was just
what we needed to set out on our first New Orleans adventure.
I
purposefully had not made a specific itinerary for New Orleans, as I was sure
we could and would find more things than we could ever do to occupy our
curiosity.
I was not wrong.
We strolled
out of the courtyard and around the corner to Decatur street and after a few
moments, I heard a trumpet; my first one in New Orleans. As I’m sure many other musicians and music
fans have done before, I followed my ears and lo and behold, we came upon and
honest-to-g-d, legit, white-shirted, honkin’ and stompin’ New Orleans Brass
Band in its natural habitat. We inched
closer and I listened to about one chorus of “Down By The Riverside” before I
was a little overcome. I have been
thankful for the steadying presence of my wife before but at that moment, it
was her shoulder I reached for and moistened.
It was the culminating moment I had imagined for so, so long, had studied
for so, so long. Here was the music I
had copied and transcribed and used as a model for my own composition for
nearly 20 years. I was verklempt for
sure. We gathered ourselves and moved
on.
Our
super-helpful maître d’ at Angeline had told us a favorite thing of hers to do
was to grab a bag of Beignets from Café du Monde and an Old Fashioned in a
to-go cup from “Two Jacks” and go sit by the river and watch the boats. That sounded just like what we needed. I realized later that the first afternoon and
evening there, I was wound up and pretty emotional. That whole 5 hours or so before bed when we
were first there was really like a dream to me.
Place names I had heard about nearly my whole life and imagined for 25
or 30 years were right in front of me.
We got our
beignets and attempted to find “Two Jacks” to no avail until my brainy wife
realized it was directly across from Café du Monde but it was actually “Tujague’s”. We ate our delicious beignets on a bench and
made our way back to officially check in, find our great room 540, rest, change
clothes and head back to Tujague’s for dinner.
Tujague’s
on Decatur St. in the heart of the French Quarter caters to a lot of tourists I
am sure. Nevertheless as we suspected
and as was confirmed by our concierge, the clientele doesn’t matter, Vieux
Carre restaurant competition is fierce and Bob from Montana notwithstanding,
they are all excellent. I had the special;
a blackened puppy drum and Kim had the barbecue shrimp. It turns out, it was her favorite meal of
many memorable ones. The justly famous
restaurant was classic in every way; white linens, bow-tied waiters with long
French aprons, crumb sweeps, memorized menus and specials etc etc. It was THE experience.
Our first
chance to hear live New Orleans musicians in a club was not going to be missed
so we summoned and Uber X to Frenchman street.
Now, those of you who have been to New Orleans fully realize that
Frenchmen Street is but a short walk from Saint Philip and Decatur but we did
not. The Uber driver thought it was kind of funny so we paid our less-than five
dollar UberX driver and stepped out in front of the great jazz club Snug
Harbor. Our erstwhile waiter at Tujagues
had tipped us that we should get a special drink and sit at the bar and watch
the band on the big screen TV to avoid paying a cover. When I attempted to order the special drink,
I was told by the bartender that they had to stop serving them to tourists
because “cleanup on aisle two”. His
version was called the Windjammer and it was delicious. The band was called the
Gentilly Groove Masters and featured a very good saxophone player, a very good
guitar player, a female bass player on loan from Cirque du Soliel, and a
drummer. They did play Jazz, but it was soul Jazz generally. The Mingus tune
was a special moment and I enjoyed it very much. I read somewhere that walking up and down
Frenchmen Street was like spinning a radio dial. I can attest that this is true
because as we left the club we heard everything imaginable before we made it
back down to Chartres Street and our hotel.
We collapsed into a deep slumber.
A few words
about my intrepid wife on this trip: days before leaving home, she had her first
very sudden and very painful bout of Plantar Fasciitis. Each morning we had to wrap her foot with
tape and try to squeeze her foot into her sandal. We walked all over Memphis and then all over
the Delta and then all over New Orleans and she didn’t complain one bit. We wrapped it; she took an Aleve and then
sallied forth day after day. I believe
the drinking helped. What a woman….
Oh, and it
was very hot and humid just about every day.
It probably goes without saying that is the weather in late June in “the
tropics”. It did not dissuade us in the
least. Besides, as we heard from our
friend, New Orleans Jenny at my giant party on Memorial Day, in New Orleans,
they crank up the air-conditioning and leave the doors open. We found this to be true everywhere we went.
Day 8 27 June 2016
Monday
dawned clear and hot and we were back at Angeline for delicious breakfast and
ready to hit the slate sidewalk by 10am.
We decided to check out the warehouse district west of Canal Street and
the National WWII Museum and concurrently the Ogden Museum of Southern
Art. The WWII Museum is under
construction so it took me a walk around the block to find the entrance. Meanwhile, Kim checked out the Ogden Museum. On our trip over to Canal St. to catch the
St. Charles Ave. streetcar, we stopped at a second hand store and poked around,
and then eventually figured out that the St. Charles line is green and the
River line is red. It was nostalgic and
excellent riding the streetcar.
The WWII
Museum is quite impressive and also very modern and tech-savvy. I appreciated the veteran’s discount and
after getting my metal museum disc, was directed to a train car. At the “inception” I was also given a “smart”
card the size of a credit card. Once on
the train, a conductor gave directions and a screen in front of every seat
started to play a welcome/orientation video.
They used the train car cleverly to emphasize the experience of so, so
many WWII vets who started their journey aboard just such a car. At one point, we were directed to swipe our
little card across a spot on the left of the screen and lo and behold, an
actual WWII veteran’s bio popped up. It
turns out that throughout the museum, when one sees that particular visual clue
and swipes ones card, further information on the veteran’s career pops up. It was a little wonky. I tried it several times but it kept coming
up to the first screen and it wasn’t immediately obvious how to advance. After three tries I gave up since my Grandpa
is a living WWII vet and I’ve talked to him a bunch about it. I make a note to question him more when I see
him later in the summer.
Also, right
in the main open gallery there is an honest to goodness C-47 with Normandy
invasion paint scheme and a Supermarine Spitfire with Battle Of Britain paint
scheme suspended above you. On the floor
are a jeep and a German 88mm gun; the scourge of bomber crews for most of the
war in Europe.
The Museum
is divided physically into European and Pacific theatres as one might
expect. The big stories are told very
evenly and throughout, a detail I appreciated, were small plaques in the
vicinity of the battle dioramas depicting the exploits of individual soldiers,
sailors and Marines, many with stories of heroism resulting in every kind of
medal imaginable. In one case, a
posthumous Medal of Honor was displayed; only the third one I’ve ever seen with
my own eyes. Again, well and evenly told
with lost of modern museum touches like floor to ceiling painted walls, actual
vehicles, weapons and uniforms of all combatant countries and tons of rare
artifacts. It was of course, very moving
as about halfway through, one begins to be reminded of the mind-boggling scale
of the conflict and the fact that literally every life on earth at the time
seems to have been affected to some degree.
It’s hard to wrap my head around that.
Following
my tour through the fantastic museum, Kim and I reunited again to sample the amazing
food of New Orleans. We were within
walking distance of Mother’s, which Kim mentioned the first time we discussed
this trip seriously. We had classic Po
Boys at this dining institution and they were delicious! After lunch we walked down to the river and
caught the River line back to the French Quarter
Once back
Hotel Provincial, I powered down in the air-conditioning and despite Kim’s
ailing foot, she ventured out to walk around the French Quarter. She discovered several cool occult stores,
dress stores and a pick-up street band led by a female trombone player. Kim’s an excellent judge of musical talent of
course and she brought back reports of her travels and regaled me while we got
dressed for dinner and night music.
The music
this night was very special to me. I had
seen the Preservation Hall Jazz Band while I was in about 10th grade
in good old Williamsport PA. about 1980 with Sweet Emma herself at the
piano. I loved them instantly and it was
an early and important experience in my formative years as a Jazz
musician. I still have the two vinyl
records my Mom bought for us after the show.
I listened to them a great deal early on, say 10-12th
grade. It was with no small excitement
that I ordered our “Big Shot” seats so we didn’t have to stand up in the back.
A side
note: I have studied, read about, asked
people, watched movies and documentaries and generally soaked up all things New
Orleans for a very long time without actually having gone there. I knew the place names, maps, geography,
history and culture of a ton of places, things and events in that far away,
exotic city. It was both weird and fun
to actually be in the places I’ve thought about for so long. It was an unusual feeling to be sure and
Preservation Hall was particularly meaningful.
We had
dinner at a favorite local spot, Coop’s along with our excellent new friends
from London, Heather and Adam. There was
a line but we were there first and were seated fairly quickly although by the
time we were, despite less than five minutes passing, the line to get in Coop’s
had grown significantly down the block!
It was very
delicious, I had fried chicken with my red beans and rice and a nice local IPA
and Kim, Heather and Adam enjoyed their grub as well. We made plans to meet up again before we all
left.
So, we
walked over to Preservation Hall. I
recognized it from the front without directions and we checked in and got in
the “Big Shot” line. Again, as we waited
the other line grew and grew down the block.
Another note: as we walked up, I noticed an Irish bar next door called
Pat O’Brien’s. For some reason, that
name was familiar but I couldn’t place it in my excitement to see Preservation
Hall.
Right
before we were let in, the heavens opened up and a deluge ensued. We were mostly under cover and didn’t
melt. We got seated and I took a couple
pictures while photos were still allowed.
Despite the near 100% humidity in the un- air conditioned small room, I
was pretty keyed up.
The room
filled up to the brim and the band strolled out. It was an All Star configuration, which is
what they do when the regular cats are out on tour. This group was led my New Orleans trumpeter extraordinaire,
Leroy Jones. I have two of his records
and am definitely a fan. The band was cracker
jack except for the trombone player who was appropriate but looked bored and
uninterested the whole time. Jones is in
fact a virtuoso Jazz player and played a ton of great solos AND sang a few
tunes….it was pretty magical, really.
Floating,
we drifted out the front door and really needed refreshment. Again, Pat O’Brien’s is right next and we had
yet to get a Hurricane. We got to-go
cups and once inside it all came back to me just as I saw the sign over the
bar. Pat O’Brien’s was the inventor of the Hurricane! I made non-alcoholic Hurricanes for my
students this past Mardi Gras that I called Tropical Storms, (not quite a
Hurricane…) and when I was researching them last February, came across the Pat
O’ Brien’s story. Nice!
Day 9 Tuesday 28 June 2016
We decided
this day that although Angeline was perfect, we owed ourselves the opportunity
to again sample the amazing offerings of the food city. On a tip from Ellie via her Mother, we walked
over to Canal Street and found the famous Ruby Slipper. We got seat at the counter. I ordered my first shrimp and grits of the
trip and Kim got pancakes. The coffee
and service and shrimp and grits were pretty fantastic but Kim found her pancakes
Bb. (Kim’s note: Boring!) Next stop on our busy morning was the 11am
French Quarter tour given by the National Park Service. The headquarters of the New Orleans Jazz
National Historic site, (how great is that?
That actually exists!), was
under construction so they are temporarily housed in the old Mint building at
the very end of the French Market. We
had a few minutes before the tour started so we went upstairs to the small
museum. Now, I go to a lot of museums
and I’ve seen enormous ones and tiny ones but to me, to have been essentially 3
rooms, this one packed a serious wallop.
Kid Ory’s trombone, Sidney Bechet’s soprano saxophone, Gatemouth Brown’s
destroyed-by-Katrina violin and the piece de la resistance, Louis Armstrong’s
very first cornet. The very one given to
him at the Colored Waifs Home about 1910.
Once again on this trip, I was a little overcome.
Back
downstairs we met our erudite and funny tour guide Dave and off we went. Along for the tour was a family from Arkansas
passing through on their way to fishing in the Gulf and about 20 kids and a few
adults from an after school Arts program in Charlotte NC! Imagine the surprise when I told their
instructor where I’m from since he lives in Concord at the moment. It was a group of middle and high school
musicians that had wrangled a short performance in the beautiful little theatre
in the Mint later that day. The tour was
about an hour but very packed with information, tidbits and stories and I
enjoyed every minute of it. Once back in
the Mint courtyard I waited for folks to say their thank- yous and goodbyes to
Dave and then I monopolized him. I told
him the abbreviated version of my New Orleans/Jazz History/Musician story and
about a quarter of the way through I could see he knew my bona fides were for
real. We had a nice discussion and I
learned even more about first hand performing experience in New Orleans.
While I was
geeking out with Dave, Kim went back upstairs to a free concert by a New
Orleans pianist we’d never heard of; Richard Scott. After I joined her we checked him out for a
few tunes. Oh my goodness y’all, he was
a virtuoso stride piano player! He sang
passably and fielded a couple of pretty good but neophyte Jazz history
questions well. As we were leaving, Kim
said, “wow, I’d love to see that guy in club with a drink in my hand”. It was
a really nice theatre with seats and fairly formal so I concurred. After all musicians in a concert setting are
one thing but in the wild, often something very different.
After all
that, Muffaletas from Central Grocery were just what the doctor ordered. We
took them to the French Market and found a picnic table and chowed. Delicious!
Stories of
old New Orleans, 92% humidity, tummies full of Muffaletas, there was nothing to
do but have our Tarot read by an honest-to-goodness New Orleans psychic. Elie (with one L), was suitably crunchy,
spiritual and had and aura of an earth-mother.
Very believable in fact…..Kim went first and Elie definitely nailed
several things that Kim never mentioned.
When it was my turn, my skepticism turned to grudging admiration as she
pretty correctly summed up what just happened and what was happening. It was in a word, uncanny. Definitely worth the money to us….
We went
back to the hotel for a brief respite before heading out again for dinner and
music. We stopped at the bar during
happy hour, chatted up the bartender and watched it storm then took some naptime. (Note from Kim: all references to “us” napping really mean
Mike napping. Usually my foot was
throbbing too badly to fall asleep!)
Once again
seeking out a place we hadn’t been, we tried the Café Chartres, right down the
street, for dinner. Fancy cocktails and a
well-above-average dinner later, we headed to Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub on a
big recommendation from my pal and favorite son of the upper 9th
ward, Wade Luqet. Brother Wade told us
to ask for Kate, tell her we knew him and introduce ourselves to the band. When we got to Bourbon St., we turned left
instead of right and walked two blocks toward Canal. It was wall-to-wall nudie bars and cover
bands with sketchy dudes out front saying things like “you get in free if
you’re holding hands” to try to entice people into the clubs. On the one hand, I saw about 10 different
bands in those two blocks (only one was a Cajun band, the rest were classic
rock cover bands), and that many live musicians working on a Tuesday night is
great, no matter how you look at it.
Still….yuck….
We turned
back and eventually found Fritzel’s; a lonely Jazz outpost in and among all the
boobie bars and bad Marshall Tucker covers.
We found Kate and mentioned I was friends with Wade which really seemed
to brighten her up. We took a seat on a
bench and ordered Daiquiris (one drink minimum) and the band started to show
up. Wade had also said to introduce myself
to the bass player Brad Truby, which I eventually did. Right
before band started, (clarinet, piano, upright, drum set), I looked carefully
at the pianist. I said to Kim, “Say,
isn’t that the same cat from the NHS concert earlier?” Sure enough, it was Richard Scott in a change
of clothes. Kim’s wish was granted by the
Jazz Gods! Oh, and what a wish it
was. Brad came to the bar for a drink
and passed by me and said “hey, why don’t you sit in?” To which I said, “we’ll see” because just in
their warming up I sensed that their routine was going to be practiced and
tight. It would be a turd in a punchbowl
no matter how well I played to get up there and call “Sweet Sue” or “All Of
Me”: and have it be really, really basic.
They started up and by the end of the first verse, I knew they were
very, very serious players. Their
arrangements (all in their heads) were crafty, complicated and musical and all
their solos (especially Richard’s), were lessons in collective New Orleans
Jazz. They were true experts and just
literally killed every tune. My sense
that I would have been out of place was correct and I didn’t bring the energy
down. Right before the set break, they
gave Richard a tune by himself. Wouldn’t
you know he chose Fats Waller’s masterpiece, “Handful of Keys.” Scott proceeded to savage the piano and
strode that beast all the way from James P’ Johnson, to Albert Ammons to
Waller. It was all in there somewhere,
the whole history of stride piano in an
8 minute rendition. Amazing. Amazing.
Amazing.
We had
plans to go back to Frenchman street and meet up with Heather and Adam so we
split after the first set. I did tell
Richard what I wrote above about hearing the history of stride in his playing
and he seemed genuinely moved when he said thank- you, thank- you.
Flying on the
virtuosity of that amazing band, we took our accidentally ordered second Daiquiris
to go and headed to D.B.A. The night had
cooled off and partly because it was late June and mostly deserted and partly
because it was past 10pm, I had my head on a swivel on the 10 minute walk over
to Frenchman St. We eventually found it,
went inside, found Heather and Adam and joined Treme Brass Band already hittin’
it. The PA was pretty loud but we
chatted a little with our London pals and the whole time, I kept thinking the bari
player’s solos sounded familiar. We were
toward the back of the scrum and it was a little bit hard to see but he was
also sporting a sort of slouch/bucket hat.
I was tired and had a few drinks in me but eventually, the information I
was looking for bubbled up. It was Roger
Lewis! From the Dirty Dozen Brass
Band! And oh my goodness! The trombone player was Corey Henry of course
of course! Well, honestly if seeing
Coolbone in the flesh, in the wild on Monday didn’t mess me up, seeing Roger
and Corey sure did. Treme played the
favorites with a cut down ensemble; trombone, bari, tenor, bass drum/cymbal, snare/wood
block/cowbell and of course a fantastic, funky, swingin’ young sousaphone
player I didn’t recognize. The drummers
were also young cats. Pretty sure it was Cedric Wiley on the tenor.
Once again,
I had that feeling and I have to say this again for emphasis. I’m sure in some foreign language there is a
name for it. I have listened to,
transcribed, read about, thought about, imagined, copied, spoken about, taught
about, foisted unasked for information on unsuspecting guests in my house and
generally daydreamed about New Orleans Brass Bands. Now here I was, finally in New Orleans
staring down the bell of Corey Henry’s trombone. It was an emotional moment to be sure but I
can’t rightly say what it was.
Ever since
the first time I heard the Dirty Dozen play “Feets Can’t Fail Me Now” about
1994 or so (about 10 years after they recorded it), I’ve been totally
hooked. I don’t remember where I heard
it but finding the CD back then was kind of thing and it took awhile. The idea that a Sousaphone could be the bass
instrument in an ensemble was certainly not foreign to me as a long-time
Classical and Trad Jazz player but the way
Kirk Joseph and later Matt Perrine did was totally revolutionary and amazing to
me. I just love that sound. Dirty Dozen connects directly to the impetus
for starting my band, the Black-Eyed Peas Brass Band way back in September
1996. I was walking along Penn’s Landing
the morning after yet another sideman gig where I wrote the charts and ran the
section, as I had been doing since high school.
The idea had been tumbling
around in my head for a little while and it finally came out. I should start my own group. I can certainly write for horns at
least. I know how to run a
rehearsal. I have some few contacts for
gigs. I’m a little tired of doing all
that writing and transposing for free.
Maybe I’ll start a classic R&B band and do Jump Blues and things
like that? What about a classic Jazz
sextet with Hard Bop and Soul Jazz style originals? By the end of the walk, I had decided that a
New Orleans style Brass Band was what I wanted to try. I was positive there wasn’t anything around like
what I had in mind, (the drunken, sloppy New Bohemian thing in Philly around Mardi
Gras is certainly in the tradition but not what I wanted to do). I’d model it on the Dirty Dozen and play
jazzy takes on NOLA flavored tunes with a Sousaphone bass. It would be 7 musicians with a singer, which
would give me enough colors of sound to write some nice stuff and as long as I
could teach the drummer and Sousaphone player the basics, the rest would be
reading. That was another thing. I knew from the start that I wasn’t going
write easy charts that could easily be remembered. We weren’t gong to play funky, riff-based
versions of tunes with a lot of collective improve from the members. That is a super-cool way to do it and I
absolutely LOVE that Hot 8 and Coolbone and Stooges and even Treme do that. It’s funky, soulful, moving and fun. That said, that wasn’t (and isn’t), what I’m
after. Well, that was almost 20 years
ago and again, here I was, in the flesh, in the same room as my heroes. “Lil Liza Jane” never sounded sweeter. One more time, we floated out and back to the
hotel and well-earned sleep.
Day 10 Wednesday 29 June 2016
The next
morning dawned warm but not hot and cloudy but not rainy. It rained on us a little here and there in
New Orleans but generally we didn’t melt.
First order
of business that morning was to obtain some more Vans socks. I had bought a pair of Vans for my Halloween
costume last year (I was Jerry Casale from Devo), and on a whim, bought 3 pair
of the little less-than half socks. The
pretty much disappear into the shoes and don’t even cover your ankle. They save the wear and tear and odor of
wearing shoes without socks in the summer.
It amazes me when something so simple, with basic raw materials right
there in front of us since the invention of socks, is revealed. Why did it take
so long before someone (Vans), produced them?
I could only find 2 of my 3 pair before the trip and had been cycling
back and forth between them the whole trip.
As luck would have it, there was a Vans store right down by the river
near the foot of Canal st. We headed
over there after breakfast at the counter at Camelia Café; delicious, enormous
and not fancy. Van’s wasn’t open yet so
we walked down to the river park and checked out the mighty Mississippi and the
berthed Natchez Steamboat. The Natchez
is one of two “steamboats” that plies tourists on 1 or 2 hour dinner and lunch
cruises. We checked into the ticket
counter and told them we wouldn’t be having dinner on board but would be on the
evening cruise. We were told we didn’t
need to get tickets ahead of time and once again, I was surprised it wasn’t
already sold out because, well damn, a real Steamboat Trip on the Mississippi
and get this, the onboard entertainment was the real Dukes Of Dixieland! When I saw that I flipped my wig.
At about 11
or so, we met up with Shelley, the most fabulous cab driver in New
Orleans. Ellie’s mom, Laura had given me
her card from when she visited a few months ago and I had saved it. We asked her to drive us around town so we
could see more than the French Quarter with a knowledgeable guide. She met us in front of the Hotel and we were
off in her SUV.
First we
toured Bywater and Gentilly on our way to the Lower 9th Ward. It seemed every 4th or 5th
house was abandoned or unoccupied and some still had the faded X’s the
emergency personnel had spray painted back in 2005 to let others know what was
found there and if it was safe to enter.
It was sobering to see just how low-lying the area was on the other side
of the canal. The houses that were occupied
either looked like a lot of middle-class, lower middle-class southern
neighborhoods but were generally well kept up.
It was simultaneously heartbreaking and heartening to see.
We next
headed over to the Lakeview area passing the enormous city park and art center
and a couple of really great looking small community colleges. We went up toward the lake and saw the condo
buildings right on the lake and then the more suburban looking bungalows
everywhere. From there, it was a short
trip to Metairie, a close-by suburb. We
asked Shelley where “people like us”, meaning school teachers and self-employed
small business owners would live and she strongly suggested Metairie since it
was a very family friendly area. We
didn’t let on that if we were to move there, it would be after the girls were
on their own and good schools and big backyards would no longer be a priority. One other note, I feel I need a special pat
on the head for not asking her to change the Sirius Satellite radio channel
from the smooth “jazz” bubblegum, effed-up, jive-ass, Kenny G Sucks channel,
out of deference to the driver.
After the
poster-child suburb of Metairie, we went down St. Charles and into the Garden
District. Oh my goodness. Every mansion was more beautiful than the
next and each one was different than other, block after clock after block. It was beauty overload and delicious
architectural eye candy. Shelley said
they almost never come up for sale since most have been in families for
generations and they make damn sure they stay in the family. I can easily see why one would want to hold
onto one of those beautiful places.
We asked
Shelley to drop us off somewhere good to have lunch on Magazine St. in the
Uptown neighborhood. We said goodbye,
left a generous tip, hugged and promised to see her again next time we came
down. Unknown to us at that moment, my prescription
sunglasses, in their case, were lying on the backseat of Shelley’s cab. Blissfully unaware, we stepped into the
restaurant.
La Petit
Grocery was amazing. Delicious burger,
hoppy IPA and fried oysters, excellent service, beautiful appointments, white
cotton napkins; SO nice and yummy! (I was wearing my new white shorts, the
first pair of white shorts I’ve ever owned and mistook them for the napkin and
walked around with a nice burger juice stain on my right leg the rest of the
day.) Kim asserts that this meal was one
of the best she had on the whole trip.
The burger was just about perfect as well.
Sated, we
strolled down the great shopping corridor of Magazine St. There were lots of cool shops, restaurants
and other places all up and down both sides.
We stopped in Buffalo Exchange (who knew there was more than one!) and
Kim found a perfectly fitting Mardi Gras themed dress from Trashy Diva for only
$50. Imagine our luck! The sale lady told us there was an actual
Trashy Diva store, “just down the street”.
That turned out to be erroneous as we walked about 7 blocks before giving
up. In those 7 blocks we went into an
“architectural salvage” store, (or at least that’s what it looked like from the
street), to find out it was all new stuff made to look like architectural
salvage. Man, those millennials will try
anything. We also stopped in a kitschy
souvenir shop and spent some time marveling at the curios and trying on sugar
skull skirts, looking for one that might fit Ellie. We finally came to rest momentarily at the
Starbucks and pretty spent, we summoned an Uber and went back to the hotel for
another respite. Our driver was an
interesting young woman and we learned even more about the neighborhoods we’d
just been through.
At some
point after we were back in the French Quarter, I realized I lost my
sunglasses. I spent some time over the
next few hours calling everywhere we’d been on Magazine St. I mean
everywhere and it was to no avail of course.
Naps taken,
clothes changed, we headed down to the Natchez for our sunset cruise on the
Mississippi. As we boarded, I heard live
Trad Jazz coming from the speakers hung throughout the boat. It was, as advertised, the venerable and
excellent Dukes of Dixieland. I can’t
say we quite made a beeline but almost we did.
Into the main deck area we went and it was mostly deserted as we hadn’t
shoved off just yet.
The Dukes were of course killing it and I got close and
checked them out. Fantastic players
every one and amazingly, like every other band we saw except the Gentilly
Groovemasters, at some point, one of the players sings a tune or two. I think it’s a rule. Luckily, they were mostly all serviceable
singers.
We got
drinks and sat for a minute before we were shooed out onto the deck as the
feeding troughs were laid out. (We didn’t pony up for the dinner as we knew it
would be Bb AKA Boring!)
Once on
deck, we were treated to a 10 minute narration of what we were seeing, the
history of the Natchez and of New Orleans’ seafaring past. The cruise is 2 hours and mostly accompanied
by the excellent Dukes. There were many
interesting things to see among them, the New Orleans Naval Station, Old Marine
Barracks, roll on car-ships, tankers, oilers, container ships, tugs of every
size and ship-to-shore launches. We
cruised by the Domino Sugar refinery, and at the turn downriver we spied the
other Steamboat. Unlike the Natchez, the
Creole Queen is a diesel boat. The
Natchez is justly proud of the fact that it’s the only Steamboat left anywhere
on the Mississippi that is fully steam powered.
I love that. Apparently, if one
is interested, one can have a guided tour of the steam power plant and
engines. I would certainly have availed
myself of that were it not for “Kim & the Night & the Music”.
The rest of
the trip was into the setting sun and was absolutely beautiful. I had had a nice conversation with the Duke’s
trombone player and made sure to compliment the musicians as we docked. The trombonist and I actually had the same grad
school trombone teacher, albeit 20 or so years apart. We exchanged information and I will
definitely be looking him up next time I’m there! Also, it did not escape my notice that the
band was way better then they probably had to be, not corny at all and really
nice cats. As my new friend stated
emphatically, Trad. is the name of the game in New Orleans these days and the
competition is fierce. Challenge
accepted? It also tickled me that a group
as venerable and important as the Dukes Of Dixieland still has an uninterrupted
modern incarnation filled with 20 and 30 something young lions playing their
hearts out 7 nights a week.
Since we
had passed on the feeding trough dinner, we were pretty hungry and on the walk
back to the hotel, we sauntered through the edge of Jackson Square and happened
upon The Gumbo Shop. Naturally, it
seemed touristy but again, the food was way, way, way, better than it could
have gotten away with. Like the bands in
Memphis, the restaurants in New Orleans have all to be extra-excellent, such is
the wicked-fierce competition. Music and
food are so much a part of the fabric of both cities that great import is
afforded those who ply those disciplines.
That was nice to see that everyone
involved takes it so very seriously. We
had special frozen daiquiris, one more bowl of etouffe and one of gumbo. We ate in the courtyard outback that I am
sure had hung laundry and a dirt floor 50 years ago. We looked up to the stars while we ate. At one point, Kim started making faces at me
and looking behind me. It turns out,
there was a proposal going on! She said
yes. It is not germane to this
travel/adventure blog but suffice to say, there were many meaningful, romantic
moments between my lovely wife and I and that was one of them.
Tummies
full and tipsy again, we made it back to the hotel and fell into blissful
slumber.
Day 11 Thursday 30 June 2016
Thursday
was partly cloudy again and this time my mood matched the weather. I really didn’t want the adventure or New
Orleans to end. Alas, we had to go. We packed up and headed to the beautiful
Angeline once more. We had yet another
amazing breakfast and I saw my partially eaten, incredibly tasty, buttermilk
biscuit as a prandial metaphor for something amazing and delicious that you
didn’t want to ever end but you know it had to.
We got the
unfortunate Jeep and fired up the Waze app and made it all the way to the
entrance road to turn in the rental car when we realized almost simultaneously
that we needed to fill the gas tank lest we be charged 9$ a gallon. With gas costing between 1.99 and 2.04 a
gallon, we figured out how to exit to the Shell station. In the pouring rain, and with only minutes to
spare, we filled the tank. Phew!
We pulled
up and did the turn in thing. Oonce
again, unknown to me at the time, my iPod lay in the pocket in the center
island underneath two lids in its all black rubber skin matching the interior
of the Jeep exactly.
The flight
to Atlanta was uneventful as was the final leg back home. As we waited for Winner Airport Parking to
bring around our VW Golf, we heard screaming from the top of the
escalator. It turns out, some little kid
got his foot caught in it and was hurt badly enough to summon the EMTs and the
police. I hope the kid was OK.
Back home,
we just looked at each other and hugged.
There really isn’t another person on earth with whom I would have wanted
to do this EPIC journey of American music, history, food and culture.
The trip
was so much more meaningful than even I could have imagined. I highly recommend it to any American
musicians or culturally minded explorers.
Have fun y’all and let me know if you go!
Mike 10 July 2016
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| 555 Miles of American Music History |
