HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

Countering the mild pessimism at the end of my last post, I do think traditional jazz has a future in this town. The future lies in the hands of some talented younger musicians that I've enjoyed playing with recently. They don't play exactly in the traditional style as we learned it from the likes of George Lewis and Kid Thomas Valentine back in the 60s, but they play with an impressive energy, swing, and intelligence derived from solid musical training and a strong dose of natural musical talent. I am thinking in particular of trumpeter Leon "Kid Chocolate" Brown and trombonist Ronell "Cricket" Johnson.

I played with both of them last night at the Palm Court, along with pianist Lars Edegran, bassist Gerry Adams (84 years old), and drummer Karl Budo. It was an exceptional night.The house was packed—mostly with French and Turkish tour groups—and we got them standing and dancing in the aisles. But what was most remarkable to me was how well Leon and Ronell, who can play a variety of modern styles, blended in with the more traditional sound of the band.

Both young men, still in their early 30s, play with an infectious drive and enthusiasm that excite audiences (and their fellow musicians). Leon is quiter, more taciturn, somewhat reminiscent of Miles Davis in his manner. Ronell is exuberant, laughing and grinning when he doesn't have the horn up against his chops, and playing with growly humor when he does. Both are excellent singers. And both can steam up the room with their hot horns—or cool it down on hymns and ballads, as Leon did last night on "Body and Soul" and Ronell on "Closer Walk with Thee." Another point in common: they both have phenomenal ears that allow them to instantly absorb the chords and melodies of tunes they've never heard before. I called some tune last night that Leon didn't know. "Play the first chorus," he said. "I want to learn it." He did. Ronell does the same.

While I've only played with Leon a couple of times, Ronell is a pretty regular bandsmate these days. He does a bunch of crowd-pleasing specialty numbers, probably the most popular of which is "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Walt Disney's "Pinochio." I usually introduce it by telling the audience this next tune is traditionally sung by a cricket, hence the nickname I have coined for Ronell.

So, yes, there is a future for traditional jazz in this town. It won't sound exactly like the old stuff, but it will swing, and move audiences, and celebrate the unique spirit of this town and its musical heritage. Welcome to the family, Leon and Ronell.

RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE

Played on the steamer "Natchez" last night with trumpeter Jamie Wight, pianist John Royen and drummer Cori Walters. With that big red paddle wheel churning the waters of the Mississippi just behind us, it was easy to imagine ourselves playing on the Streckfus Line boats between New Orleans and St. Louis with Louis Armstrong and Fate Marabale's Orchestra. We even attracted a few couples to the dance floor. Trouble is, all the heads were gray, white or blue. I fear for the future of traditional New Orleans music in the absence of young dancers, musicians and fans.

CHATTING WITH ELLIS MARSALIS

Had an interesting talk with Ellis Marsalis a couple of days ago. I was telling him how much I enjoyed playing with his son, drummer (and vibraphonist) Jason Marsalis. 

"The amazing thing about Jason,"  I said, "is not just that he's one of the world's top jazz drummers, but the fact that he can play the traditional New Orleans style as well as all the modern stuff."

"Yeah, well he's checked out all that stuff--the roots," said Ellis. "See, when I was coming up, I didn't have any exposure to the old stuff. Nobody in my family played music, so I didn't have anybody to point me to it. I came up playing bebop. It wasn't till I was much older that I started listening to the traditional guys. It was Danny Barker who started clueing me in on that."

Danny Barker, a New Orleans-born banjoist and guitarist, played most of his career with Cab Calloway and other New York-based groups. But when he came back home in the late 1960's, he became a vocal proselytizer for traditional jazz. He's the one who organized the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band and gave a lot of younger black musicians—including Wynton Marsalis, Leroy Jones, and Michael White—their first exposure to the music that was in fact their birthright.  I knew about Danny's mentoring role with the kids, but never imagined that he was also giving pointers to experienced jazzmen (albeit modern) like Ellis. 

Then Ellis told me something that really got my attention: he had started out on clarinet and actually took lessons with one of the funkiest, jazziest, swingingest old-style players in town—Willie Humphrey. Here's the story:

"I went to old Mr. Humphrey's house for my first lesson. He told me, 'Just play something, I want to hear what you can do.' I played a little, then he gave me a book. He said, 'You got to work on these exercises. I want you to learn all these scales and arpeggios and come back next week.' He only charged a dollar a lesson, but I didn't have any money on me so I asked if I could pay him the next week. He said okay."

"Did you learn the exercises?" I asked. 

Ellis chuckled under his gray, otter-like mustache. "Naw, man. I never went back there. And Willie never forgot. Years later, I mean decades later, I was playing at Crazy Shirley's on Bourbon and St. Peter. Willie used to walk by there on the way to Preservation Hall. One night he stuck his head in the door and shouted, 'Hey, kid! When you gonna pay me that dollar you owe me?"

It was a funny story, but it got me to wondering, quite seriously, what would have happened if young Ellis Marsalis had taken to the clarinet and continued his lessons with Willie Humphrey?  What if he had become an old-style clarinetist instead of taking up the piano and following the be-bop road? Would his musical sons—Wynton, Branford, and Jason—have cut their teeth on traditional jazz instead of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker? Would they be playing at Preservation Hall today instead of Lincoln Center? 

HAIL AND FAREWELL

Just finished teaching my last creative writing class for this semester. The subject was the Art of the Profile. My eight students were smart, eager, and a joy to work with. The most gratifying moment for me was when one of them, a precocious freshman in a class of upperclassmen, volunteered that "what's cool about this class is that everyone's writing improved." That's true. Some were quite talented to begin with, but they all wound up well ahead of where they started from. I'll miss them all.

WIST INTERVIEW: SONG, JAZZ...AND JACQUES CHIRAC

Did a long interview with WIST host Errol Laborde last week. Subjects: the new edition of "Song For My Fathers," my memories of growing up in New Orleans and learning to play jazz, my musical and other pursuits since moving back here after 40 years, and some anecdotes about my years in Paris with TIME Magazine--including an amusing story about former French President Jacques Chirac's claim to have dined at Galatoire's with Cab Calloway in 1954, an improbable event in those Jim Crow days. (A backslapping hail-fellow-well-met, Chirac never let the strict truth get in the way of a good story.) Check it out.

Part One: http://www.webwiseforradio.com/site_files/244/File/elb_042210_1.mp3

Part Two: http://www.webwiseforradio.com/site_files/244/File/elb_042210_2.mp3

WWNO INTERVIEW ON "SONG FOR MY FATHERS"

Thanks to WWNO's Fred Kasten for a deft editing job of the long-winded interview I gave him a few days ago on the subject of my memoir Song For My Fathers, which comes out in paperback next week, updated with a substantial new epilogue. Fred turned a hour's worth of talk into a coherent 10-minute discussion of the book and its origins. If interested, you can hear his show on this NPR affiliate by following this link:

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wwno/local-wwno-896123.mp3

BUNCHY'S SENDOFF

We said farewell to drummer Bunchy Johnson this morning, New Orleans style. The place was Trinity Episcopal Church in Jackson Avenue--traditionally the church of the city's old-line, Garden District establishment. Having grown up in this church, I can safely say it has never seen a service quite like this one. The congregation—African-American in its majority, but including Bunchy's friends, admirers and fellow musicians across the board—was on its feet much of the time, clapping their hands, singing along with the hymns, and applauding the music provided by such local legends as Deacon John, Dave Bartholomew, the Dixie Cups and Joe Saulsbury, and Wendell Brunious.

Family members took turns reading some of Bunchy's favorite passages, a delegation from Saint Augustine High School, Bunchy's alma mater, shared some reminiscences of him and presented his family with a commemorative plaque. Trinity's assistant rector pronounced a heartfelt eulogy.

But the emotional highlight came when Bunchy's elderly father, Charles E. Johnson, Sr., stepped up to the pulpit in his black suit and yellow tie to thank the large crowd that had turned out to say farewell to Bunchy. "I can see my son looking down at us smiling," he said, "giving me that high-five, saying, 'Everything's goin' fine,' and I say, 'Son, back at you! Everything's going good.'" Johnson's voice trembled over the last words as he raised his hand in a high-five gesture, and the crowd burst into applause. Bunchy would have been proud of his dad. (A few months ago, he begged off a gig I offered him saying, "It's my dad's birthday, and I gotta be there for him. He's gettin' up there and I don't know how many more he's going to have." Thing is, none of us ever know.)

Once the flower-covered casket was carried down the steps and placed into the hearse, the Tremé brass band, dressed in their proud black uniforms, played "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," followed by "Just A Little While to Stay Here." The band marched ahead of the slowly advancing hearse for two blocks, until it turned on Prytania and headed on to the cemetery. Once the body was "cut loose," as we say here, the band played raucous versions of "Fly Away" and "The Saints." Here on the edge of the Garden District, the second line was not exactly the get-down crowd you get in the back-o-town neighborhoods, but three grand marshals in full regalia danced and writhed enough to get everybody's spirits moving.

Having just seen advance review DVDs of the first three episodes of the upcoming HBO series, "Tremé," I could not help thinking that this was the real thing that the TV version was mimicking in fictional form, down to and including the dirges performed by the Tremé Brass Band. The main difference was the ironic fact that Bunchy Johnson was playing in the brass band in the opening episode's funeral sequence. Today, Bunchy was in the casket.

This is for Bunchy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvXEh_nVcO4

GROOVIN' ON 'OZ

What a kick. This morning pianist Lars Edegran and myself were guests on Tom Morgan's traditional jazz show on WWOZ from 10:30 to 11:00. We talked a bit about how we got into the jazz business--Lars via Stockholm, Sweden, and myself via Preservation Hall in the 60s--and flagged some future events we will be taking part in. Among them, the Tennessee Williams Festival, during which we are putting on a presentation called "The Making of a Jazzman," featuing drummer Jason Marsalis, bassist Kerry Lewis and trombonist Ronell Johnson in addition to Lars and myself. That will take place on Sunday, March 28, 1 pm, at the Palm Court, 1206 Decatur. Also some Jazzfest appearances (I have two sets in Economy Hall on Friday, April 23).

The other big event I was happy to talk about is a stage show based on my memoir "Song For My Fathers," which is coming out in an updated, expanded paperback edition later this month. The show, directed by Ron Rona of Preservation Hall, will take place at Tulane's Dixon Hall on Monday, April 19, at 8 pm. Free and open to the public, it will feature yours truly and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in a multimedia presentation based on the book and the story it recounts about a young middle class white boy's apprenticeship with a group of aging black jazz musicians in the 60s. (For more info, see http://tulane.edu/news/releases/031510pr.cfm#)

But the part of the WWOZ show that I found most moving was the hymn we played for our fallen brother Bunchy Johnson, who passed away last Sunday. With Lars on piano and myself on clarinet, we played "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." Here it is:

A REQUIEM FOR BUNCHY

I was stunned and saddened to hear that Bernard “Bunchy” Johnson, one of New Orleans’s top jazz and R & B drummers, was found dead at his home on Sunday morning, the apparent victim of a heart attack.

Bunchy was one of my happiest discoveries after returning to live here in 2007—not that he needed me to “discover” him. He was one of the city’s best known drummers and had worked with a Pantheon of New Orleans greats, including Allen Toussaint, Dave Bartholomew, James Booker, Aaron Nevile and Dr. John. He was also a movie and TV actor—he played the sheriff’s deputy who evicted Halle Berry from her house in “Monster’s Ball” and appears in two episodes of the upcoming “Tremé” series on HBO.

I didn’t know any of that when I met Bunchy on a gig in the Maison de Ville courtyard two years ago. It was a wedding reception as I remember. The band was a pickup group put together by trumpeter Clive Wilson. As soon as we started the first number, I was enthralled by Bunchy’s playing. His style was loose and easy, a seemingly effortless swing that just flowed from him in a way that was both driving and unhurried. I never saw a drummer who looked so natural and comfortable when he played, sitting low on the stool and barely moving his arms. The sticks seemed to grow out of his hands. And his personality was perfectly suited to his music: jovial, warmhearted, laid-back.

I got Bunchy’s business card that night and resolved to call him on future gigs. But I was rarely able to get him: he was one of the most in-demand musicians in town. He had a regular Saturday night hotel gig and often went out on the road. Every time I called him, he would tell me, “I can’t make that one, but keep trying me, hear? I want to play with you, man.” We did manage to get together at the Palm Court a few weeks ago, and again, I was delighted and amazed by his smooth swing and flawless timekeeping. He was one of those drummers who made a horn man play better—made the whole band sound better in fact. When we parted that night, I told him, “Bunchy, we got to get together again. You’re such a kick to play with. ” He chuckled and told me to keep calling him. “I want to play with you, too, man. You know my number.”

Well I can’t call that number anymore. Bunchy played his last gig Saturday night. A fellow musician came to pick him up for a brunch job on Sunday morning and found him dead in his bed. The news spread quickly among his fellow musicians. When I showed up to play at Preservation Hall last night, the mood was somber. But drummer Shannon Powell said what we all thought: “When they take Bunchy to the church, we all got to be there for him, you know what I’m sayin’?” Yes, we’ll be there with our horns and our drums, just as Bunchy would have been there for any of us. That’s the New Orleans way.

Rest in peace, Bunchy.

VIVA PAQUITO!

I am a passionate clarinetist, but I have no illusions about being the greatest. There are thousands of clarinetists around the world who are better than me, and that's okay. But every once in a while, I hear a player who makes me want to give up the horn--or practice a hell of a lot more. I encountered one such this morning at the Mahalia Jackson Center in New Orleans: Paquito D'Rivera. Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra had invited me to attend a rehearsal for tonight's concert featuring the celebrated Cuban clarinetist with the LPO. I knew D'Rivera only by name. But when I heard him play, I immediately recognized him as one of the world's anointed greats. The purity of his tone, the dazzling but seemingly effortless technique, the lyricism of his phrasing, were stunning. The one thing I could claim to have in common with him, aside from playing on Vandoren reeds, is that we both have rosewood clarinets. When the rehearsal was over, I resolved to go straight home and woodshed.