Out on the town
Froggy out and about: Oktoberfest, Jazz, Halloween, and Opera
I'm frequently aware of all the events around town I'd like to get to but don't. I therefore tend to think of myself as not going to music and special events nearly as much as I should, but as the photo post earlier today shows, I am getting out some. Perhaps a good amount.
The Oktoberfest at Deutches Haus was way way crowded-- not too bad when I got there early, but folks kept streaming in until it got sardined, so I left. However I had a chance for some good beer and filling German food, and heard the Ooom-pah band playing including 2 renditions of the apparently obligitory Chicken Dance (which seems to be the Oktoberfest equivilent of "The Saints" on Bourbon Street). Possibly some of the crowd was due to the uncertainty of Deutches Haus in the future. Local volunteers restored Deutches Haus well after the levees disaster with the motto "Fixing Up the German Chocolate Part of the City", but much of the rest of the neighborhood is not back, and there is talk about the whole area being expropriated for a big hospital complex.
I didn't get to any of the bigger Halloween stuff on lower Decatur or Frenchmen Street this year. I did enjoy playing for the tumble parade starting in the upper Quarter and going to a party in the old Warehouse District the Saturday before Halloween. Halloween Day I played with a band for a party at the Dixie Brewery in Mid City! It was a combination Halloween party and 100th anniversary celebration for Dixie beer. Since the disaster the brand has been brewed for hire by another brewery out of state. Much of Mid-City is back and thriving, but the area around the Dixie Brewery is not such a neighborhood. After the flood was drained, the copper pipes, brewing equipment and such was looted. Dixie says they plan to come back to town, but in some ways they might as well start from scratch. The building is a fairly nice example of industrial architecture of a century ago.
Photo from a year and a half ago. Note line from long standing level of flood muck.
If they don't return to brewing there, perhaps the building can be redone as apartments or something similar to the old American Can Factory.
The abandoned brewery setting was appropriately Halloween-y, but fortunately without such inconveniences as rats or mold which a friend feared might be there. A band of old white guys playing 1950s NO R&B was the main band-- they were quite good, actually. "Midnight Streetcar". Ray put together the informal brass band as the intermission band and to second line around. Good time, with beer, a good spread of food, and cake.
I had a good time Saturday at the Freret Street Farmers Market. Two years ago the location was a Red Cross relief station; now local food and products were sold with live music by Sunpie Barnes. Then I got over to Magazine Street, which was also holding a festival, and I enjoyed hearing The Last Straws playing. With a couple of fine events Uptown, I decided not to be hard on myself for not making it down to the Mirliton Festival in Bywater.
Sunday Ms. H. decided to come hear music with me. At Cafe Brasil the Doc Cheatham Memorial Band played good mainstream trad. Most of the band was the same as on the late Doc Cheatham's "Swinging Down in New Orleans" cd; the trumpet spot was filled by Jon-Eric Kellso, back in town from New York for this. He's one of the few musicians I've heard who can play jazz ranging from archaic to avante-garde with conviction and virtuosity. Afterwards we went to Snug Harbor for burgers (catching some of Butch Thompson's solo set over the sound system) before heading over to the Palm Court to hear Kellso again with the band there. Kellso and reedman Tom Fischer seemed to be inspiring each other-- very good stuff playing some interesting not frequently heard tunes.
New Orleans is a place where, unfortunately for non-nightowls, even on a weeknight lots of music doesn't start til 10pm. Wednesday there was a nice early event I treated myself to: "Opera on Tap". Casual opera excerpts and draft beer at a bar is a concept, I'm told, that started in New York, but it seems naturally at home in New Orleans. The venue was "The Rusty Nail", at the detached lower tail of the Lower Garden District at the edge of the warehouse district. This location was formerly the Mermaid Lounge, back in the long long ago of the first half of this decade. They've redone the place looking better than it ever was before the Storm. I was concerned that it might be unpleasantly smoke filled, but no smoking during Opera on Tap. Yay! I was favorably impressed with the high level of the performers. Repertory ranged from obscure to the Anvil Chorus, in Italian, French, German, and English. A bit of Gilbert and Sullivan had some modified lyrics with passing references to bad levees and a congressman with cash in his freezer. Good times.
I'm frequently aware of all the events around town I'd like to get to but don't. I therefore tend to think of myself as not going to music and special events nearly as much as I should, but as the photo post earlier today shows, I am getting out some. Perhaps a good amount.
The Oktoberfest at Deutches Haus was way way crowded-- not too bad when I got there early, but folks kept streaming in until it got sardined, so I left. However I had a chance for some good beer and filling German food, and heard the Ooom-pah band playing including 2 renditions of the apparently obligitory Chicken Dance (which seems to be the Oktoberfest equivilent of "The Saints" on Bourbon Street). Possibly some of the crowd was due to the uncertainty of Deutches Haus in the future. Local volunteers restored Deutches Haus well after the levees disaster with the motto "Fixing Up the German Chocolate Part of the City", but much of the rest of the neighborhood is not back, and there is talk about the whole area being expropriated for a big hospital complex.
I didn't get to any of the bigger Halloween stuff on lower Decatur or Frenchmen Street this year. I did enjoy playing for the tumble parade starting in the upper Quarter and going to a party in the old Warehouse District the Saturday before Halloween. Halloween Day I played with a band for a party at the Dixie Brewery in Mid City! It was a combination Halloween party and 100th anniversary celebration for Dixie beer. Since the disaster the brand has been brewed for hire by another brewery out of state. Much of Mid-City is back and thriving, but the area around the Dixie Brewery is not such a neighborhood. After the flood was drained, the copper pipes, brewing equipment and such was looted. Dixie says they plan to come back to town, but in some ways they might as well start from scratch. The building is a fairly nice example of industrial architecture of a century ago.
Photo from a year and a half ago. Note line from long standing level of flood muck.
If they don't return to brewing there, perhaps the building can be redone as apartments or something similar to the old American Can Factory.
The abandoned brewery setting was appropriately Halloween-y, but fortunately without such inconveniences as rats or mold which a friend feared might be there. A band of old white guys playing 1950s NO R&B was the main band-- they were quite good, actually. "Midnight Streetcar". Ray put together the informal brass band as the intermission band and to second line around. Good time, with beer, a good spread of food, and cake.
I had a good time Saturday at the Freret Street Farmers Market. Two years ago the location was a Red Cross relief station; now local food and products were sold with live music by Sunpie Barnes. Then I got over to Magazine Street, which was also holding a festival, and I enjoyed hearing The Last Straws playing. With a couple of fine events Uptown, I decided not to be hard on myself for not making it down to the Mirliton Festival in Bywater.
Sunday Ms. H. decided to come hear music with me. At Cafe Brasil the Doc Cheatham Memorial Band played good mainstream trad. Most of the band was the same as on the late Doc Cheatham's "Swinging Down in New Orleans" cd; the trumpet spot was filled by Jon-Eric Kellso, back in town from New York for this. He's one of the few musicians I've heard who can play jazz ranging from archaic to avante-garde with conviction and virtuosity. Afterwards we went to Snug Harbor for burgers (catching some of Butch Thompson's solo set over the sound system) before heading over to the Palm Court to hear Kellso again with the band there. Kellso and reedman Tom Fischer seemed to be inspiring each other-- very good stuff playing some interesting not frequently heard tunes.
New Orleans is a place where, unfortunately for non-nightowls, even on a weeknight lots of music doesn't start til 10pm. Wednesday there was a nice early event I treated myself to: "Opera on Tap". Casual opera excerpts and draft beer at a bar is a concept, I'm told, that started in New York, but it seems naturally at home in New Orleans. The venue was "The Rusty Nail", at the detached lower tail of the Lower Garden District at the edge of the warehouse district. This location was formerly the Mermaid Lounge, back in the long long ago of the first half of this decade. They've redone the place looking better than it ever was before the Storm. I was concerned that it might be unpleasantly smoke filled, but no smoking during Opera on Tap. Yay! I was favorably impressed with the high level of the performers. Repertory ranged from obscure to the Anvil Chorus, in Italian, French, German, and English. A bit of Gilbert and Sullivan had some modified lyrics with passing references to bad levees and a congressman with cash in his freezer. Good times.