Banjo Banjo Banjo Banjo Banjo
The New Orleans banjo convention has been going on since Thursday evening at a hotel in the suburb of Metarie. The banjo player leader of a band I play with gave me a free membership and encouraged me to bring my horn to some jams there.
Shortly after I arrived the first concert was in an upstairs convention room. I looked around at a sea of old white faces that seemed to have an average age of at least 75. I thought oooh-kay, being at this convention is going to make me feel like a youngster. I then found out that a the occupants of a local retirement home had been bussed in for that concert. Ah. Well, the event still has a heavy demographic of retirement age white folks, but not quite that close to exclusively.
Banjos, banjos, banjos.
At one point a soprano sax, piano, tuba, and myself on trombone were were playing in a room with 20 banjos a-strummin'. That's a lotta banjos.
Groups and performers from in town and lots of visitors came in for it. Most notable of the few folks younger than me were a excellent string swing band of college age to 20 somethings from Austin.
Most impressive of the performers was Buddy Wachter
(his website, with unfortunate macromedia flash;
more low-bandwidth friendly bio on banjomuseum.org). He's spoken of with awe as a legend by his fellow banjo players, and with good reason. This fellow plays with a virtuosity and past-mastership rarely seen on any instrument. He reminds me of Yehudi Menuhin.
I'm going back over there in a bit. I'm going to be missing the Saturday evening jams or much of it, as we lost a former queen of "MOMS" carnival krewe I play in the royal band of, so we're having the traditional memorial jazz funeral/tumble for her.
Shortly after I arrived the first concert was in an upstairs convention room. I looked around at a sea of old white faces that seemed to have an average age of at least 75. I thought oooh-kay, being at this convention is going to make me feel like a youngster. I then found out that a the occupants of a local retirement home had been bussed in for that concert. Ah. Well, the event still has a heavy demographic of retirement age white folks, but not quite that close to exclusively.
Banjos, banjos, banjos.
At one point a soprano sax, piano, tuba, and myself on trombone were were playing in a room with 20 banjos a-strummin'. That's a lotta banjos.
Groups and performers from in town and lots of visitors came in for it. Most notable of the few folks younger than me were a excellent string swing band of college age to 20 somethings from Austin.
Most impressive of the performers was Buddy Wachter
(his website, with unfortunate macromedia flash;
more low-bandwidth friendly bio on banjomuseum.org). He's spoken of with awe as a legend by his fellow banjo players, and with good reason. This fellow plays with a virtuosity and past-mastership rarely seen on any instrument. He reminds me of Yehudi Menuhin.
I'm going back over there in a bit. I'm going to be missing the Saturday evening jams or much of it, as we lost a former queen of "MOMS" carnival krewe I play in the royal band of, so we're having the traditional memorial jazz funeral/tumble for her.