Tribeca ’22: Music Pictures: New Orleans

Even though it scattered New Orleans musicians, Katrina never the silenced the music. Jazz Fest continued on-schedule and the Frenchmen and Bourbon Street clubs were undamaged and reopened for business. However, Covid closed everything and canceled all the gigs, including Jazz Fest. At least documentary filmmakers appreciated what we were missing, because there has been a recent boomlet of NOLA music docs released in theaters or screening at festivals. This one is a welcomed addition. Ben Chace profiles four stylistically different—but not too disparate—veteran New Orleans musicians in Music Pictures: New Orleans, which screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Part one focuses on Irma Thomas, “The Soul Queen,” a highly fitting and logical place to start. Unlike Martin Shore’s Take Me to the River New Orleans, which felt compelled to team Thomas up with a younger artist, Ledisi, Chace finds her sufficiently interesting on her own, because she is. However, he also gives a bit of time to her sidemen, particularly drummer Johnny Vidacovich, whom Thomas is happy to share the spotlight with. Hearing them put together a smoldering and swinging “My Love Is” is a treat.

Likewise, hearing Thomas casually land an a cappella “Our Day Will Come” and then carefully caress it while recording a lush studio arrangement will give you good chills. Honestly, watching Music Pictures will make NOLA music fans realize she is even cooler than they understood.

Benny Jones Sr. is now the leader of the Treme Brass Band (who were regularly seen in HBO’s Treme), but he was also a founder of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who really deserve a documentary of their own, for re-popularizing a funkifying the NOLA brass band tradition. NOLA brass bands have an infectious rhythmic drive and as a bass and snare drummer, Jones is one of the best putting the beat on the street. Of course, the entire band makes their groove swing, but vocalist/alto-player John “Prince” Gilbert gets the time to tell some of the band’s reminiscences, like when they opened for the Grateful Dead, in Oakland, on New Year’s Eve.

Little Freddie King probably lived the blues as much as anyone, if not more so. Yet, he survived to find fame in Europe and play regular gigs in New Orleans. He probably has the film’s most colorful anecdotes, but the important thing is he can still play—and he is a heck of a snappy dresser. It is definitely King’s segment, but his drummer-manager “Wacko” Wade Wright gets credit for handling all the business, as well as a lot of King’s personal, medical logistics.

Appropriately, Music Pictures concludes with New Orleans’ first family of modern jazz, the Marsalises, whom Shore dubiously ignored. It was a wise choice, considering Ellis Marsalis, the NOLA jazz patriarch, passed away due to Covid complications in 2020. Chace focuses on Marsalis’s first and only album length collaboration with his son Jason (brother of Wynton and Branford) on vibes (whereas on their previous recordings together, Jason had played drums).

Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story

It is almost unfair. A lot of musicians who never play jazz (maybe because it is a demanding art form that never pays as well as pop), are keen to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, because it is a great time, with delicious food. Of course, NOLA is always welcoming, so consequently many of the biggest names in a wide array of musical styles have performed at the festival. Many of those appreciative artists pay tribute to the annual institution in Frank Marshall & Ryan Suffern’s documentary Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story, which opens today in New York and Los Angeles.

Marshall & Suffern do not exactly present a history of the festival, because they only cover a handful of significant events from Jazz Fest’s past, logically starting with its creation. George Wein, the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, was approached to start something similar in New Orleans, but he begged off until segregation officially ended in southern states. Logically, Louis Armstrong played the inaugural fest, but we see little footage of him at the Fest. Frustratingly, there is even less of the rest of NOLA’s Holy Trinity of musicians: Fats Domino and Al Hirt.

At least one undisputed New Orleans legend gets her just due from Marshall & Suffern. That would be Irma Thomas, who we hear rocking “Jock-o-mo.” (The credits misidentify it as “Iko Iko,” which is a sore point for the composer’s son, Davell Crawford, whom the audience also gets to hear from musically and more extensively in interview segments regarding Katrina.)

It is quite impressive that Katrina did not derail Jazz Fest. In fact, it provides some of the documentary’s most uplifting moments. Yet, perhaps tellingly, Covid did—for two years. Throughout it all, Festival Director Quint Davis was there, so he provides plenty of commentary and reminiscences.

Marshall & Suffern keep the film moving along and well-stocked with famous names. Most viewers probably aren’t looking to a Jazz Fest doc to hear Pitbull or Jimmy Buffet, even though the latter’s long association with the festival and the city of New Orleans justifies his inclusion. Frankly, Marshall & Suffern’s a-little-of-this-a-little-of-that cafeteria approach works best when presenting fresh artists exploring under-represented genres, like the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band and Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers, who do just that, in an infectiously musical way.

Take Me to the River New Orleans

Even without jazz, New Orleans would be one of most important musical cities. That might be a heavy statement, but it is backed up by the likes of the Neville Brothers, The Meters, Dumpstaphunk, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, and Dr. John. When you add jazz back in, forget about it. Martin Shore doesn’t forget about NOLA’s jazz roots, but he definitely emphasizes the funk and R&B when he takes his documentary franchise to our favorite city in Take Me to the River New Orleans, which opens this Friday in the Crescent City, itself.

Shore visits studios all over New Orleans, where he pairs up legendary musicians, with up-and-coming local artists. It is an approach we’ve seen many times before. Frankly, a lot of fans would rather just see Irma Thomas (on her own), who kicks off the film with Ledisi, performing her classic “Wish Someone Would Care.” We do not mean to insult Ledisi, but this kind of Tony Bennett Duets project is getting to be a cliché.

It is way more interesting to hear a diverse group of New Orleans drummers: Shannon Powell, Herlin Riley, Alvin Ford Jr., Terence Higgins, and Stanton Moore, kvetch and jam on “Li’l Liza Jane,” because it is a real dialogue. Donald Harrison, Jr. represents the jazz tradition and helps explain the significance of the Mardi Gras Indians. He also jams hard on the “Saints” with his nephew Christian Scott and the Tipitina’s Interns. You can’t get much more New Orleans than that.

Shore visits Preservation Hall, but we do not really hear much from the current bands there. However, a number of brass bands perform and discuss the current funkier scene, including the New Breed, Rebirth, and the grandaddies of them all, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (who back Aaron Neville on a rousing “Stompin’ Ground”).

It is totally cool to see Walter “Wolfman” Washington included, jamming with Ani DiFranco on a real deal Cajun tune. The sessions involving rappers are a mixed bag, with the most successful being the Soul Rebels jamming with the late 5^th Ward Weebie on “504/Enjoy Yourself.” The tribute to Toussaint is a bit gimmicky, but somehow Snoop Dog and G-Eazy almost sound like they belong on “Yes We Can,” with the Meters, William Bell, and Big Sam Williams doing all the hard work of keeping things funky.

House of Blues: Hugh Laurie’s Let Them Talk

If you have spent much time in Starbuck’s lately, you have surely heard a good portion of British actor Hugh Laurie’s new CD, a tribute to the music of New Orleans. Though undeniably the beneficiary of a considerable marketing campaign, the man known as Dr. House can definitely carry a tune in his medical kit and has an agreeable touch on the ivories. Laurie explains his love for those Crescent City sounds and performs a set of jazz and blues standards in Great Performances’ Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk (preview here), which premieres on most PBS stations this Friday.

In his introductory voice-over, Laurie tells viewers every man is entitled to one pilgrimage in his life. Laurie had the good taste to take his in NOLA. He took the scenic route getting there though, stopping off at bluesy-rootsy roadside attractions, like Euclid Records, whose mail-order operations are well beloved by many of us, and sitting in at Maggie Mae’s in Austen, Texas, with Miss Lavelle White, who can vocalize a mean harmonica.

Granted, just about anyone would sound okay fronting a band assembled by New Orleans R&B maestro Allen Toussaint, performing with special guests Irma Thomas and Sir Tom Jones. In truth though, Laurie is at least pretty good in his own right on vocals, piano, and a spot of guitar. He offers the appropriate support to Thomas, “The Soul Queen of New Orleans," on “John Henry” and backs up Jones nicely during “Baby Please Make a Change,” a soul shouter perfectly suited to the Welsh icon. Laurie also has a surprisingly strong left on the ivories, opening a real can of barrelhouse on “Swanee River” and gamely tackling the Professor Longhair classic “Tiptina.”

As a vocalist, Laurie has a strong, clear tone that expresses the plaintiveness of “St. James Infirmary” quite strikingly. Arranged with stately funkiness by Toussaint, it is obviously positioned as the concert’s showcase number, and rightly so. The highlight of the set, it is here that Laurie really puts his stamp on an old school New Orleans classic. It ought to be the title track, but it might have confused some of his House fans (though it sounds medical).

Mostly, Let Them Talk is a respectfully traditional celebration of the NOLA songbook, (though Laurie earns further credit for capturing Jelly Roll Morton’s idiosyncratic attitude in “Buddy Bolden’s Blues”). Much like the still vital local music scene one can find in the small clubs on Frenchmen Street, Laurie and Toussaint effortlessly blend jazz, blues, and R&B throughout the set. It is quite pleasant, but if it rocks your world, just wait until you check out the original recordings from Toussaint, Louis Armstrong, James Black, and ‘Fess Longhair.

While some of Laurie’s narration is a bit hokey, the music will remind many of us once again why we fell in love with New Orleans, which is what good valentines are supposed to do. There is one glaring misstep though: Toussaint’s band is never introduced on camera or allowed to take the bow they earned. An enjoyable love letter nonetheless, Laurie’s Let Them Talk airs on most PBS outlets this Friday (9/30), including New York’s Thirteen, as part of the current season of Great Performances.