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Funknicity Produced by Scott Billington Personnel: Special Guests: |
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Tracks: 1-Bud's
Delights (6:03) 2-Pick
Up the Pieces (8:14) 3-Royal
Flush (5:35) 4-Heavy
Henry (6:34) 6-Imperial
March (of the
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7-Purple
Gazelle (6:52) 8-Crawlin'
(8:40) 9-Chicken
(4:04) 10-Reply
(5:44) 11-Funky
Liza (7:11)
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New Orleans. It's 'round midnight, or maybe a little later, and you don't even realize you're hungry until the street door opens and women with pots come in, dancing a bit to the fat, tuba-heavy pulse-beat syncopation of the brass band second-line music driving off the stage. This late-night lagniappe, the free midnight beans and rice, is one of the secret joys of New Orleans' brass band club scene, and when the women open the pots, and the irresistible, spicy aroma of simmered red beans and rice, or gumbo, or whatever soul food delight fills the air - which isn't hard to do since most of these jukes are about the size of your living room - the only possible response is a heartfelt "Heaven help me mama, I'm in New Orleans." Suddenly you realize how famished you are, damn, starving to death here, thank God someone brought some eats, and you look around and even the wildest second-line dancers are making an involuntary gumbotropic surge toward the free food. You would too if you'd spent half the night dancing (or even just listening) to the funky, street-parade, party-moving-down-the-street, if-you-ain't-dancing-get-the-hell-out-de-way, post-primal bebop pumping from the horns of bands like Treme, Rebirth, Newbirth, Soul Rebels, Storyville Stompers, Chosen Few, New Orleans Nightcrawlers. If you think that sounds like a lot of brass bands, you don't understand: in actual fact it's just the tip of the iceberg. Today, right now, steamy summertime 1997, New Orleans is in the midst of an extraordinary and totally unexpected musical renaissance. Over the last five years there's been an accelerating sense of musical excitement in the Crescent City. It probably started simmering in the early '80s, thanks to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (and ultimately thanks to Danny Barker, beloved griot, fashion plate, tribal elder, and very badly missed), but it's driven now by blues classicists like Snooks Eaglin, jazz masters like Ellis Marsalis, visiting professors like saxman Ed Petersen, wildmen like trumpeter/astrologist/Sun Ra apostle Michael Ray, hipster/DJ John Sinclair, radical zydeco aces like Nathan and Beau Jocque whose uptown gigs at the Rock 'n Bowl are always wall-to-wall, a huge bunch of start-up second-line brass bands, Irma (always), producer/promoter/record store impresario Jerry Brock, producer Scott Billington, keyboardist David Torkanowsky, and megatalented pianist Henry Butler. To name just a few, and in no particular order. Suddenly there's more good, live jazz than anyone has time to listen to, and more clubs to hear it in, and it's all across the board pure New Orleans and something more, second-line with a twist, down-home and high-end all at the same time. Some of it is right on the cutting edge - but you can still dance to most of it. The New Orleans Nightcrawlers are at the epicenter of this musical explosion. This bands wants it all: to shake your booty and hit that modern jazz edge at the same time. What could be more New Orleans than that? This relatively young band, whose second CD you hold in your hand, started out when the multi-talented Tom McDermott (pianist, composer, arranger, journalist, cartoonist...) contributed an arrangement to the Dirty Dozen's 'Jelly' CD. Everyone dug it. the CD came out. McDermott got paid. Happy end. But when he offered the Dozen Heavy Henry, an original composition inspired by pianist Henry Butler, the Dozen passed. "Look," thought McDermott. "I've written this song. I'll find musicians who want to play it." Trumpeter Kevin Clark and sousaphone ace Matt Perrine were happy to help McDermott find other musicians who wanted to start a band. Oddly enough, when McDermott first spoke to Perrine about starting a band, Matt had almost completed a tune that would soon become the band's signature piece, Imperial March (of the Nightcrawlers). (Obviously it wasn't titled yet.) In any case, both Imperial March and Heavy Henry (with Butler as guest pianist on the latter) are featured on this CD. Perrine, currently music director, continues to play a leading role. His compositions and arrangements account for almost half the tunes of this CD, and his commanding sousaphone lead gives the band a unique authority. "I've spent a lot of m life playing modern jazz on an acoustic bass and funk on electric," Perrine points out. "So I tend to think along those lines when I'm playing sousaphone." Nor is that all. Any number of things set the Nightcrawlers apart from the current crop of second-line brass bands (wonderful as they are), but the main ones are the 'Crawlers emphasis on solos, and a book of radically advanced arrangements. Most New Orleans brass bands still follow the traditional style: collective improvisation in which the full voice of the band, all horns wailing at once, carries the weight of the music. One reason for that is the crowd of second-liners that follows the band in the street, demanding the driving groove that pushes a parade along. The 'Crawlers dig that unison groove too, as the funky, danceable tunes on this CD make clear. But these players have the chops to drop a serious solo or two on top of the arrangement. McDermott, with a number of CDs to his credit, has played piano around the globe as a soloist, and with the Dukes of Dixieland. Combining the credits of the other band members in the interest of space, we find live gigs and recordings with stars like Chuck Berry, Danny Barker, Dr. John, Ellis Marsalis, Maria Muldaur, Gatemouth Brown, Marva Wright, the Neville Brothers, Harry Connick Jr., Maynard Ferguson, Smilin' Myron, Rosemary Clooney and Phish. Impressed yet? With players this good, arrangers like Perrine, McDermott, and saxman Eric Traub can make serious demands on the band. AT times the 'Crawlers sound like a Charles Mingus Workshop band: tight, daring, impeccable, dangerous, navigating high-velocity charts that would make most bands hide under the bed. At other times you may hear echoes of late Ellington - or even early Ellington. Of course all these elements are free-floating in the contemporary New Orleans brass band tradition, along with sounds of Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, the Crusaders, the JB Horns, even some hiphop and rap. But you'll seldom find them blended with such sure-handed confidence. "One of the wonderful things about the band," notes Perrine, "is that everyone has slightly different impression of what he wants the band to sound like. So from chart to chart, the band's gonna sound different." I started out with the midnight beans to make a point. A few months ago I dropped into the Crawlers' then-regular Tuesday night gig at Joe's Cozy Corner, one of those great, tiny bars in the Treme district. No stage, just a space between the tables for he band to set up, and to get to the bathroom you have to make your way through the band. A typical setup: the Crawlers are wailing, the bar is pouring drinks, there's a crowd of guys on the sidewalk setting the world in order, and the hours re passing very happily. Then a delectable, spicy aroma begins wafting through the room. I look around and there they are! The midnight ladies, Lord have mercy! And a huge pot of white beans is steaming away on the bar. So I think to myself, hmmm, better get some of those beans before they disappear, but the band is only halfway through 'Chicken' and I am busy beating a ragged backbeat with a drumstick on a beer bottle, and two good-looking young women are dancing together, and people are shouting along with the music, and I notice that nobody else is moving toward the beans either. The groove is just too fine to lose, and the crowd is locked in, happy, in the zone. In New Orleans, when folks ignore the beans and rice, you know the music has to be damn tasty. And so it is! Crawlers' unique blend of good-time dance music and modern jazz cooks up into a scrumptious pot of musical eats. Come and get it. --Michael Goodwin |
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2001 new orleans nightcrawlers
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