Satchmo SummerFest makes a move

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

After 15 years of calling the Old U.S. Mint on Esplanade Avenue its home, the Satchmo SummerFest, Friday, August 5, through Sunday, August 7, 2016, is moving to Jackson Square. The festival, which celebrates New Orleans’ legendary trumpeter, vocalist and composer Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, will naturally boast a different look and feel at its new digs in the heart of the French Quarter though the sounds of traditional jazz and brass bands will ring out as always.

So how will it work? At the Mint, the huge building, now a museum, provided a buffer between the two stages so music was presented at both venues at the same time. At the Square, the outdoor stages, minus such sound protection, will alternate performances. As one set ends, the other stage kicks in much in the way that the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival works at Lafayette Square. There is also an indoor stage located on the second floor of the Louisiana State Museum Arsenal that primarily focuses on dancing and dance lessons. The symposiums – discussions, visual presentations and the like – will be held at the nearby Le Petit Theatre. As was instituted last year, a $5 cover charge is required to enter the festival’s gates and/or attend the other activities.

WENDELL BRUNIOUS

Friday’s line-up seems particularly strong and if you have to work the music does go late so you can still probably catch Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers at 5:30 p.m. followed by Big Sam’s Funky Nation at 7:45 p.m. at the Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage that stays active until 9 p.m. closing time. (It’s the one at the corner of Decatur and St. Peter streets that is regularly used during French Quarter Festival.) Just across the park, drummer Gerald French & the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, strikes up at 6:45 p.m. at the Cornet Chop Suey Stage, which will have the luxury of being tented. Gerald, the son of bassist/vocalist George French, took over leadership of this over 100-year-old ensemble in 2011 when his uncle, drummer Bob French retired. Gerald’s grandfather, banjoist Papa French also led the legendary band that was founded by cornetist Papa Celestin.

For visitors, those who can set their own hours and working people who choose to play hookey on Friday, the day starts out very impressively too. The PresHall Brass Band, an offshoot of the Preservation Hall Jazz band and brass band in residence of the legendary St. Peter Street jazz mecca, hits the Red Bean stage at noon. It’s followed at 1:45 p.m. by the also legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the revolutionary group formed in 1977 that changed the brass band world by introducing funk, rhythm and blues and modern jazz performed in a brass setting. The Dozen is on the road so much, this appearance marks a rare opportunity to hear the ensemble in its hometown of New Orleans.

Jumping to Sunday is appropriate as that’s the day clarinetist/saxophonist/composer Victor Goines makes his debut appearance performing at 2:30 p.m. at Satchmo Fest. Goines, a hugely talented native son, remains best recognized for his work as a member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Marsalis-led Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, in which he still holds a seat. The reedman, who can play the spectrum of jazz music and is presently acting as the jazz studies program director at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, is bringing in a Chicago-based rhythm section for the gig. The musicians include pianist Jo Ann Daugherty, bassist Emma Dehuff and drummer Gregory Arty. Goines has said that he looks forward to giving these musicians the opportunity to perform with guitarist, banjoist and vocalist Don Vappie as working with a banjo player is a rarity for many traditional jazz artists from the north. A noted tenor player, Goines plans to perform primarily on clarinet and soprano saxophone at his festival gig offering classics like the great Sidney Bechet’s “Petit Fleur” as well as traditionally-based original material. “There are only two kinds of people,” Goines has proclaimed. People who like jazz and those who haven’t heard it yet.””

VICTOR GOINES

Sunday also offers the crowd favorite jazz mass held at 10 am at St. Augustine Catholic Church featuring the Treme Brass Band led by drummer Benny Jones Sr. When, following the service, the ensemble steps out of the doors of the historic house of worship on the corner of Henriette Delille and Gov. Nicholls streets at approximately 11:30 a.m., it then leads a second line that heads to the Satchmo fetival site. The route takes it down Henriette Delille Street to Esplanade Avenue, turning right on Esplanade to Royal Street and up Royal Street to St. Ann Street. That should get it there about on time for the beginning of the historic Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band’s set that starts at 1:45 p.m. Trumpet players reign the rest of Sunday afternoon displaying their diverse styles including the more modern leaning Jeremy Davenport, the often humorous and much-appreciated classic tones of Wendell Brunious both playing the Cornet Chop Suey Stage. Over at the Red Beans Stage, traditional meets modern in the blowing of the great Leroy Jones followed by the grittier, Treme-bred trumpeter and vocalist James Andrews who will take it out in final tribute to Louis Armstrong.

“Louis Arm-strong influenced us all. The only people he didn’t influence are those who have yet to hear him,” Victor Goines has rightfully declared.

This article originally published in the August 1, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.