Paying homage to a piano genius…

15th October 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

The planets seemed to align to designate that this is the week to honor the great pianist, vocalist, composer and New Orleans native Henry Butler who died on July 2, 2018 at the age of 69.

On Sunday, October 21, a second line will jump through the streets of the French Quarter and the Faubourg Marigny in tribute to Butler. Later that evening a number of New Orleans finest pianists, who stand as some of his biggest fans, will pay their respect for his influence and talent by performing at Snug Harbor in his honor. It was a spot where Butler dazzled many audiences.

“Davell (Crawford) was the anchor to make this work,” says pianist Tom McDermott, who will take part in both events. Later on in the month, on October 29, he and pianist/vocalist Crawford will also be on stage to play a tribute Butler at a Bleeker Street club in New York City. Other participants at that event include trumpeter/bandleader Steven Bernstein with whom Butler recorded and noted keyboardists John Medeski and Paul Shaffer. Butler, who left New Orleans following Katrina, spent time in Colorado before moving to New York, was living in the Big Apple at the time of his death.

Crawford, another great New Orleans-born musician living in New York, makes (too) infrequent trips home and was coming into town to play his own gig, dubbed Davell Crawford & Co. at Snug Harbor on Saturday, October 20. The pianist is also getting to display his abilities playing traditional jazz as he leads his band, Davell Crawford & the Creole Jazz Men, on Sunday evening (4 p.m.) at the Maison as part of the wonderful Nickel-A-Dance series. With Crawford in town as well as others back after a busy summer, now was the time to, some would say finally, celebrate one of this city’s most important and innovative musicians.

“I grew up soaking up Henry Butler,” Davell Crawford said soon after Butler’s passing. Crawford, a hugely talented and diverse pianist and vocalist, is considered by many as a guardian of the expressive flame of innovation and excellence that burned in Butler. Like Butler, he’s helped keep alive the rhythm and blues repertoire and spirit of its heydays. “He was a majestic mind and the greatest pianist I ever met and worked with.”

The artists on Sunday’s night’s Snug Harbor schedule – McDermott, Crawford, Larry Sieberth, Josh Paxton and perhaps others – will perform solo with an allowance of approximately 20 minutes each.

McDermott already has a few tunes in mind that he wants to play though certainly the list could go on if time permitted. On that “to-do” list are “Thing of Beauty” from Butler’s album Blues and More Vol. I., which he describes as the “nicest piece Henry ever recorded of his own original material” and “Viper’s Drag” that Butler released with trumpeter Steven Bernstein & the Hot 9. Sure to be on McDermott’s set is a song that he wrote, “Heavy Henry,” that was inspired by just a measure or two of improvisation that Butler played while doing Professor Longhair’s classic tune “Tipitina.” This fragment became a song that was later recorded on the New Orleans Nightcrawlers’ 2009 album Funknicity with Butler at the piano.

“That’s why the Nightcrawlers will be the band at the second line,” McDermott explains. “They were probably the closest to Henry musically in a way. I don’t think he ever recorded with another brass band.”

Jazz funerals and spontaneous or planned second lines are the way folks in New Orleans say good-bye and celebrate the lives of those who have left us. So friends and fans will be warmed by getting to say farewell to Henry Butler in the tradition.

The “Second Line for Henry” will begin at 6 p.m. on Sunday, October 21, in the 700 block of North Rampart Street. It will travel down Rampart to St. Ann Street and acknowledge the now defunct Donna’s Bar & Grill where Butler often played and hung out. The line turns right on St. Ann Street in the direction of the Mississippi River. As it continues it will pass Jackson Square on its way to Chartres Street. It takes a left on Chartres heading toward the Marigny and then crosses Esplanade Avenue and goes by the firehouse to Frenchmen Street. The line turns left on Frenchmen to its destination of Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, 626 Frenchmen Street.

Henry Butler once described himself as “a work in progress,” explaining that his aim was to continually challenge himself. He would fulfill that goal and inspire pianist like those performing at the benefit as well as artists around the world to do the same.

“I’ve always thought of him as a guy who was pushing the music forward,” McDermott says, particularly referring to Butler’s take on New Orleans style rhythm and blues. “Henry added a layer of funk as a rhythmic player that wasn’t there before – he upped the ante.

“I think what made him special was a massive intellect and his ability to extract the essence from New Orleans music and beyond,” says fellow pianist David Torkanowsky. “In many ways, he represented the entire lexicon of contemporary American music.”

This article originally published in the October 15, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.