The Treme Creole Gumbo Festival merges naturally with the Congo Square Rhythms Festival

11th November 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

The merger of the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival and the Congo Square Rhythms Festival is, in numerous ways, a natural. Most obvious is that the event is being held simultaneously on Saturday, November 16 and Sunday, November 17, in Armstrong Park that is home to the sacred ground of Congo Square and is located in the historic Treme neighborhood.

New Orleans modern rhythms heard in jazz, the beat of brass bands, funk, R&B and the tempos embraced by the Mardi Gras Indians are a direct lineage to the enslaved Africans who would gather to play their drums and dance in Congo Square. At this combo-fest, they can be experienced side-by-side on two stages that are a quick step from one another.

The third element that unites the themes is gumbo, a word, according to numerous informed sources, that is derived from ngombo, a West African word for okra.

The Congo Square Stage traditionally opens up (Saturday at 10:45 a.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m.) with a drum circle where folks are encouraged to join the ceremony as they do each Sunday afternoon throughout the year. Though there’s a lot of mixing up of genres presented at each venue, Sunday is definitely brass band day with the LPO Brass Band, which includes members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, kicking things off, as it has often done, at 11 a.m. Some of New Orleans favorites like the Treme, Free Agents and Hot 8 brass bands follow culminating with the Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band doin’ what they wanna starting at 6:15 p.m.

Sunday also offers more local artists who have studied the African musical traditions including the Kumbuka African Dance & Drum and Bamboula 2000, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. West African-born Seguenon Kone, who took up residence in New Orleans in 2008, brings the true flavor of his homeland with his vivacious playing of the balafon, a xylophone type instrument, various percussive instruments and energetic dancing – he can really spin.

The day also celebrates the Mardi Gras Indians and its close relationship to the cultures of Africa. The annual Black Indian “battle” is always a friendly though sometimes ferocious looking engagement between the numerous gangs and remains festival favorite.

Saturday’s line-up could be considered a neighborhood day with many of the artists having grown up and/or honed their chops in the Treme. They include the always engaging trumpeter and vocalist James Andrews leading the Crescent City All-Stars. Andrews, who mentored his younger brother, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews to stardom, personifies the Treme and New Orleans with his spirit and his sound. Dig when he does “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” made famous by his grandfather, the late great Jessie Hill.

It’s an all in the “family” kind of day with trumpeter Glenn Hall & Backatown, the incredible trombonist Corey Henry & the Treme Funktet, featuring guitarist extraordinaire June Yamagishi, the lovable trumpeter and vocalist Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers and winding up with the very hot right now Soul Rebels following the release of its album “Poetry in Motion.”

Hey, we can’t forget the strong women performing on Saturday who will be leading their own bands. The exotic Cole Williams, who is from Brooklyn and moved to New Orleans in 2014, proclaims herself as the Punk Empress of African Rock though she can be a romantic soul sister too. It’s great to see Charmaine Neville’s name on the schedule as she too personifies New Orleans and even though she’s an “uptown girl,” she’s in the Treme musical family just as her uncles have always been. Charmaine can do it all – old school R&B, jazz and get into the Mardi Gras Indian mode. Tonya Boyd-Cannon wraps up the stage that for the most part celebrates this city’s fine female vocalists. Boyd-Cannon, a Mississippi native and New Orleans resident who is noted for having reached the top 20 on NBC’s singing competition “The Voice,” can bring it on letting her gospel roots shine, add some sophistication and get down.

Armstrong Park, the site for the free Treme Creole Gumbo/Congo Square Rhythms festival, holds a special place in the hearts of neighborhood folks despite the sadness that in the 1960s 12 square blocks of homes and businesses, including the beloved, original Caldonia Inn, were demolished and thousands of residents displaced to create it. (Drummer Lionel “Uncle Lionel” Batiste even organized a jazz funeral for the club where pianist Professor Longhair had played and trumpeter Louis Armstrong visited.) They justifiably believe that the park, as well as Congo Square and the Municipal Auditorium, which was built in 1930 and also required the razing of homes, is theirs. They show the love through music, dance and a sense of community at events such as this festival and in every day life.

This article originally published in the November 11, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.