Best of the Beat – And the winners are…

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

On Thursday, January 30, 2020 winners in a whooping 43 musical categories will be announced at this year’s Best of the Beat Music Awards party. The gala, which includes musical performances and food from an array of restaurants and vendors, will be held for the first time at the New Orleans Jazz Market on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.

The divisions range from Artist and Album of the Year to individual accomplishments like Best Emerging Artist, Best Pianist, Best Trumpeter, Best Drummer and the like. The winners were chosen by the public voting online.

Several of the artists nominated for OffBeat magazine’s awards are also up for Grammys this year including vocalist and keyboardist PJ Morton, the eclectic Tank & the Bangas, trumpeter Christian aTunde Adjuah and bluesman Bobby Rush. With the Grammy Awards being presented on Sunday, January 26, 2020 (airing on CBS at 8 p.m.) it will be interesting to observe how these musicians fare on a national versus local level.

Certainly one of the musical highlights of the night will be a tribute by the Preservation Hall All-Stars to clarinetist, saxophonist, vocalist and composer Charlie Gabriel who was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement in Music award at an event earlier this month. This night, Gabriel, 87, will join the Hall band that will include bassist/tuba player Ben Jaffe, drummer Shannon Powell, cornetist Mark Braud, clarinetist Louis Ford, trombonist Craig Klein and pianist Meghan Swartz. The always musically enthusiastic Gabriel, his fellow band members and the audience are sure to have some fun.

Even in a city that boasts numerous musical families, the Gabriels stand out. Charlie’s great grandfather, Narcesse Gabriel, who was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and arrived in New Orleans in 1856, was a bass player. His grandfather, Martin Joseph “Big Manny” Gabriel, blew trumpet in the National Jazz Band in 1902, a group that also included noted saxophonist and Olympia Brass Band leader Harold Dejan. Charlie’s father, Martin Gabriel, who was also known as Manny, played drums and alto saxophone. Not to be left out, his mother Emily was also musically inclined and played saxophone. Charlie’s uncles and cousins filled the musical ranks and the Gabriel legacy continues into a next generation.

“There was music in my house every day, all day and all night just about,” Gabriel, who began studying saxophone with his father, once fondly remembered. “Well, the key to playing saxophone is to learn the clarinet; the clarinet is the mother instrument to teach you how to play saxophone.”

By the time Charlie was 11, he could read music and, in 1943, he joined his father as a member the Eureka Brass Band, a highly respected unit that was formed in 1920. The native New Orleanian moved to Detroit as a teenager and following six decades in the Motor City performing with such notables as Lionel Hampton and touring with Aretha Franklin, he returned to his hometown to become a much admired member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band since 2008. “I never left New Orleans really; my body left New Orleans,” Gabriel has said. “I just fit right into it. It was wonderful for me.”

Other previously announced awards went to guitarist and University of New Orleans professor Steve Masakowski for a Lifetime Achievement in Music Education and Shirani Rea, owner of Peaches Records, for a Lifetime Achievement in Music Business. The non-profit organization Positive Vibrations Foundation recognized two noted people in the New Orleans community with its Heartbeat Awards. Clarence “Big Chief Delco” Dalcour of the Creole Osceola Mardi Gras Indian tribe was honored as a culture bearer, and vocalist Margie Perez in music.

The night, of course, will be filled with music including a performance by The Soul Rebels, who are nominated for awards in both the Album of the Year for their 2019 release “Poetry in Motion” and Best Brass Band. Also taking the stage are percussionist Alexey Marti, acting as leader of a band composed of members of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, bassist Charlie Wooton teamed with vocalist Arsene DeLay and alternative soul band J & the Causeways. DJ Raj Smooth will do the spinning during breaks in the live music.

The ticket price includes food from 20 different restaurants and vendors including the Gumbo Shop, Bao & Noodle, Nirvana, Breaux Mart, Barracuda and more. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and it’s wise to arrive early in the evening to enjoy the culinary offerings before the award ceremony begins.

The Best of the Beat Music Awards offers fans and those in the music industry a chance to show their appreciation to those artists who have devoted their lives to giving the world pleasure. It’s also a fun hang for New Orleans’ warm and wonderful music community.

Geraldine Wyckoff is a freelance journalist who contributes to OffBeat magazine.

This article originally published in the January 27, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.