Jazzin’ in the Park with old favs

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

People are often looking for what’s new, what’s different which is a positive outlook yet not if it’s a detriment to keeping up with old favs. Good musicians will give you something fresh at every outing. Often hearing a band that’s close to one’s heart and spirit in an alternate setting, a venue that brings in a different crowd, can also provide another perspective to what a group has to offer. Audience response, interaction and appreciation are such an important aspects of any live performance that they can make the difference between a bad, good and great show.

Jazz in the Park, now in the second week of its 2016 fall series in Armstrong Park, presents a truly New Orleans double bill of vocalist Erica Falls and headliner trombonist/vocalist Corey Henry & the Treme Funktet. It makes for a perfect match as these two talents, performing on Thursday, September 15, were born and raised in the city and their music reflects their origins – they’ve got that New Orleans sound. The series’ venue, in the heart of the Treme neighborhood, boasts a great hometown vibe with lots of folks living nearby coming out especially for shows like this one where everyone feels like family. The free Jazz in the Park series continues every Thursday through November 3 with drummer Shannon Powell, a denizen of Treme, opening the show and the energetic accordionist Dwayne Dopsie & the Hellraisers going strong as the closing act.

Interestingly, another thing that links Henry and Falls is that both of them perform with the funk/rock band Galactic. Henry has been blowing with the group since around 2009 and recorded three albums with the band. Falls, who enjoys a career leading her ensemble and seems to pop up as a background singer with an array of artists, is fresh off a tour with Galactic and after Thursday’s show, she’ll soon hit the road with the busy band again.

Another catch-it-while you can ensemble is Nolatet, an all-star group of musicians with vibest/percussionist, the very active Mike Dillon, bassist James Singleton, drummer Johnny Vidacovich – both of Astral Project and leaders of their own bands — and pianist Brian Haas, the non-New Orleanian of the ensemble and perhaps best recognized as the leader of the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. The quartet, which relies on all original material from the pens of these music masters, makes a too rare appearance in the city on Friday night, September 16 at Canal Street’s Chickie Wah Wah. It marks the beginning of a week-long tour that will hit Texas and Oklahoma. “I think it’s going to be a good place for Nolatet to play because it’s intimate, it always sounds good in there and everybody listens,” says Dillon, who’s been touring with his own group, the Mike Dillon Band, and Grammy-winning vocalist Rickie Lee Jones. “It meets the requirements for a magical night of music making,” Dillon promises.

It almost seems like if there wasn’t a festival somewhere in the New Orleans area on a weekend, something is off kilter. The Algiers Fest, one of an increasing number of events that take place on the west bank of the Mississippi River, is on tap for Saturday, September 17 at Federal City. It’s got a loaded schedule of New Orleans favs with kickers Rockin’ Dopsie & the Zydeco Twisters closing the day beginning at 5:30 p.m., the Grammy-winning (still like to say that!) Rebirth Brass Band, Tank and the Bangas, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Johnny Sansone and DJ Captain Charles. At 11 am Marine Corps Band will open the free event that is held in celebration of the military, police and the Algiers community.

The Cookers
The Call of the Wild and Peaceful Heart
(Smoke Sessions Records)
The follow-up to The Cookers’ 2014 recording, Time and Time Again, which many praised as the best jazz album of that year, doesn’t disappoint. How could it? The band consists of stellar post-bop era giants all of whom are leaders in their own right. They include bassist Cecil McBee (trumpeter Miles Davis, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Wayne Shorter), trumpeter Eddie Henderson (lessons from Louis Armstrong, pianist Herbie Hancock), drummer Billy Hart (trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock), pianist George Cables (saxophonist Sonny Rollins, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard) and tenor saxophonist Billy Harper (pianist Randy Weston, drummers Art Blakey, Elvin Jones and Max Roach). It’s important to state their names and their creds to completely comprehend the magnitude of the music they create.

The veterans were brought together by trumpeter and youngest band member David Weiss who founded The Cookers. This disc marks New Orleans’ own, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr.’s second recording with the band that has been together for some nine years.

It’s telling that the name of the hard-hitting ensemble is so apt. These guys never turn down the heat even when playing a quieter number like Harper’s “If One Could Only See,” one of the saxophonist’s many great contributions to an album full of original material.

The name of the album and the disc’s first cut, Harper’s brilliant “The Call of the Wild and Peaceful Heart,” also perfectly describes the tune and the project overall. The musicians go “out” with expressions of freedom, yet there remains a core of wholeness and sense of humanity.

It takes masters like those on The Call of the Wild and Peaceful Heart to truly celebrate this rich duality.

This article originally published in the September 12, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.