SXSW Day 1: Downtown NOLA Party at The Lucky Lounge with the Stooges Brass Band @StoogesBB

The Downtown NOLA Party was held at the Lucky Lounge, which I seem to remember being Antone’s at one time, and as soon as I walked in, I ran into members of The Stooges Brass Band, one of my favorite New Orleans groups. The place was somewhat crowded, but not uncomfortably so, and the Stooges had been hired to provide the music which they did, with a more indoor version of their group featuring a set drummer and keyboard player rather than the street style they typically display outdoors. Still it was upbeat and fun, and was apparently being sponsored as an opportunity to lure tech businesses to downtown New Orleans. Toward the end of the evening, an unexpected guest appeared, the legendary Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys. He joined the Stooges on stage for a freestyle before the end of the evening.

Lady Jetsetters: From Pop’s House of Blues to Sportsman’s Corner and the End of the Line @StoogesBB

From Pop’s House of Blues, the second-line made its way down Dryades to the corner of Second and Dryades, where it disbanded in a huge crowd in front of the Sportsman’s Corner, an Uptown lounge that I have heard is a location for Black Indian practices. The music continued for some time after reaching the end of the line, and the groove is kept up not only by the band, but by the ad hoc percussionists from the crowd who are playing empty bottles with sticks, or cowbells that they brought with them. One such man tells me that he is the “Bottle Man”, but I suspect there are numerous “bottle men” in this second-line and every other. Unfortunately, as things were breaking up, I faced a dilemma, as this was my first second-line that disbanded at a different place than it began, and in fact, four miles away. Already I was dead tired, and the prospect of a four-mile walk back to the Calliope projects didn’t particularly appeal to me. But this proved to be one of those seeming problems that often has a simple solution in a magical city like New Orleans. Since I knew some of the Stooges Brass Band members, I asked them how they were getting back to the Calliope where they began, and one of them told me that they and their instruments would ride back on the tailgate of his truck. So in beautiful, late afternoon 66-degree weather, instead of a long, tiring walk, I got a ride back to the projects (and my car) with members of one of my favorite New Orleans brass bands. The day could not have ended any better.

Lady Jetsetters: From Silky’s to Pop’s House of Blues @StoogesBB

After we left Silky’s, we had a brief unscheduled stop about a block away in front of a boarded-up building, the purpose of which I never figured out, but the Stooges Brass Band kept playing all the way through it, and soon we were on our way again, to the corner of 7th and Dryades, where I learned that the old Joe’s House of Blues has become Pop’s House of Blues, and is apparently under new ownership. An older man had set a lawn chair directly on the point of the club’s roof, and was sitting up there in the sun. When we arrived, he got out of his chair and began dancing right where he was up on the roof.

Lady Jetsetters: Footwork on the Roof

It probably doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but the more exuberant second-liners still end up on the roofs of buildings, as a good place to dance and perhaps to also be noticed by the crowd, as two young men did at the intersection where Silky’s bar was, one of the scheduled stops on the second-line. One of the men scaled a fence and ended up on the roof of a small garage behind a residence, where he wowed the crowd with his moves, before proudly yelling to us all that he represented the CTC (Cross The Canal) Lower 9th Ward. A girl near me said “That boy reppin’ by himself, way uptown here”, and her friend replied, “You gotta respect it.”

Lady Jetsetters: From S & S Club to Silky’s

From the S & S Club, our parade worked its way down sidestreets to a club called Silky’s, where the largest crowd of the afternoon so far was gathered, and also where some of the most exuberant dancing broke out.

Lady Jetsetters: From Tapps II to the S & S Club @StoogesBrassBand

Like most second-lines, the Lady Jetsetters’ parade picked up a lot more people as it made its way down Martin Luther King to a scheduled stop at the S & S Club, where another hundred or so people were gathered.

The Lady Jetsetters: From the Calliope to Tapps II @StoogesMusicGroup

After a brief stop in front of the headquarters of the Calliope Steppers, our second-line proceeded around to Dorgenois Street and from there to Washington Avenue, where we soon came to the first route stop of the day, at Tapps II Lounge on the corner of Rocheblave and Washington. There was already a fairly large crowd gathered there, and the usual assortment of food and drink vendors.

The Lady Jetsetters Coming Out the Door in the Calliope with the Stooges Brass Band @StoogesMusicGroup

The second-line on Sunday January 12 was sponsored by the Lady Jetsetters, and it began in Mid-City at the B. W. Cooper housing development, usually called the Calliope, which anyone familiar with New Orleans rap would have heard of. Since Hurricane Katrina, the former Calliope has been undergoing redevelopment as a mixed-income neighborhood, but some of the original buildings remain. Fortunately, there was ample free parking, and I found only a small crowd outside where the parade would begin. The weather was sunny and warm for January, and soon a much larger crowd began to gather, and the first musicians began to show up. members of the Stooges Brass Band, some of whom knew me. By the time the club members “came out the door”, there were a couple of hundred people or so, and we followed the partial Stooges band around the corner into the old Calliope projects. A couple of musicians caught up with the parade a block or so from the beginning, and we quickly came to the first stop of the day, at the headquarters of the Calliope Steppers just around the corner from where we had begun.

Dinerral Shavers Educational Fund Brass Band Blowout: Most Wanted Brass Band @Howlinwolfnola @DSEF_NOLA

Dinerral Shavers was a snare drummer for the popular Hot 8 Brass Band in New Orleans, and a well-loved teacher at a local high school when he was abruptly murdered in early 2007 by a teenager who had been feuding with his stepson. Out of the tragedy has come an organization set up in Shavers’ memory by his relatives, a foundation that supports the arts, music, culture and anti-violence initiatives in New Orleans, and so on Saturday, January 11, 2014, the Dinerral Shavers Educational Fund sponsored a “brass band blow-out” at the popular Howlin Wolf music venue in the Central Business District. The evening began just after 9:30 PM with a new band, the Most Wanted Brass Band, many of whose members have come from other area bands, such as the Stooges. As such, the band is new, but the members are seasoned veterans and it is a good and tight aggregation overall. What started as a sparse crowd soon filled up, and eventually, the dancers took over the area nearest the stage.

The Stooges Brass Band (@StoogesBB) at Spice Bar & Grill in the 7th Ward

The Stooges Brass Band is another of the new and talented young brass bands on the New Orleans scene, and one that I had become familiar with through their weekly Thursday night gig at the Hi-Ho Lounge, where I once witnessed an epic battle between them and the TBC Brass Band. Unfortunately, the Hi-Ho came under new management, and the Stooges gig was a thing of the past, but fortunately a new club called Spice Bar & Grill has opened on North Broad Street, featuring the Stooges Brass Band every Thursday night. The club is big and spacious, and has none of the hole-in-the-wall ambiance of the Hi-Ho, but it is a neighborhood bar, and draws the kind of audience that loves brass band music and buck jumping, and that’s what went on all evening long.