Ponderosa Stomp Curator Ira Padnos Joins Terence Blanchard for Summer Scoops Live w/ the Wall Street Journal, a Panel to Discuss New Orleans Arts and Culture Post-Katrina

Music with a Mission:

Ponderosa Stomp Foundation Teams Up with New York’s Lincoln Center to Present Three Nights with Masters of Soul, R&B and Rockabilly July 16, 17 and 19, 2009

“A party on its way to becoming an institution.” – Jon Pareles, the New York Times

The Ponderosa Stomp Concert, a New Orleans musical tradition, highlights the world’s most authentic musicians of rockabilly, R&B, jazz, blues, garage, soul, funk, and swamp pop. The annual show has become a must-see event, functioning as a showcase for living musical history.

The Ponderosa Stomp exists to acknowledge, pay tribute to, and teach the cultural significance of the unsung heroes and heroines of rock-n-roll, rhythm & blues and other forms of American roots music.

The Stomp began when a group of like-minded friends began presenting shows at a small club; it has evolved into a multi-faceted musical, cultural and educational juggernaut. Events in New Orleans every spring include two jam-packed nights of music, a conference and symposium, film festival, record hop and now, a museum exhibit.

Unsung Heroes: The Secret History of Louisiana Rock & Roll is currently on display at the Louisiana State Museum in the historic Cabildo in the heart of the French Quarter, running through May 2010. For 47 years Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has been a national leader in programming for the arts. The collaboration between the Ponderosa Stomp and Lincoln Center is a perfect pairing of two organizations with a mission: to expose and celebrate incredible music and help preserve traditions with transcendent cultural value.

In addition to the stellar musical series the Ponderosa Stomp Concert is presenting with Lincoln Center (more information below), Stomp curator Dr. Ira “Ike” Padnos will join soul singer Tammy Lynn and trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard to discuss the fight to preserve art and culture in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Part of the Summer Scoops Live w/ the Wall Street Journal, the panel titled Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans is moderated by jazz writer Larry Blumenfeld. The Terence Blanchard Quintet will perform to conclude the evening.

The organization behind the Ponderosa Stomp Concert, the music conference, film festival and museum exhibit as well as ongoing educational and cultural initiatives is The Ponderosa Stomp Foundation. It is dedicated to celebrating the legacy, revitalizing the careers and preserving the history of the architects of American music. By providing them a voice and a stage, many Stomp performers enjoy increased visibility as well as new recording and performing opportunities.

The first two nights of The Ponderosa Stomp at Lincoln Center, July 16th and 17, 2009 are part of Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Nights Swing, taking place at Damrosch Park. Each night kicks off with a dance lesson at 6:30 and the music starts at 7:30.

Thursday night features The Get Down, a night of soul music excellence featuring William Bell, Harvey Scales, The Bobbettes and the incomparable Bo-Keys.

Friday night brings rockabilly to the forefront with the Best Dance in Town, in which New Orleans wild man Joe Clay, Sun Record’s Carl Mann and the legendary brother/sister duo The Collins Kids throw down, backed by Deke Dickerson and his Eccofonics.

Sunday, July 19th, a tribute performance takes place at Alice Tully Hall in the Starr Theatre, in which a high-octane array of Stomp artists will pay musical tribute to the “Creole Beethoven”, Wardell Quezergue. Quezergue, nicknamed by Allan Toussaint, has made musical history countless times as the man behind timeless hits like “Mr. Big Stuff”, “Iko Iko” and “Chapel of Love”. A genius musician, arranger and producer who is largely unknown outside of New Orleans, Quezergue helped shape the soulful sounds of the south into international hit records.

The show features R&B icons The Dixie Cups and Robert Parker; soul greats Jean Knight, Dorothy Moore, Tammy Lynn, and Tony Owens; legendary New Orleans drummer Zigaboo Modeliste; New Orleans musician, producer, and session man Mac Rebennack (Dr. John); garage-music pioneer Michael Hurtt; plus Wardell Quezergue’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, an all-star ten-piece band led by Quezergue himself in a rare New York appearance.

2009 Schedule

(Dates and information subject to change.)

July 16th (Midsummer Night’s Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: The Get Down
* William Bell – a principal architect of the Stax/Volt sound.
* The Bobbettes – girl group known as the ‘Harlem Queens’ known for their hit, “Mr Lee”

* Bo-Keys – authentic, greasy Memphis soul stew w/ Stax Records stars
* Harvey Scales – a hard-hitting soul man, writer of “Disco Lady” and “Love-i-tus”

July 17th (Midsummer Night’s Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: Best Dance In Town
* Joe Clay – New Orleans’ proto-rockabilly genius, appeared with Elvis
* The Collins Kids – 50’s TV faves, this brother/sister duo features double neck guitar pyrotechnics

* Deke Dickerson & The Eccofonics – the nitro-charged country and rockabilly specialists

* Carl Mann – Sun Records artist had his first hit with Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”

July 19th (Lincoln Center Festival): A Tribute to “The Creole Beethoven,”
Wardell Quezergue, celebrated New Orleans arranger and mastermind behind
countless rhythm and blues classics. On the bill:
* The Dixie Cups – hit makers who recorded classics, “Chapel of Love” and “Iko Iko.”

* Jean Knight – New Orleans-based singer of “Mr. Big Stuff.”

* Tammy Lynn – soul singer and legendary background singer for the Rolling Stones, Dr. John, and countless others.

* Zigaboo Modeliste – New Orleans master drummer and member of funk originators the Meters.

* Dorothy Moore – Malaco Records’ soul/blues balladeer.

* Tony Owens – Lost soul king of New Orleans.

* Robert Parker – recorded his hit record, “Barefootin’” with Querzegue
* Mac Rebennack – New Orleans musician/producer/arranger/ songwriter better known as Dr. John.

For more information on The Ponderosa Stomp Concert go to:

Ponderosa Stomp Official Website

The Ponderosa Stomp Foundation

Tickets information

Tickets to Summer Scoops Live with the Wall Street Journal

For Mardi Gras this year (February 5th, 2008), OK Go released ‘You’re Not Alone’, a five-song digital EP featuring New Orleans brass band Bonerama (as in TROMbone, of which there are four in the band). All proceeds from this project, available exclusively at iTunes, will benefit members of New Orleans’ music community. People like R&B legend Al “Carnival Time” Johnson, who are continuing to struggle to rebuild their homes and lives almost three years after the levy failures that followed Hurricane Katrina, the costliest hurricane in US history and one of the deadliest.

The project was born when OK Go singer Damian Kulash teamed up with Bonerama to play a New Orleans benefit concert last year. Completely blown away by Bonerama’s fiercely indelicate sound, Kulash knew it would mesh perfectly with his band’s bombastic rock. They reconvened, and spent Katrina’s second anniversary at Piety Street Studios, deep in New Orlean’s Upper 9th Ward, recording what would become ‘You’re Not Alone’. Together, they re-interpret three tracks from OK Go’s most recent album, Oh No: “A Million Ways,” “It’s A Disaster” and “Oh Lately It’s So Quiet.” A pair of covers – David Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” and Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” – round out the collection.

OK Go and Bonerama continue to play together live, and their benefit concerts in New Orleans and Washington, D.C. have brought out people like Brendan Canty (Fugazi), Russ Feingold (the coolest guy in the senate), and President Bill Clinton’s Press Secretary Joe Lockhart, who personally raised $18K for New Orleans relief from friends he brought to one show.

Proceeds from ‘You’re Not Alone’ will go to Sweet Home New Orleans, an organization dedicated to helping repatriate and support the thousands of local musicians who were scattered by Katrina, as well as building a new Habitat For Humanity home for Al “Carnival Time” Johnson. Johnson wrote “Carnival Time,” the unofficial anthem of Mardi Gras, and his haunting vocals can be heard on ‘You’re Not Alone’s’ “I Shall Be Released.” His Lower 9th Ward home was washed off its foundation by the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and later demolished by the city without his knowledge or consent. He has been living in Houston, TX for the past two years.

“New Orleans is one of the last places in America where music is truly a fundamental part of everyday life,” said Kulash. “People get together on the weekends and parade through the streets just playing songs; 12-year-old-kids learn funk on the tuba; everyone dances. Life elsewhere in the world simply isn’t as celebratory. If we allow the culture of New Orleans to die by leaving its musicians marooned around the country, America will have lost one of its great treasures.”

Bonerama with Damian Kulash are set to appear on David Letterman February 11.

Buy – ‘You’re Not Alone’ on iTunes

Bonerama Official Website
OK Go Official Website

“New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate. The blurred lines from the dark blue of Mardi Gras night to the periwinkle of Ash Wednesday morning” is the way Connick summarizes the gritty and grandiose, soulful and magical Crescent City, where the musical culture is second to none.

“Jazz, gospel, brass band, rhythm and blues, country, funk aren’t all the styles played in New Orleans,” he emphasises. “But they’re the ones I wanted to play around with.”

And “play around with” them he does, to brilliant effect, on ‘My New Orleans’, which SonyBMG is set to release in September/October 2007.

Several of the titles will bring New Orleans instantly to mind, although Harry Connick, Jr. and his associates have inevitably found ways to provide a new perspective on these old favorites. “I put a New Orleans groove on ‘Jambalaya’, instead of a traditional Cajun or Zydeco feeling,” he says of the old Hank Williams hit, “then we move into an entirely new tempo for an entirely new groove – big-band swing.”

“Careless Love,” an even older warhorse, was arranged and performed spontaneously, at the end of the album’s final session, with a trio of Harry Connick, Jr. on vocals and piano, Jonathan Dubose on acoustic guitar and Arthur Latin playing only bass drum and tambourine; while “Working in a Coal Mine” gained new life through Latin’s imaginative overdubbing.

“Arthur worked his magic with all of his percussion toys,” Connick reports, “and each part he played told a different story of each different worker in that mine.” For “Somethin’ You Got,” Connick allowed several of the horn players in his band to take a breather and came up with what he calls “a traditional, old-school arrangement for four horns and a rhythm section.”

One of Connick’s original and most powerful compositions is “All These People,” inspired by the suffering Connick witnessed when he visited New Orleans in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina. “The song is all about the people who were left stranded at the Convention Center, with the verses describing what I saw as I was taken through by a kind fellow I had met on the street earlier that day named Darryl.” The track features Connick in duet with the great gospel singer Kim Burrell. “I wanted somehow to represent the voices of the brave people who were abandoned there, and Kim was the perfect choice. She asked me to write an added verse, because she wanted to represent the two dead bodies that Darryl showed me when I first arrived at the Convention Center; and her improvised line ‘Come see about me’ at the end is my favorite part of the performance, because that’s all those folks wanted, someone to come and see about them.”

A portion of Connick’s royalties from the sale of ‘My New Orleans’ will benefit the New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village. This project, conceived by Harry Connick, Jr. and his longtime friend and colleague Branford Marsalis, will consist of single-family homes and elder-friendly duplexes as well as the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, named for the modern jazz pioneer and patriarch of the Marsalis clan who counts Harry Connick, Jr. among his legion of successful music students. Connick and Branford Marsalis serve as honorary chairs of Habitat for Humanity’s hurricane relief effort, Operation Home Delivery, which began dedicating completed houses and delivery keys to needy families shortly before ‘My New Orleans’ was recorded.

For all of the work that remains to be done, there is a basic spirit of optimism and celebration that permeates ‘My New Orleans’ and that is best captured in Connick’s version of “Yes We Can.” “Allen Toussaint was prophetic on this one,” he says of the song’s legendary composer. “‘Yes We Can’ perfectly fits the bill of a post-Katrina New Orleans. This should be the theme song of our great city.”

It also summarizes the manner in which Harry Connick, Jr. views life – with positive spirit, a focus on solutions rather than casting blame, and a humanity that knows no boundaries. It is this same spirit that makes ‘My New Orleans’ such an honest and affirmative experience.

A portion of the proceeds from the sales of both ‘My New Orleans’ and its companion disc ‘Chanson du Vieux Carre’, an instrumental album by Harry Connick, Jr. and his Big Band released by Marsalis Music in July and will benefit Musicians’ Village.

To learn more about this wonderful community that is being built by thousands of volunteers from all over the world, please visit New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village Official Website – www.NOLAmusiciansvillage.org

Harry Connick, Jr. last played a full, headline European tour in 2000 – seven years ago – and a complete schedule of new live dates will be announced shortly.

The following UK dates are confirmed and on sale:

November 3, 2007: Royal Albert Hall, London
November 16, 2007: Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow
November 17, 2007: Birmingham Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Harry Connick Jr. – My New Orleans on amazon.com

Harry Connick, Jr. Official Website

Related – New Orleans Jazz Fest 2007 lineup announced

With ten stages that will include the soulful sounds of New Orleans and a Food Fair with over 100 varieties of authentic Louisiana cuisine, just the thought of being there makes my mouth water and my heart skip a beat. I’ve played at and have attended many festivals, but have never had the opportunity to go to the New Orleans Jazz Fest. Something tells me this is the Big Daddy of all festivals.

After all that has happened in New Orleans with the hurricanes and despair, there brings a new meaning to the music and the people that will be drawn to the festival. The bands and musicians that will be playing there should be proud to be involved with Jazz Fest – which is now in it’s 38th year. They’re helping to bring back community and happiness to a city that never lost it’s soul.

Watch this incredible and surreal video of Harry Connick, Jr., Branford Marsalis and musicians playing in New Orleans

Harry Connick Jr., Rod Stewart, Steely Dan, Norah Jones, ZZ Top, John Legend, Van Morrison, Brad Paisley, Jill Scott, Ludacris, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, New Edition, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Irma Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Counting Crows, Allman Brothers Band, Allen Toussaint, George Benson, Pharoah Sanders, George Thorogood, Stephen Marley featuring Jr. Gong, Better Than Ezra, Joss Stone, Banda el Recodo, Calexico, Taj Mahal, Johnny Rivers, Lucinda Williams, Branford Marsalis, Richie Havens, Soulive, Cowboy Mouth, Percy Sledge, Tony Joe White, Gillian Welch, Bobby Jones & the Nashville Super Choir, T-Bone Burnett, Rebirth Brass Band, Galactic, Mose Allison, Marcia Ball, Roy Hargrove, Chuck Leavell, Arturo Sandoval, The Holmes Brothers, Snooks Eaglin, Dr. Lonnie Smith, The New Orleans Social Club, James Carter, The Radiators, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Lucky Peterson, Darrell McFadden, Sonny Landreth, Danilo Perez, Ivan Neville, Dottie Peoples, Davell Crawford, Ba Cissoko of Guinea, George Porter, Jr., Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste, Tab Benoit, Les Amazones of Guinea, World Saxophone Group, John Mooney & Bluesiana, Buckwheat Zydeco, Anders Osborne, Elder Baab & the Madison Bumble Bees of Winnsboro, Eddie Bo, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Rosie Ledet, Amanda Shaw, The Iguanas, Marva Wright, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, Deacon John, Donald Harrison, Nicholas Payton, Terence Blanchard, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews & Orleans Avenue, Bob French, Elysian Fieldz, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers, Ellis Marsalis and over 500 more groups.

For tickets, news, schedules and more information go to The Official New Orleans Jazz Fest Website

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation is a nonprofit organization with proceeds supporting the foundation’s various community development activities.

By: Jenny May

“The Saints Are Coming” is a song new to my ears but Dave, being the punk that he is, made it very clear from the start that the Green Day and U2 collaboration is a cover by scottish punk band The Skids, which was originally released in 1978. The video for the song is now playing constantly here in the UK and I can see why some might find it a bit controversial. Politics aside, there are also rumblings around the internet about the cover itself and whether or not U2 and Green Day do the song justice.

I like both versions and I think it’s great not only that they’re helping out the musicians in New Orleans, but U2 and Green Day are also putting the spotlight back onto The Skids as well as punk music itself – which mainstream radio and the industry tends to ignore.

U2’s Official Website
Green Day’s Official Website

By: Jenny May