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December 28, 2005
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
I got a lot of cool stuff for Christmas this year. But nothing as good as the music that everyone in my family knew I needed to have. Music that is at once uplifting and bittersweet.
Yeah, it's all New Orleans music. Duh.
The Benny Grunch 12 Yats of Christmas CD is mostly novelty tunes. Things that are hilarious to a native, but probably meaningless to anybody else.
"...A dozen Manuel's tamales,
Eleven Schwegmann bags,
Tenneco Refinery,
Lower Ninth Ward,
Ate by ya mama's,
Seventeenth Street Canal,
Dix pack o' Sixie,
Frrrriiiiieeeeeed Onion Riiiiiiiiings,
Before ya drive me nuts,
Three French Breads,
Tujague's recipe,
For the crawfish they caught in Arabi"
The whole Benny Grunch phenom happened long after I moved away, so it didn't have a huge pull on me like it did other people who had to hear "The 12 Yats of Christmas" on the radio every frickin' year, but any guy that can write a song lamenting the closing of the old Bridge Bowl in Algiers...that guy gets it, y'know?
But the other two items are heartbreaking in the way that they recall what was lost, they way they focus your grief for the New Orleans of old and fear of the New Orleans that may come.
Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens is the four-disc box set that was designed by Chuck Taggart of The Gumbo Pages. I hinted around last Christmas that I wanted it, but I didn't get it. This Christmas, the family just knew. It is superbly packaged, immaculately researched, and thorough in both breadth and depth, capturing every nook and cranny of New Orleans music old and new, from Sidney Bechet to Galactic, from piano professors to Cajuns to pub rockers to New Orleans-style klezmer. The music, the book, the pictures are a joyous, raucous, soulful feast for the senses.
And taking it all in now, after what has transpired...your heart breaks right in two. Just splits right down the middle.
So much of it is gone. So much of what remains is in tatters.
Which is where the third gift comes in. Our New Orleans is the jazz funeral to end all jazz funerals. A benefit CD recorded in the weeks after the storm, featuring probably the greatest collection of living Louisiana artists ever assembled. Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Buckwheat Zydeco, the Wild Magnolias...
There is a small thread of hope here, but honestly, there is mostly grief, and pain, and loss. It's still too early to party.
Allen Toussaint plays "Tipitina" in a minor key and the angels weep. Davell Crawford does what all of us have been thinking, taking a gospel song about the river and the water and making it a song of sorrow rather than baptism and renewal. The Dirty Dozen's "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" is no longer about dancing, it's about fleeing your home.
Everything about this CD is perfect. I've cried twice listening to it. I'm feeling a little teary right now just talking about it. Even the title. Our New Orleans. Not the media's New Orleans, or the tourists' New Orleans, or the politicians' New Orleans. Our New Orleans. The one we loved, and lost, and will rebuild.
Posted by ray at December 28, 2005 11:44 PM | Permalink
Categories: [family | katrina | music | new orleans ]
Comments
What wonderful gifts. Music is so incredibly powerful.
Posted by: Cruel-Irony at December 29, 2005 3:38 PM
Ray, I got "Our New Orleans" for Christmas, too. Wrote a little about it on kd5qel blog. Santa also brought a new fountain pen and an iPod shuffle. Waaay cooool. Are you going for Carnival, or for the BFHS alumni party on (I think) Jan. 17?
Robin
Posted by: nolapoet at December 29, 2005 11:08 PM
Ray, thanks for the add on your sidebar!
And congrats on the music collection. The 12 Yats is pure genius. I blogged on Benny Grunch, too. I hope he sells a million cds this year!
And for those who would like to do something to help New Orleans, but just don't know how and don't have thousands of dollars to donate, just buy some New Orleans music like Benny Grunch. Just a few dollars in a musician's pocket could do a world of good.
Posted by: Tim at December 30, 2005 1:07 PM
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