All new Preservation Hall, 'That's It'

By Keith Spera, Times-Picayune

On Tuesday, July 9, the members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band logged their second consecutive night on “The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon.” Arrayed alongside versatile hip-hop ensemble the Roots, the show’s house band, they gamely provided accompaniment to Fallon’s Paula Deen jokes, David Spade’s strip club stories, and Kris Jenner’s show biz come-ons.

This was not the same Preservation Hall Jazz Band that first assembled in 1961 in the primitive French Quarter venue overseen by Allan and Sandra Jaffe. Rather, this was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band 2013, the forward-thinking ensemble led by the Jaffes' son, Ben, its artistic director and tuba player. It’s the Preservation Hall Jazz Band that is on Twitter and a regular at the Millennial-skewing Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee.
And it is the Preservation Hall Jazz Band that, on Tuesday, released “That’s It!,” the first album of all-original material in the PHJB’s history.

Guiding the project as co-producers were Jaffe and Jim James, the shaggy, angelic-voiced singer of arena rock band My Morning Jacket. Indicative of the fresh creative paths down which Jaffe has steered the PHJB, My Morning Jacket in general, and James specifically, have forged an unlikely but mutually beneficial creative exchange program.

That James understands what Preservation Hall is about was especially evident during the 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, when he was among the special guests for the PHJB’s 50th anniversary celebration at the Fair Grounds. He poured himself into a slow, spooky version of "St. James Infirmary," a highlight of the show.


James joined the PHJB for a week of recording at Preservation Hall in the French Quarter last November. “That’s It!,” the result of those sessions, released via the Legacy imprint of Sony Music Entertainment, marks the PHJB’s return to a major label.

Jaffe, trumpeter Mark Braud, clarinetist Charlie Gabriel, saxophonist Clint Maedgen, trombonist Freddie Lonzo, pianist Rickie Monie, tuba player Ronell Johnson and drummer Joe Lastie Jr. introduce themselves boldly with the bawdy opening title cut, a Jaffe composition. Horns razz and flare as if it is Arabian Night at a Storyville bordello; Braud lights up a statement of a trumpet solo.

They’re on a more familiar, traditional footing with “Dear Lord (Give Me Strength),” another Jaffe song. The preening piano and horns function as the choir in a high-stepping, gospel-informed plea for redemption. The PHJB’s senior member, clarinetist Charlie Gabriel, co-wrote and sings, in his unselfconsciously deliberate cadence, “Come With Me,” a sweet-natured ode to the city, graced by his clarinet.

The ensemble sounds more like a contemporary brass band on the tuba-heavy instrumental “Sugar Plum,” another Jaffe/Gabriel co-write. A tenor sax glides over the undulating arrangement before Braud again asserts himself.

Percussion and lascivious horns spook “Rattlin’ Bones,” a nod to New Orleans after dark: “If you ever get down New Orleans way, you might steer clear on St. Joseph’s Day/The graveyard bones make a rattlin’ sound/the dead get up and start walking around.”
James contributes backing vocals to the mid-tempo “I Think I Love You,” shadowing Gabriel’s voice. Maedgen, whom Jaffe recruited from the New Orleans Bingo! Show, wrote the slow-burn “August Nights,” a seductive bit of New Orleans noir haunted by Braud’s muted trumpet and Maedgen’s tenor sax and male torch singer approach to the lyric.

The opening banjo signals that this instrumental “Yellow Moon” is not to be confused with the Neville Brothers classic of the same title – but it is similarly evocative, up until its playful conclusion. “The Darker It Gets” will appeal to fans of more traditional jazz. The haunted piano of Jaffe’s final coda, “Emmalena’s Lullaby,” offers further proof that this is a Preservation Hall Jazz Band no longer satisfied to deal in the old clichés.

To that point, “That’s It’!” is also notable for what it is not. There is no “Lil Liza Jane,” no “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” no “St. James Infirmary.” Such New Orleans standards are all classics, but they’ve been done to death. There is little reason for anyone -- least of all Preservation Hall -- to revisit them yet again.
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band cannot, and should not, escape or avoid its esteemed and considerable legacy. But a respect for, and connection to, the past should not preclude looking forward. Music, and a musical community, that does not occasionally infuse itself with fresh blood risks being relegated to a museum, or dying. On “That’s It!,” the Preservation Hall Jazz Band sounds more alive than ever.


Music writer Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@nola.com or 504.826.3470. Follow him on Twitter at KeithSpera.

Preservation Hall closed out Jazz Fest

 By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune 

On paper at least, Sunday's closing set on the New Orleans Jazz Fest's Gentilly Stage was a celebration of Preservation Hall's 50th Anniversary. But it was much more. Preservation Hall, founded in 1961, is only nine years older than Jazz Fest. And the hall's evolution parallels that of the festival itself.

EnlargeJohn McCusker, The Times-PicayuneJOHN MCCUSKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Jim James sings with the Preservation Hall band Sunday. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band marked the 50th anniversary of the venerable institution with a set at the Gentilly Stage during the last day of the second week of the New Orleans Jazz Fest, Sunday May 6, 2012.Preservation Hall at Gentilly Stage gallery (8 photos)

Both originated as humble, homegrown celebrations of indigenous New Orleans culture, but are now global brand names. Attrition has sapped both entities of early icons. New faces have stepped in, some more rooted in tradition than others. And both the hall and the festival have, in recent years, welcomed a bevy of celebrity guests in an attempt to connect with a wider audience.

On Sunday in the Gentilly Stage slot occupied for years by the now-defunct Radiators, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and its many guests embodied its own, and Jazz Fest's, intermarriage of old and new.

Appropriately enough, George Wein, the 86-year-old founder of Jazz Fest, introduced the band. As the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, he was already a jazz industry legend when civic leaders first invited him to New Orleans in the 1960s to launch a music festival here. Wein hired Quint Davis, then a Tulane University student and now Jazz Fest's producer/director, to help round up musicians for the inaugural Jazz Fest in 1970.

With the assistance of a cane, Wein mounted the Gentilly Stage on Sunday 45 minutes after the Foo Fighters, arguably the heaviest arena rock band ever booked at Jazz Fest, crashed to a close at the Acura Stage. He recalled how Allan and Sandra Jaffe, Preservation Hall's founders, helped introduce him to local music.

Their son, Ben Jaffe, is now Preservation Hall's creative director and sousaphonist. Under his stewardship, the band has embarked on many new adventures far afield of its namesake St. Peter Street club, from collaborating with Tom Waits, bluegrass bandleader Del McCoury and U2 guitarist The Edge, to remaking a Kinks song, to touring with arena rockers My Morning Jacket.

At the Gentilly Stage, Wein celebrated Ben Jaffe for carrying on the tradition, even as he innovates. Wein then sat at the piano and joined Jaffe and the black-and-white-clad members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for "Basin Street Blues," perhaps the quintessential New Orleans jazz standard.

EnlargeJohn McCusker, The Times-PicayuneJOHN MCCUSKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE The To Be Continued Brass Band performs at the Jazz and Heritage Stage during the last day of the second week of the New Orleans Jazz Fest, Sunday May 6, 2012. Here Edward Jackson plays as the sweat drenches his face.New Orleans Jazz Fest 2012, second Sunday gallery (91 photos)

After Wein exited, the band struck up "Bourbon Street Parade," another nod to tradition. Pres Hall saxophonist and singer Clint Maedgen, recruited from the carnival-of-the-bizarre New Orleans Bingo! Show, lit into "Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing." It's an old song, but one that Preservation Hall recently recorded with Waits.

Tribute having been paid to tradition, it was star time. Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, a son of Treme, is New Orleans' latest breakout star. Less than half as old as the Hall, he led the band through the New Orleans funk standard "It Ain't My Fault." Mark Braud, the Hall's baby-faced trumpeter, razzed it up with a high-octane solo.

Members of the Rebirth Brass Band, clutching their recently awarded Grammy, represented the contemporary brass band era with their signature "Do Whatcha Wanna," followed by "Let's Get It On."

Suffice to say, the late Sweet Emma Barrett, icon of Preservation Hall's early years, never sang "Let's Get It On."

Contemporary folk singer Ani DiFranco was a self-made star before she settled in New Orleans a few years ago and started a family. With a tattoo peaking up from the top of her T-shirt, she presided over a spry, sunny and sweet version of early blues singer Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train."

Trixie Minx & Fleur de Tease, representatives of the ongoing local burlesque revival, added a dash of color in flirty red dresses and parasols that fit together like puzzle pieces to recreate the Preservation Hall logo.

Allen Toussaint and Bonnie Raitt -- he the epitome of New Orleans cool, an orchestrator of the golden age of New Orleans rhythm & blues; she a blues-schooled guitarist and one of Jazz Fest's longest-tenured "guest" artists -- combined to sing Preservation Hall's praises.

The just-concluded Jazz Fest boasted more marquee names than ever, including Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, the Eagles, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Foo Fighters, Cee Lo Green, Bon Iver and My Morning Jacket. My Morning Jacket's unlikely collaboration with Preservation Hall is a case study in how New Orleans tradition can cross-pollinate with more commercially successful bands, to the mutual benefit of both.

My Morning Jacket vocalist Jim James' guest turn with Pres Hall on Sunday was the set's highlight. He poured himself into a slow, spooky, New Orleans noir version of "St. James Infirmary," affixing an "s" to each verb in an affectation of hipster dialect. As Charlie Gabriel's clarinet preened and the sousaphones stomped, James banged his shaggy head, lost in revelry.

Country-folk singer Steve Earle, who portrayed a New Orleans street singer on HBO's "Treme," stepped up on "Tain't Nobody's Business," a blues that dates to the vaudeville era. Earle's version, like DiFranco's "Freight Train," appeared on the 2010 compilation "Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall & the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program."

What followed underscored the continuity of New Orleans music in general, and Preservation Hall specifically. On one end of the stage was trumpeter Lionel Ferbos, at 100 the city's oldest active jazz musician, and trombonist Wendell Eugene, who once was a bandmate of Braud's grandfather. On the other end were the young students of the Preservation Hall Junior Jazz Band.

They all joined in an uproarious "When the Saints Go Marching In," which Braud updated with a "Who Dat" chant. The finale boasted everyone -- the Preservation Hall crew and their multitude of special guests -- on a rollicking, kitchen-sink take on the age-old gospel standard "I'll Fly Away."

It was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band looking back, even as it looked forward. Just like Jazz Fest.

Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3470. Follow him on Twitter at KeithSperaTP. 

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