Jazz Fest lineup announced

2012 headliners include The Eagles, Tom Petty and Foo Fighters

 Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune 

The Eagles will land at the New Orleans Jazz Fest in 2012. So will Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Foo Fighters, Jill Scott, My Morning Jacket, the Zac Brown Band, John Mayer, Ne-Yo, Florence + the Machine, Bon Iver, Herbie Hancock, Al Green, Yolanda Adams, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly and hundreds of Louisiana-based acts.

Check into 'Hotel California' when the Eagles touch down at the 2012 New Orleans Jazz Fest.

All are bound for the Fair Grounds for the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, April 27-29 and May 3-6, 2012.

"It's piled-up high, in every direction -- depth, width, height," Jazz Fest producer/director Quint Davis said. "It's the most stuff we've had, combined with the earliest we've gotten it out. The festival is growing artistically. It's growing talent-wise. It's bursting at the seams."

Click here to view the complete list of performers by weekend.

Two more major artists are confirmed, but cannot be announced before those artists reveal their own touring plans in the coming weeks.

More marquee acts translates to higher costs; Jazz Fest's talent budget runs into the millions of dollars, an expenditure that must be approved by the nonprofit New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, which owns the festival.

EnlargeMatthew Hinton, The Times-PicayuneMATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE The Neville Brothers perform on the Acura Stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival or Jazz Fest 2011 Sunday, May 8, 2011 in New Orleans at the Fair Grounds.A look back at Jazz Fest 2011 gallery (30 photos)

The challenge facing the fest's co-producers -- Davis' Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans and international entertainment conglomerate AEG Live -- was, "How do we generate more ticket income without raising the price?"

The solution was a "discretionary increase." Advance tickets bought before March 1 are the same price as the past two years: $40 a day when purchased as part of a limited number of weekend ticket blocks, or $45 for an individual ticket. Children's tickets remain $5.

This year, after March 1, advance single tickets will be $50. Tickets purchased at the gate will be $65, a $5 increase from last year.

"If you want to pay $5 more, you can," Davis said. "If you don't, you don't have to."

Many veteran Jazz Fest fans have wondered who would close out the Gentilly Stage in place of the now-disbanded Radiators. In 2012, it will be a one-off celebration of Preservation Hall's 50th anniversary with a parade of special guests.

"It wasn't just about the last set. It was about the whole day there," Davis said. "It was important to be deep New Orleans, and also not to initially tie (the closing slot) to one thing or one group. How can you get more heart and soul, hardcore New Orleans than Pres Hall?"

Florence Welch fronts Florence + the Machine at the 2012 New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Less hardcore New Orleans, but long sought for Jazz Fest, were Petty and the Eagles.

"We never were able to get one of them," Davis said. "To get both in the same year is a watershed. It was not easy. There were a lot of moving parts. The bottom line, beyond the money, beyond the availability and all the variables that go into booking somebody, is they wanted to do it."

The Eagles nearly committed to the 2011 festival, but ultimately passed. Bon Jovi filled that slot instead.

This time around, Eagles manager Irving Azoff greased the wheels. "If he had not gotten involved and moved this along," Davis said, "it wouldn't have happened."

So far, the Eagles have announced no other performances for 2012.

After the Eagles and Petty were confirmed, the festival received a call from the Foo Fighters camp. Ten years ago, Davis likely would not have considered a raucous arena rock band of such recent vintage. Pearl Jam's well-received set at the 2010 Jazz Fest paved the way.

"Pearl Jam opened that window," Davis said. "That was the first time we got on that ledge.

"We look at icons, people that are, besides talented and brilliant, important in a whole genre. We've always looked at it in the Santana sense, or the Al Green sense, or the Allen Toussaint sense. We saw that in (Pearl Jam's) Eddie Vedder. And you have to see that in (Foo Fighters frontman) Dave Grohl. He is a seminal figure in a few decades of American rock."

Indicative of the festival's drive to feature fresh talent, the roster includes Feist, Gomez, Iron and Wine, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Janelle Monae, fast-rising Texas blues guitarist Gary Clark Jr. and jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding, the surprise winner of the 2011 Grammy for best new artist.

Local heavyweights include Dr. John, the Funky Meters, Pete Fountain, Irma Thomas, the Neville Brothers and Allen Toussaint. Long-running local hard rock trio Zebra will make its Jazz Fest debut.

"All I can say is, 'Finally!'" Davis said of Zebra. "It's embarrassing that it took us this long."

Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, the breakout local star of the past year, is featured for the Jazz & Heritage Foundation Gala on April 26 at the Hilton. The gala, which benefits the foundation's Don Jamison Heritage School of Music, also features Big Sam's Funky Nation, James Andrews and Glen David Andrews.

The Foo Fighters, led by Dave Grohl, second from left, are headed to the 2012 New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Expect more high-profile acts on the Fais Do-Do Stage this year. Steve Earle, Iron and Wine, Asleep at the Wheel, the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Ani Difranco are likely candidates.

"The Fais Do-Do has grown itself up," Davis said. "It's another evolution of a whole stage."

Also at the Fair Grounds, Levon Helm is slated to perform with special guest vocalist Mavis Staples. Saxophonist David Sanborn is paired with organist Joey DeFrancesco. Latin music star Paulina Rubio is slotted for May 5, aka Cinco de Mayo.

A tribute to the late Wardell Quezergue includes the Dixie Cups and Jean Knight, for whom he arranged classic singles.

Alex Chilton, the former Box Tops and Big Star frontman who lived quietly in the Treme neighborhood until his sudden death in 2010, is the subject of a tribute featuring Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner, Susan Cowsill, Alex McMurray and Iguanas bassist Rene Coman, a long-time Chilton sideman.

The "cubes" with the stage-by-stage, hour-by-hour schedule, won't be released until spring. As Davis tinkers with the giant puzzle, he hopes to alleviate the sort of scheduling conflicts that inevitably vex fest-goers.

"We can't keep having so many people that last hour," he said. "You'll see us break that up this year. We're going to play around with that and let more people see more people."

For the past few months, Davis and his team built the Jazz Fest schedule in secret, with no feedback from fans. He admits to a bit of trepidation just before their handiwork is revealed to the world.

But he's also confident fans will embrace the packed 2012 roster.

"This is not my first rodeo," he said. "I think they will like it."

Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3470. Read more music news at nola.com/music. Follow him at twitter.com/KeithSperaTP. Comment and read more at nola.com/jazzfest

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

New Orleans musicians reap Grammy nominations

Rebirth Brass Band, Lil Wayne, Harry Connick Jr. among Grammy nominees 

 By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune 

Rebirth Brass Band founder Phil Frazier once said he’d rather win a Grammy than be rich. He's still not rich, but took a significant step toward realizing his preferred goal Wednesday night when Rebirth’s current “Rebirth of New Orleans” CD was nominated for a Grammy.

Matthew Hinton / The Times-PicayuneThe Rebirth Brass Band performs on the Congo Square Stage at the 2011 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The band received its first Grammy nomination on Wednesday, Nov. 30.

The complete list of nominees for the 54th annual Grammy Awards were unveiled Wednesday night following the Grammy nominations telecast, a sort of pre-awards awards show, on CBS.

"Rebirth of New Orleans" was the long-running brass band's first release for the locally based Basin Street Records; it was produced by Tracey Freeman, best known for his work with Harry Connick Jr. and Kermit Ruffins. The Rebirth album will compete with two other Louisiana albums in the newly created best regional roots music album category. Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboy’s “Grand Isle” and C.J. Chenier’s “Can’t Sit Down” are nominated in the same category, along with perennial polka favorite Jimmy Sturr and Hawaiian music act George Kahumoku Jr.

"Regional roots music" is a catch-all category created after several individual “roots music” categories, including Cajun/zydeco and Hawaiian music, were eliminated in this year's reduction of the total number of categories from 109 to 78.

Regardless of the category, Phil Frazier is ecstatic about the first Grammy nomination in the Rebirth Brass Band's 28 year history. Basin Street Records founder Mark Samuels called Frazier with news of the nomination Wednesday night. Since then, Frazier says, his phone has been "going haywire" with congratulatory calls. "I feel like I accomplished one of my goals. I feel like I just won a million dollars."

He said he and the band will likely travel to Los Angeles for the actual Grammy Awards show on Feb. 12. If they win, "that would be the nail in the coffin." 

Several other nominees boast Louisiana ties.

New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne is up for five awards, including best rap album for “Tha Carter IV.”

MORE GRAMMYS COVERAGE

• The list of nominees in top categories
• The list of nominees in all 78 categories
• Associated Press recaps the nominations: Kanye West gets 7, Adele 6, Taylor Swift 3.

Local kids' music duo Gwynn Torres and Sid Berger, who perform as The Banana Plant, are nominated for best children's music album for their "GulfAlive" CD.

Gospel duo Trin-i-tee 5:7’s “Angel & Chanelle Deluxe Edition” is nominated for best gospel album.

Grammy veteran Harry Connick Jr. earned a nod for best traditional pop vocal album for his “In Concert on Broadway.”

Singer Ledisi Young, who was born in New Orleans but moved to Oakland, Calif., as a girl, received three nominations related to her well-received “Pieces of Me” CD, including best R&B album, song and performance.

AP Photo/Charles SykesHarry Connick Jr. is up for best traditional pop vocal album for his 'In Concert on Broadway.'

Lucinda Williams, who spent some of formative years in New Orleans and south Louisiana, is up for best Americana album for “Blessed.”

The culminating performance of Wednesday night’s nomination telecast on CBS – a clever bit of hype-building that essentially milks two prime-time TV specials out of one awards show – featured Lady Gaga and Sugarland performing Gaga’s “You and I.”

The cameras focused almost exclusively on Gaga and Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles. The band’s New Orleanian rhythm section, drummer Travis McNabb and bassist Annie Clements, was glimpsed only briefly.

No doubt Phil Frazier and the rest of Rebirth hope they earn more air-time than McNabb and Clements when the Grammy winners are presented Feb. 12 in Los Angeles.

In other Grammy news, mercurial rapper Kanye West racked up seven nominations while country-pop sweetheart Taylor Swift was largely shut out of the major categories.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Coco celebrated with second line parade

 By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune 

At least three events in the coming days will memorialize Curtis Arceneaux, aka Coco Robicheaux, the popular local hoodoo blues guitarist, singer and vocalist. Robicheaux died of a suspected heart attack after collapsing at the Apple Barrel Bar on Nov. 25. He was 64.

Zee AmerTributes to the late Coco Robicheaux include a memorial service, two second-lines, and a concert.

Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend the memorial service at DW Rhodes Chapel, 3933 Washington on Saturday, December 3 at 3:30 pm. Visitation will begin at 3:00 pm. Interment is private.

Also on Dec. 3, friends have organized another event at Marie’s Bar (2843 Burgundy), starting at 5 p.m. A second-line will depart from Marie’s, bound for the Apple Barrel on Frenchmen Street, one of Robicheaux’s favorite haunts.

His family and musicians with whom he played have orchestrated a more involved event nine days later, on Dec. 12. A procession starts on Frenchmen Street at 3:30 p.m. and ends at the House of Blues, 225 Decatur St. Starting at 6 p.m., a host of musicians will perform at the HOB in honor of Robicheaux.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Shades shows spirit

Ten years ago, Shades of Praise gave its first performance — on the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. Its mission to create gospel music through an interracial choir immediately expanded to embrace world peace.

“Nobody really, seriously set out to create a symbol,” said Michael Cowan, executive director of Common Good who co-founded the choir with jazz vocalist Philip Manuel. “To our surprise, Shades of Praise started to become a symbol of how New Orleans could be,” Cowan says.

In the decade that followed, Shades of Praise has been a voice of hope to New Orleanians who lost homes after Hurricane Katrina and has sung songs of thanks to volunteers who came to rebuild.

The choir is now preparing for its Nov. 20 fall concert, “Higher in the Lord,” at Loyola University. Director Al Bemiss will unveil a new repertoire of contemporary gospel music. Looking back over the years, Bemiss says the unique gospel choir has exceeded his expectations.

“There’s so much talent. There’s so much energy,” he says.

A versatile, professional musician, Bemiss played keyboards for R&B headliner Clarence “Frogman” Henry for 28 years, but grew up hearing gospel music as a “preacher’s kid” at the Fifth African Baptist Church. His mother and uncle never took formal piano lessons, but could always get congregants to jam and clap their hands.

“Gospel is the music that I love,” Bemiss says.

            “Al is probably the best teacher I’ve ever known. He just keeps stretching us deeper and wider,” said Charlotte Travieso, Tulane’s executive director of alumni affairs and a bass.

Bemiss conducts rehearsals like an athletic coach leads a workout. Standing behind an upright piano, wearing a baseball cap, he gets the group’s attention by playing a few introductory chords. “Okay, let’s get to work.”

            “He's no nonsense about rehearsal because he cares so deeply about what we do,” said Marly Sweeney, a clinical social worker who sings alto.

“Watch how we’re gonna run this play,” he says, going through a few bars on the piano. “Got the game plan? We’ll move on then.”

Singers learn their parts by rote, without the benefit of sheet music.

“You gotta work those endings. Sopranos, give me an ooh-ooh,” he says.             Teaching each section one line at a time, he lays one melody on top of the next ‘till, almost magically, there’s four-part harmony.

“Altos, you sound funky!” he compliments the animated group, swaying as they sing.

Music is interspersed with laughter. If the singers miss a cue, Bemiss good-naturedly runs through it again. “Thank God for rehearsal,” he says.

“He’s like a Zen master,” said Sylvana Joseph, an attorney and writer who joined the choir in 2003 upon the insistence of a friend.

“Is it like any other gospel you’ve ever heard? No,” she says emphatically. “It’s not about a perfect choir; it’s a perfect choir in spirit.” Half the members never sang with a group before. “Everybody just loves being there,” Joseph says.

Bemiss begins searching for music months ahead of the performance, looking for lesser-known gospel songs and putting his own spin on them.

The fall concert’s opener, “Sweet Aroma,” has a Caribbean, funky feeling, Bemiss says.

Musicians will join the singers in the fall performance – bass guitar, drums, saxophone and trombone – everyone rehearsing together in the weeks ahead.

“We are a special group. We have people from all denominations and professions,” said Joshua Walker, a soloist who also performs with the New Orleans Opera Chorus.

“The music has a spiritual effect,” Walker says. He remembers the choir’s tour of Ireland. Members shared with one audience how singing with the group had changed their personal perspectives on race.

“Catholics and Protestants were holding hands across the aisles of the church,” Walker recalls.

“Gospel is spreading the good news — that’s the meaning of gospel,” said Walker whose parents both sang gospel in Georgia churches.

Members say they enjoy rehearsals even more than performances.

             “Once I get to choir and the hugs and the chattering starts, I begin to feel uplifted. By the end of the night, I feel my soul has been soothed and I have gotten the sustenance and therapy I need to make me able to continue to do daily what I do,” Sweeney said.

PT returns for Satchmo Summerfest

PT and the real Davis Rogan ala Treme

By PT at large 

The premier American jazz festival dedicated to the life, music and legacy of New Orleans' native son, Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong August 4-7, 2011 at the old US Mint, now part of the Louisiana State Museum, in the French Quarter.

I’m heading for the 11^th Annual Satchmo Summerfest in New Orleans. It was there last year that my self-image as a knowledgeable listener got banged on like a little drum, a tamburello, ironically enough, if you translate the words into Italian.

The Saturday program at The Palm Court Jazz Café last year on Decatur Street read:
12:30pm – 1:30pm - Louis Armstrong’s Musical Gumbo: Trumpeter Clive Wilson, drummer Herman Lebeaux, and pianist Butch Thompson (long associated with Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion,”) explore the New Orleans ingredients – the elements and styles - that contributed to Louis Armstrong’s revolutionary trumpet playing.

There was Clive Wilson, esteemed trumpeter and jazz historian, saying that when musicians like Buddy Bolden began changing the musical landscape in the 1920s, Louis Armstrong was paying attention. “The popular music at the time was in 2/4 time,” Wilson said, then played a song in which the beat was one-two-three-four,  one-two-three-four. OK, I got that.

Next came my musical Waterloo. “Musicians like Bolden began to accent the melody in different places and converted it to 1 / 2 time,” Wilson said, and played “Hail To The King ” as an example.

Butch Thompson, piano, Herman Lebeaux on drums, as Clive Wilson plays into a coconut shell to demonstrate how trumpeters "talk." In the old days, they'd use a bucket that may have doubled as a spittoon.

“Clap on the downbeat, not the upbeat. Anyone clapping on the one will be shot!” he said with an impish grin.

I was cool with that. Until I nearly got shot. I’d always thought I was the hippest guy in the room when I clapped or snapped my fingers knowledgeably or nodded my head sagely when everyone else did the same on the next beat. To say that I was embarrassed would be an uderstatement.

The audience was full of the people I’d scoffed at for being so uncool as to not hear when to hit the correct beat. I sat on my hands. Left to my own devices, I’d have exposed myself as a fraud. To this day, I still catch myself doing what the trumpet playing HBO Treme character Delmonde Lambreaux says dismissively of audiences in Portland, Oregon. “I’ve been there. They clap on the ones!”

In addition to this watershed moment, the rest of the afternoon's information about jazz in the Armstrong era was less deflating to my self-image.

Butch Thompson explains how musicians play ahead or behind the beat.

“Guys like Armstrong are historians who happen to be musicians. You’ll hear influences from gospel to Buddy Bolden to King Oliver in Armstrong’s music. Some of the phrases that Satchmo invented survive to this day – the end of “Tin Roof Blues” and “Savoy Blues” are two examples.” Then the trio played the phrases.

King Oliver and Clark Terry could “talk” on their trumpets by playing into buckets. Wilson, with Butch Thompson at piano and Herman Lebeaux on drums, played into a coconut shell to demonstrate. I got completely lost when Wilson, who came to New Orleans in 1960, showed a video of “Careless Love” and talked about stuff like strings improvising with diminished tones. Improvising I get. Diminished tones? Maybe I’ll learn more this year.

“Some musicians play ahead of the beat and some play behind the beat,” he said, and the trio played “The King Porter Stomp” to show how it’s done. At least I could follow that.

And, Lord have mercy, I knew to clap on the downbeat.

One more time...

"I used to come to New Orleans when I was in college in Minnesota. I could even afford it then," Butch Thompson said after the seminar. I must say, it's really cool to meet a musician I've admired for years, and told him so. These guys were so accessible and talked with everyone who wanted a minute after the seminar.

Bon vivant dancer does last waltz

 By John Pope, The Times-Picayune 

Henry George Schmidt, a bon vivant with a roguish eye who was a fixture on dance floors around New Orleans well into his 10th decade, died Tuesday at Chateau de Notre Dame. He was 100.

Henry George Schmidt

Mr. Schmidt held a series of jobs. In his youth, he sold clothes to Huey Long, including a pair of pajamas that became notorious. But friends and family members said he never was defined by the way he earned a living.

To those who knew him, Mr. Schmidt was a free spirit who devoted his life to enjoying the city, often accompanied by his younger son, Jimmy. He could be counted on to show up, nattily dressed, at restaurants, dances and concerts by the New Leviathan Oriental Fox-Trot Orchestra, which his older son, George, helped found.

"He enjoyed life more than anyone I know," said Julia Woodward Burka, a longtime friend. "What interested him was having a good life."

And wherever he went, everyone seemed to know him, Burka said.

Mr. Schmidt was a native New Orleanian who seldom ventured far from the Crescent City, even when he was drafted in World War II. After his family saw him off on the troop train, not knowing where he was going, Mr. Schmidt wound up being deployed to Biloxi, Miss., only 90 miles away, his son George said.

Mr. Schmidt grew up in a musical family. His mother sang in the chorus at the French Opera House, where he played backstage as a youngster; his sister was a vocalist with several bands; and an uncle played piano in a Storyville brothel and, later, accompanied silent movies on the organ in local theaters.

After Mr. Schmidt graduated from Jesuit High School, he worked at Stevens Men's Wear. One day in the early 1930s, U.S. Sen. Huey P. Long walked into the store with his entourage, and, George Schmidt said, his father took it upon himself to tell the Kingfish how to sharpen up his image to make a better impression in Washington.

For instance, he advised Long to wear double-breasted suits, and he told him to get a better set of neckties and a hat with a narrower, more fashionable brim than the one Long had been sporting.

And then one day, Mr. Schmidt sold his most notable client a pair of green silk pajamas with a paisley pattern and a cinch belt. The cost: $12.50, the equivalent of nearly $200 today.

That outfit became infamous because Long wore the pajamas to receive the captain of a visiting German ship when he paid a courtesy call on Long in his Roosevelt Hotel suite. International tut-tutting ensued, George Schmidt said, and anti-Long forces even re-enacted the scene for a newsreel to show off what they felt was Long's boorishness.

Years later, George Schmidt said he found the pajamas on display in a bedroom in the Old Governor's Mansion, which has been converted into a museum in Baton Rouge.

Throughout his life, Mr. Schmidt never left his house without being splendidly turned out from top to toe, Burka said, and that included a hat -- a Panama in summer, a fedora in winter.

But, she said, Mr. Schmidt advised that there's more to wearing a hat than simply plopping it atop one's head. "He told my husband, 'You've got to wear a hat with a jaunty air,' " she said.

Among the women whom the spiffily dressed bachelor dated were Dorothy Lamour, who went on to become a movie star, and Helen Kane, the model for the cartoon character Betty Boop.

From his youth well into his old age, Mr. Schmidt gravitated toward dances. Peggy Scott Laborde, a WYES-TV producer who interviewed Mr. Schmidt and his son George for her documentaries, remembered dancing with Mr. Schmidt at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to the music of the New Leviathan.

"He was a great dancer," she said, "and this was when he was in his late 80s!!"

After Mr. Schmidt worked briefly as a Goodyear salesman, he and his wife, Jo, ran the Lauralee Guest House on St. Charles Avenue. Mr. Schmidt later was a clerk and checker for the New Orleans Steamship Association; it was the post from which he retired.

In his retirement, George Schmidt said, his father roamed the city, striking up conversations with strangers and tossing off stories about vanished landmarks and the people who inhabited them.

"When you talked to Dad, it was like an oral-history interview," the younger Schmidt said. "Dad had a historical memory."

Survivors include two sons, George Schmidt of New Orleans and James Schmidt of Hammond, and a daughter, Joanne Schmidt of New Orleans.

A funeral will be held Friday at 1 p.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin at 11:30 a.m.

Burial will be in Lake Lawn Park Mausoleum.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.