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[MUSIC REVIEW] New Orleans night at Mahaiwe Theatre, 11.18.06
11.19.06
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
Celebrate New Orleans!
Papa Grows Funk
Rebirth Brass Band
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux
review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
(Great Barrington, Mass., November 19, 2006) -- New Orleans is known for a lot of things – its food, its nightlife, Mardi Gras, and, of course, for being flooded by Hurricane Katrina. But probably New Orleans’s most enduring contribution to the world has been its music – a unique style, or several unique styles, that combine elements of jazz, parade music, and funk mixed together in various proportions to conjure up a spicy, addictive gumbo.
This past Saturday night, the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington was transformed into Tipitina’s, New Orleans’s most famous nightclub, with a concert featuring two legendary New Orleans outfits – the Rebirth Brass Band and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux -- and one of its most recent prodigies, Papa Grows Funk.
The concert began in utterly appropriate New Orleans style. Once the audience was all seated, music could be heard emanating from the lobby, and after a few seconds, a parade featuring all the evening’s musicians entering from the rear of the theater, snaking down the aisle, and making its way onto the stage.
Using Papa Grows Funk as his backup band, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, the oldest living Mardi Gras Big Chief, bedecked in full Mardi Gras regalia including an enormous white headdress of feathers and a colorful, bejeweled and illustrated suit made of swatches and layers of cloth, kicked off the proceedings with the aptly titled parade anthem, “Big Chief.” Other numbers were authentic Mardi Gras tribal chants, which Big Chief sung in his rich, mellifluous voice.
The Rebirth Brass Band, which recently played at the reopening of the Louisiana Superdome with the English rock group U2, was next up, and kicked off its set with a jazzy, Latin-tinged version of the standard, “Jambalaya.” If a listener didn’t know better, it could take a lot of convincing to have made anyone believe that this was a song written by country legend Hank Williams, and not a tune native to New Orleans. Likewise, their version of Hugh Masekela’s 1968 hit, “Grazing in the Grass,” was transformed into a jazzy, upbeat horn-based tune. The group concluded its set with a version of its theme song, “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up,” which included an a cappella portion proving that the band, clearly one of the best brass bands in the world in ANY genre, could harmonize vocally as well it could instrumentally, and still keep with the funky syncopation.
Last up after intermission was Papa Grows Funk, representing the younger generation of New Orleans musicians who are equally influenced by the music of their hometown as well as jam-rock, featuring fluid, jazzy soloing by several of its musicians, including June Yamagishi on guitar; Jason Mingledorff on saxophone; and John Gros playing keyboards, including a vintage Hammond B3 organ paired with a rotating Leslie speaker cabinet. The group’s music variously recalled the sound of Junior Walker and the All-Stars, Steve Winwood and Traffic, and Dr. John in its imaginative rendition of “Sea Cruise.”
While New Orleans was damaged enormously by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding, the spirit of the city survives in its music, something that no hurricane or flood can damage.
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