Music – Page 2 – Steel Wheels

The Tao Of Jazz

Not all forms of transportation have wheels…

Chucho Valdes

It wasn’t planned … last evening we found ourselves rolling into Hermann Park on a random ride. Turns out Chucho Valdés and his Afro-Cuban jazz band were on the stage at Miller Outdoor Theatre. No place on Earth can hide from this music and over the course of 90 minutes Valdés took us to Havana, Senegal, the Serengeti Plain, Morocco, Andalusia, to New York for 15-minutes of “Take Five,” across the North American Indian soundscape, and back again never leaving our seats. The Tao of great jazz is its power to transport you across time and space.

Riding home I couldn’t stop thinking about this unexpected journey and all the amazing sounds of this night. Como la vida.

The Dark Knight on Herman Drive

At Miller Outdoor Theatre in Hermann Park – August 13th 2013

Asleep At The Wheel

Asleep At The Wheel returned to Miller Outdoor Theatre last night after a 20 year hiatus to commemorate 42 years as a band, 2 million miles on the road. The show started with a documentary-history of the band to re-introduce themselves and remind us how much we loved them. Sometime over the course of 42 years and dozens of players the band became the living manifestation of Ray Benson’s spirit: kinetic energy, free love for country swing, scary ability to play the same song a thousand times like it’s the first time, and undying devotion to “the band.” Today’s band has chops and heart. Asleep At The Wheel is on the stage alone now when it comes to Texas Swing. The old swing-bands are all gone.

The ride home was eerie and quiet above the rumble of the Harley. I couldn’t help thinking about the last 40 years and the music we all loved so much. And how much a part of our lives it was … and still is.

At Miller Outdoor Theatre in Hermann Park – July 5th 2013

Preservation

Little did Ben Jaffe know as a young boy being dragged to art galleries and parades that one day he would play the very music he heard there—as a member of the most famous band in the world. His parents and several others had gotten together in the early 60s to make sure the music would never die. Today Ben is Director of Preservation Hall. For $15 you can see guys from the street-to-music schools play the Hall together. New Orleans jazz is unique. They own it. The care and feeding from people like the Jaffes has sustained this happy-sad simple-complicated crazy-sane style of jazz. New Orleans is celebrating 50 years of Preservation Hall with a show at The Old US Mint Museum in The Quarter (through 2012). It’s a walk through the mist of a heritage preserved by the vision of a few and the patronage of many.