My New Orleans Dream

GIG #87 @ Corner of Frenchmen and Chartres Streets, New Orleans, LA
March 28, 2011

I sat on a new corner on Frenchmen by myself and started up the accordion. I was playing for about 15 minutes when a fiddler showed up and asked if he could play with me. He soon started up and another 15 minutes later Malcolm showed up with his drum.

Malcolm was one of the NOLA musical gatekeepers for me - he pulled up on his bike with his drum where I was playing on one of my first nights in the French Quarter and played a bit with me. He showed up regularly from that point on.

Malcolm played a red floor tom - which is a large drum that is usually part of a drum kit. It is traditionally played in a vertical position - it stands on three legs and the top head is played with sticks. Malcolm took the legs off, tied a rope around it, put it around his neck and played it horizontally - so the top and bottom heads could be played. He also had a small tambourine with him most times and he would use that to hit one of the heads. His tip jar was a blue bonnet margarine tub taped to the drum with blue painter's tape.

The three of us jammed for a while, and I was in heaven. Malcolm's groove was swinging hard, and the fiddler's gruff, gravely voice fit perfectly with his screechy, whining violin style. I spent more time listening than playing. Most of the time I would lock into Malcolm with either a simple bass line I doubled on the right hand, or with well placed hits. A small crowd would gather every so often to listen.

After our first "set" we took a little break and a trumpet player showed up. He stunk of cigarettes and alcohol. He was a large spirit with a great vibe. We started up. The sound of his trumpet filled the streets of Frenchmen and people began to gather. He sang and played as I imagined Louis Armstrong might have. I had now crossed over into the New Orleans of my dreams. After a few numbers the trumpeter took out a very long trumpet which had a blank purple banner dangling from it. I had never seen anything like it. The people on the street cheered and whistled.

He was a great listener, and was always asking the fiddler to step up and play, as he was shying away from it a bit. He was encouraging with all of us, while also being keenly aware of the audience and entertaining them with a dance, a flurry of notes, a comment. After a bunch of songs, he shook his trumpet case into the crowd and sang a few lines from Donna Summer's "Hard for the Money"

After an hour or two we wrapped it up and counted the money. He insisted that we split all of it equally. I would have been content giving him half - he was the show that night, and there was no way we would have made the large sum we took in without him. He took off down the street popping into a few clubs along the way and sitting in with whoever was playing. Before he left he told me to come to the Candlelight Lounge in Treme on Wednesday.

GIG #356 @ Corner of Frenchmen and Chartres Streets, New Orleans, LA
December 22, 2011

Oscar and I left St. Augustine, FL very early. We had a ten hour or so drive to New Orleans. I was excited to be returning to NOLA after many months, and it was Oscar's first time. I would need to play a gig somewhere after the long drive. The time flew by and before I knew it, I was back on Frenchmen. It was colder than it was back in March and the city didn't seem as busy. I started to play.
I noticed a bunch of brass players gathering across the street. One of them crossed the street and came up to me.
"My band always plays here, so you'll have to move"
He was a young black guy, and poured on the thick attitude. This was a change from the NOLA I knew in March where things happened incredibly organically, and no one ever asked me to move. They would just come and play with me if they dug it.
"That is cool. Do you mind if I play with you guys?" I asked.
He looked at me kind of strange. I imagined he was asking himself what I could possibly do with them.
"Mmm," he mumbled. "You'll have to ask our leader."
He went back across the street. I went back to playing.
Once they had assembled they made their way to the corner where I was playing.
"Did you ask if I could play?"
I think he was hoping I would just go away. He didn't reply, so I went up to another guy.
"Do you mind if I play with you guys? I play with Malcolm…and last time I was here I jammed with that trumpet guy with the long trumpet"
They all seemed surprised that I knew Malcolm.
"Yeah it's cool. Just stand between me and the snare" the bass drummer said.
I figured they were putting me there so I would be drowned out. I was thrilled. They were hitting it hard and the groove was deep. I couldn't have been happier between the drummers.
After a few tunes, the snare drummer yelled out "Let him solo!" and pointed to me. I made my way out to the front and tore it up.
I was back in my New Orleans dream, picking up right where I left off.

The Starry Messenger

I recently returned from five days of performing for over 4,000 K-6 students for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival's Music in Our Schools program. I finished up last Saturday with a performance for an Artists' Circle Donors Event.

Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to the students and teachers at El Dorado, Pinon, Santa Clara, Wood Gormley, E.J. Martinez, Agua Fria, Ramirez Thomas, Kearney and Salazar Elementary Schools, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival director Marc Neikrug, David Tolen, Jim Goulden, and Dolly Naranjo.

A heartfelt thanks to musician Angela Gabriel. Angela was my contact and partner for all of the performances. She helped set up and facilitate all of the concerts, and played percussion on a lot of the music I performed, including washboard on the zydeco numbers! As if that wasn't enough work, Angela also introduced me to a lot of music and people around Santa Fe. The Shona marimba and mbira music community was of particular excitement and interest to me. I am now doing a lot of listening thanks to the music she passed along.

I decided early on that I was going to drive to Santa Fe, as it would be an opportunity to hook up with a lot of the great people I met on GIG 365 in 2011. While I am no longer doing a gig a day, I am continuing the spirit of GIG 365 in many ways. The entire journey to Santa Fe, and the Music In Our Schools experience was the first extended trip back into this territory.

I set aside about five days on either side of my time in Santa Fe for travel. The outbound trip took me mostly through Louisiana and Texas. In Louisiana I managed to stop in to do a house concert at Jeff's Haven for Lost Musicians, which relocated from Breaux Bridge to Baton Rouge in 2012. Next up was a visit to cajun/zydeco country where I was fortunate to reconnect with Sonja and Estelle of St. Martinville. These two sassy southern cajun ladies were my camping neighbors back at Lake Fausse Pointe State Park in March 2011. Sonja took me on a tour of their town, educating me about Longfellow's Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie and introducing me to the history of the indigenous Ishak (Atakapa) peoples. When we visited Estelle's home she fired up her 1907 Edison wax cylinder phonograph player and did a dance. (Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound) By this time Sonja had called her old friend Florita Williams and set up a get together at her place. Florita is the mother of eight boys and a girl, most of whom are zydeco musicians. She was lovely and welcoming, a humble, wise woman with a lot of stories. Unfortunately for me her son Nathan and his group, "the Zydeco Cha-Chas" had just left for a gig in Washington D.C.

My first meeting with Estelle and Sonja during GIG 365:



The longest part of the drive to Santa Fe was through Texas. I only hit the panhandle during GIG 365, so this was all new territory. I stopped in Abilene and wound up doing a gig at a Mexican restaurant with Abraham, a mariachi guitar player. After the gig I continued driving through what I later found out to be the largest wind farm in the world, then through Lubbock (Buddy Holly's birthplace) before landing in Clovis, NM. I stopped by to see Billy the Kid's grave and tombstone, and learned about the Long Walk of the Navajo at the Bosque Redondo Memorial. (from the website: The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument solemnly remembers the dark days of suffering from 1863 to 1868 when the U.S. Military persecuted and imprisoned (and MURDERED quite a few) 9,500 Navajo (the Diné) and 500 Mescalero Apache (the N’de) on a reservation (CONCENTRATION CAMP) known as Bosque Redondo at Fort Sumner, New Mexico— an area that encompassed 1,600 square miles (over one million acres)

I arrived in Santa Fe on Sunday afternoon during a pleasant snowfall, which seemed to have blown in only one direction, coating the thousands of green pine bushes that dot the hills white on one side. Driving along the winding roads of rural New Mexico would slowly slide my perspective between the greens and whites. All this as I listened to the stunning Singing Wire Native American music radio program on KUNM public radio. I heard the vocal and drum music of the northern Cree and other tribes for the first time. It is the most expressive vocal music I have ever heard in my life.

The five days with the students was a lot of work, between three to five concerts a day, for at least two hundred students per concert. And I thought GIG 365 was difficult!!!

It was a pleasant circumstance to not have internet where I was staying, and it afforded me the opportunity to dive into two fascinating books Marc and his wife gave to me: The Brain that Changes Itself and 1491. The lack of internet also led to a delay in reading a couple of emails I received from NPR classical music critic Tom Manoff and another journalist. Tom had been to a concert by the Eugene Symphony on Thursday (the day before my last school concert) evening with my friend Brian McWhorter. What has happened since the story broke is an unsurprising, disturbing, amusing, and somewhat apoplectic response by just about everyone in the new music press and blogosphere. I can't help but selfishly reflect on all the work I did last year bringing music to prisons, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, farms, concert halls, etc every single day of 2011 and contrast that with the coverage received by the Barbeich/Sidereus affair. Hmmm...now back to the journey of music making, shall we?

I hit the road on Sunday morning after the private donor's concert the night before. The road back to Gainesville would be along I-40, a route I traveled more than a couple of times last year. I would go through the Texas panhandle and then straight through Oklahoma and Arkansas before landing in Memphis. I would hit some new ground from Memphis traveling down Highway 61 into Mississippi. Much of this route was closed when I was last there in May 2011 due to the Mississippi River flooding.

Once I hit Texas, I realized that I was within 50 miles of Prayer Town - home of the Franciscan order of Charismatic Sisters that I performed with in Old Town Albuquerque last year. I decided to drop in, which was a pleasant surprise for all of us. We had a great time sharing music, and I broke bread with all of these very special ladies before laying my head down in one of their retreat houses. The morning greeted with an amazing sunrise which I rubbed all over my face before hitting the open road once again.

GIG #149, my first jam with the Sisters from Prayer Town, Texas.



Next stop was my close childhood friend Joe Wilson and his family in Oklahoma. We reminisced about old friends and dirt bombs, the square deep hole and rusty flagpole, my grandmother's incredibly huge burgundy Ford Galaxy, and Cindy, my first crush. She lived behind me and I only saw her through the diamond shaped holes of the fence that separated us.

I arrived in Memphis on Tuesday evening and connected with my friend accordionist Linda Ann Warren. Linda is quite a celebrity in accordion circles, having performed around Memphis her entire life. We had done a bunch of concerts during GIG 365, one of the highlights being at St. Jude's Children's Hospital. On Wednesday we headed to our favorite place, the Four Way Soul Food Restaurant, which we also discovered last year while looking for Aretha Franklin's birthplace. Of course we took a wrong turn, winding up at Stax Records, which to my complete astonishment is next door to Memphis Slim's old house. The house is even more dilapidated than Aretha's old place, except that it has a huge sign that says "The Historic Home of Memphis Slim. Renovations Coming Soon." What was remarkable is that I had been playing a zydeco version of Memphis Slim's Sassy Mae for the students in Santa Fe for just about every concert. One of my favorite lines ever is in the song "When she walks down the street, the trees all take a bow"

When we walked into the Four Way, the quiet middle aged woman who owned the place recognized me, as I had played her a few songs when we ate there back in May 2011. "I am very proud of you," she said, with a look on her face and sparkle in her eye that made me feel like she was my mother. After a nice meal and the pleasant company and conversation of my friend Linda, I was off for Highway 61, which did not disappoint.

The evening sun was an orange orb glowing above the flat open fields that go for miles on either side of the highway. Balls of birds shape shifted in the sky's marvelous hues of dusk. Then the sun seemed to suddenly set behind the far off craggily, bare trees. I rolled into Clarksdale in the darkness, pulling up at Red's juke joint, a place I had read about. I was happy to find the door wide open on a weeknight, but there was no music. Conversation with Red led to me getting the accordion out, which led to a rocking plugged in set for him and a bunch of regulars. Red says: "I am backed by the River and fronted by the grave" (His place is right by the Mississippi River, and in front is a cemetery.)

The following morning I continued to Leland, birthplace of Kermit the Frog and home to bluesman and artist Pat Thomas, who was another person I met in 2011. He recognized me right away and after saying hello asked if I wanted to go to the grave. I said "yes" without really knowing what he meant. We hopped back in my van and he directed me to the church and graveyard where a lot of his family are buried, and we played a few tunes while sitting on the grave of his father, James Son Thomas. I learned more about Pat - he used to be a gravedigger at this cemetery. One time his boss told him to dig a new grave and where to dig it, and he wound up hitting a previously buried casket and cracking it open. When he got home his father said he could smell it on him and made him change all of his clothes out on the back porch. Pat made $75 a grave.

GIG #143, my first jam with Pat Thomas.



My body and spirit couldn't handle any more experiences after Pat, so I jumped in the van after dropping him off at the Highway 61 Blues Museum and made the ten hour drive back to Gainesville in one go, stopping for gas a couple of times. I drove across Mississippi and Alabama on route 82, before hooking up with I-10 in Tallahassee. It's good to be home with Yulene after almost three weeks on the road.

Strange Loops February 2012

MJWB · Strange Loops February 2012

Strange Looping evolved out of my GIG 365 project in 2011. I stole the name from Douglas Hofstadter's book "I Am a Strange Loop." In the book, Hofstadter states, "In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference."

Strange Loop music is created with a loop pedal. I use a Digitech Jamman Stereo. The music is composed, performed, recorded, and mixed live, in the moment. The loop is opened with a click of the pedal and a musical phrase is performed into it. The loop is then closed with another click of the pedal and the loop's length is set. An infinite number of successive musical phrases can be laid on top of the initial loop.

Strange Loops created during GIG 365 were done in front of an audience. I managed to save a few of them, and selected the best for the previous set "Strange Loops 2011"

This first set of 2012 is a bit different. I used the stereo looper, a mixing board, and a single microphone to record everything. I placed each phrase by selecting a stereo position before I laid down the phrase. (During GIG 365 I used two Sure SM58 microphones to capture everything. This is ideal, as the location of the phrase is captured in whatever position it is played in front of the microphones)

The instrumentation for this set:
Vocals, throat singing, snaps, hand claps, breathing
7 note kalimba
Lao khaen (or khene)
Bird calls from Fábrica de Pios Maurílio Coelho
Dizi chinese transverse flute
Large cane flute
Pandeirão de Mestre Lua Rasta
Cooperman frame drum
Remo Kanjira
Goat hooves shaker
12" Chau Gong
MJWB Shell shaker
MJWB Sea glass shaker
Small Indian Bells on string
MJWB Bell tree
MJWB Shell Stick
Antelope Shofar
Indian hand cymbals

Reflections on GIG 365

GIG #16 @ Churchill's Pub, Little Haiti, Miami, FL
January 16, 2011

The bartender carried a taser. Sad, broken double decker buses cast their long shadows on the sidewalk from the pub parking lot across the street. Wheelchair Willie pushed himself backwards down the road using his legs. A chest of drawers balanced on a shopping cart creeped into the darkness of a side road.

I was booked for a cancer benefit at the club. Oscar and I showed up early. The Scottish taser carrying bartender said he knew nothing about there being music that night and that I would have to wait until the booker showed up, if he showed at all. I sat down bemused for a pint of stale Guinness and leafed through the local paper.

It was there in the back pages that I discovered a small ad the club had taken out: "GIG 365: January 16 @ Churchill's Pub." I pointed it out to taser man. "Well, you better get set up then!"

I more or less improvised the entire set, surrounded by most of the dozens of instruments that lived in my van. Most of the audience sat at the bar or were in the room next to the performance space playing pool, drinking, and talking as the dusty muted televisions flickered.

Taser dude was also the soundman. He burned a CD of my show and said he enjoyed it. "Never heard a squeezebox like that"

Earlier that evening a few blocks from the club, a bunch of men gathered around a smashed broken door with hammers and drills. I heard them speaking French, and grabbed my accordion to play them a Gus Viseur tune. They smiled and took a break from their repair work for a moment as the music echoed off the facade of their " Buena Vista Deli."

GIG #347 @ Buena Vista Deli, Miami, FL
December 13, 2011

I was due to pick Oscar up at Miami airport later that evening, so I planned to arrange a gig somewhere close before heading over there. I had a nice lunch at a restaurant in Little Haiti and recalled the deli I had stopped at back in January.
It took me some time driving around to find it. Inside, there were two women serving behind the counters.
"Could I please speak with a manager?"
They pointed to another woman in the corner.
"Would you like some music today?"
She gave me a puzzled look (which, with 346 gigs behind me I was well used to at this point)
"We don't do music here, but you could try speaking with the owner about playing in the bistro next door. He is having lunch there now"
The bistro bartender pointed out a man dining with a statuesque black woman. I recognized him right away as one of the guys fixing the door.
"Hello. I stopped here back in January when you guys were fixing the door and played you a tune. I need a gig today and was wondering if I could play here"
He looked at me for a moment as he flicked through his memories. Then he stood up and smiled.
"Yes, I remember. Where would you like to play?"
I thought the deli would be best, so we both headed back over there.
"You are welcome anytime," he said as we entered.
"He is going to play here," he told the surprised manager.
I set up at table in the corner. An old man was eating lunch a few tables over. He listened for a while, then got up to head outside and gave me a smile and thumbs up. He came back after a few minutes and sat closer to me, directly across. I played the old cuban song, "Y Tu Que Has Hecho"
He began to cry, a few tears making their way slowly down his cheeks. When I finished he spoke his first words to me.
"My mother used to sing and play that song on piano for me. I am from Cuba. I have lived here in Miami for about 50 years"

Strange Loops 2011

GIG 365

Thank you to all of my family and friends that shared the gift of music with me in 2011 and assisted me on the GIG 365 journey. All the very best for 2012.
Audio/Video from GIG #356 @ Corner of Frenchmen and Chartres Streets, New Orleans, LA w/Young Fellaz Brass Band.
A/V by Oscar Cainer.

GIG #365 - Beginning

GIG #365 @ Little Bar Restaurant, Goodland, FL w/Cory Seznec & Yulene Velasquez. Select repertoire:
Esta Bella Noche - Galian
Lord, Lord, Lord - Trad.
Must Be Time - Ward-Bergeman

GIG #364 - Children in the Garden

GIG #364 @ Naples Botanical Garden, Naples, FL. Select repertoire:
Last Call - Ward-Bergeman
Feira de Mangaio - Sivuca
Strange Loop Improvisations

GIG #363 - Sweet Sixteen

GIG # 363 @ Coral Castle, Homestead, FL. Select repertoire:
Federal - Ward-Bergeman
Prelude II, Book I, WTC - Bach
Strange Loop Improvisations

GIG #362 - Berklee Bergman

GIG #362 @ Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe, Ochopee, FL. Select repertoire:
St. James Infirmary - Trad.
Your Cheatin' Heart - Williams
Strange Loop Improvisations

GIG #361 - Super Sally Secretary

GIG #361 @ Brandy's Lounge, St. Petersburg, FL w/Tom Piggott and Phil Andre. Select repertoire:
God Bless the USA - Greenwood
Super Sally Secretary - Piggott
Jambalaya (On the Bayou) - Williams

GIG #360 - My Home

GIG #360 @ W Main and N 3rd Street, Immokalee, FL. Select repertoire:
Down in the Valley - Trad.
I Got A Woman - Charles/Richard
Dan Tucker - Trad.

GIG #359 - Mickey Mouse Doesn't Live Here

GIG #359 @ Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida, Orlando, FL. Select repertoire:
Jingle Bells - Pierpont
Feira de Mangaio - Sivuca
Strange Loop Improvisations

GIG #358 - Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl

GIG #358 @ San Miguel Mexican Restaurant, Tallahassee, FL. Select repertoire:
Feliz Navidad - Feliciano
Chamame Parisien - Barboza
Libertango - Piazzolla

GIG #357 - Sweet Street Symphony

GIG #357 @ Corner of Frenchmen and Royal Streets, New Orleans, LA w/ Sweet Street Symphony. Select repertoire:
Cold Water - Waits
Ain't Misbehavin'- Waller
Black Dog - Shameus

GIG #356 - Young Fellaz

GIG #356 @ Corner of Frenchmen and Chartres Streets, New Orleans, LA w/Young Fellaz Brass Band. Select repertoire:
Little Wing - Hendrix
Georgia on My Mind - Carmichael/Gorrell
Strange Groove Improvisations

GIG #355 - I Wish I Had Some Help Up in Here

GIG #355 @ St Mary's Baptist Church, St. Augustine, FL w/Minister Raymond Dunlap and the St. Mary's Choir. Select repertoire:
Go Tell it On a Mountain - Trad.
Oh Holy Night - Adam
Do You Know Like I Know - Walker

GIG #354 - Big Horns

GIG #354 @ Books Inc., Gainesville, FL. Select repertoire:
Chattanooga Choo Choo - Warren/Gordon
Flambee Montalbanaise - Viseur
Dizzy Accordion - Frosini

GIG #353 - Put It Together Boy!

GIG #353 @ Leonardos 706, Gainesville, FL w/Hot Club de Ville. Select repertoire:
Minor Swing - Reinhardt
Douce Ambiance - Reinhardt
Sweet Sue - Young

GIG #352 - Everybody Dance but the Devil

GIG #352 @ St. Mary's Baptist Church, St. Augustine, FL w/Minister Raymond Dunlap & St. Mary's Choir and Bellamy Road, Melrose, FL w/Cathy DeWitt & Geoffrey Fitzhugh Perry. Select repertoire:
When the Saints Go Marching In - Trad.
Silent Night - Gruber
Oneness - DeWitt/Freeman