We’re already a month into 2012 and therefore it’s time to take a quick look back at what local artists were up to in January. With such big events as Jam Cruise, Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s 50th Anniversary blowout at Carnegie Hall, the Best of the Beat Awards last weekend, there’s already been a healthy amount of big events featuring NOLA bands. As always, there’s plenty of live music filling the clubs here and with the ongoing Carnival season, the live music schedule in town is only going to heat up for the next 2 1/2 weeks leading to Mardi Gras. Check out the newly-minted tracks below and get down to some live music this Carnival season.
There’s something about a Sunday night in the French Quarter that is qualitatively different from other nights as the city takes a rare, collective deep breath from the events of the weekend. Wrapping a busy weekend of live music on Decatur with this 18th Anniversary accented both a great tour for the artists, and a solid weekend before the madness of Carnival season begins to take hold this weekend.
Alabama Shakes roared into the conversation as a major breakthrough artist of 2011 via an early endorsement/introduction by Thursday’s show promoters and influential music blog Aquarium Drunkard. This first nudge in the right direction was followed by a huge overnight surge in notoriety at the CMJ Music Marathon in October. At their debut performance in the city in early-2012, Alabama Shakes proved to the people of New Orleans in a One Eyed Jacks-turned-sardine-can what all the unprecedented yammerin’ is all about. Also, as an aside, when the folks at the Toulouse Street venue say they are having an early show, they mean it. This night saw three bands’ performances wrapped up by 10 pm, causing us to miss the opening acts and arrive just as the Shakes were taking the stage. The chills-inducing set instilled pure musical salvation into what could’ve otherwise been an uncomfortable hour in the velvet-draped bordello style saloon.
Check out LMB NOLA for a video playlist from the daily schedule of this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest (click the play button next to a link to start it off!).
The overriding WOW(!) factor that jumped out most when the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival lineup was released was the caliber of both the newer and established female artists in the lineup. This year the Jazz Fest organizers hit the nail on the head with their attention to the amazing array of new female talent to emerge in a big way in recent years. Seven of the premiere live female artists in the world jumped off the screen as I scrolled through the lineup and saw Janelle Monae, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Esperanza Spalding (who shocked the world last February by winning the 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist in 2011), Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Jill Scott, Feist and Florence and the Machine – a solid representation of the biggest female artists to ascend into the mainstream conversation as household names over the last 6 or 7 years.
Galactic closed out 2011 in the familiar confines of Tipitina’s Uptown and invited some friends to help blow it out for the New Year. Eric Lindell Trio opened and Anders Osborne and Johnny Sansone sat in during the second set for a few tunes. Continue on below for a set list, videos and full photo [...]
Thanks to Ali Kerr of Southern Exposure Photography for sharing her photos with us Like many local super groups, Dragon Smoke, a New Orleans group made up of Robert Mercurio, Stanton Moore, Ivan Neville and Eric Lindell, formed in 2003 for a one-off Jazz Fest Super Jam gig and has played sporadically ever since. As [...]
