Frolic: jazz, books, food

Jazz, Books, Food, and the Writing Life

Blogging from New Orleans, La

28 February 2005

Most bars have their own character and crowds, but the twenty-four hour bars around New Orleans shift personalities as the sun rises and falls. I often stop at the Avenue Pub, just a few blocks from home, when I need a break in the afternoon or if I want a take-out draft to drink on the couch.

In the mid-afternoon, I’ve never seen anyone at the Avenue Pub who didn’t look like they were on their third round. Later in the day, it draws a decent happy hour crowd. Half the people seem to be there for the specials, and the other half look like they are settling in for the evening.

I used to live in Lille, France, which was close enough to Belgium that the preferred drink was beer. On my way to work, I saw old men and blue collar workers having an ale for breakfast. I assume that the twenty-four hour bars must attract a breakfast crowd as well, but I haven’t yet stopped by in the morning.

Last week, I made my first visit to Ms. Mae’s on Magazine Street. It’s been serving drinks almost continually since 1910, surviving Prohibition and a few busts. You can’t beat the four dollar pitches and the generous pours of Maker’s Mark for three bucks. The night I stopped in, the crowd was young and relaxed. I suppose the professional drinkers roll in later in the evening. A friend that lives around the corner said that young kids often stand outside waiting to take their drunk parents home.

Posted by Todd at 11:05 am | Comments (1)

24 February 2005

This week, the Gambit Weekly sent me to eat at Steve’s Dinner, a cafeteria-style dinner in the Central Business District. Here are some of my thoughts on the place:

Watching the staff move through the restaurant, bantering with each other and the regulars they knew by name, I thought that they must be putting as much care into the food as they lavish on the customers. When I bit into the king cake, a yeasty cinnamon roll topped with crunchy layer of Mardi Gras-colored sprinkles, I knew I had found a dish that must make the staff proud. (You’ll have to wait until next year to find out for yourself.) The club sandwich and corn crab soup were fine, although I would have preferred more dressing on the sandwich and less oil in the soup. Still, over the next few weeks, I discovered that Steve’s is a good little diner where, if you order wisely, you can get a great meal.

You can read the rest of the review at the Gambit Weekly’s website.

Readers with a clear monitor might notice the smudge on the customer’s forehead. Yes, this photo was taken on Ash Wednesday.

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21 February 2005

Some CDs would make better records. The best vinyl releases built to a conclusion after the first half hour and then took advantage of the few minutes when you lifted the needle and flipped the record to regroup and refocus in order to grab your attention when side B started spinning.

Jason Moran, the extraordinary jazz composer and pianist, puts together half of an amazing record on Same Mother (Blue Note). If it were vinyl, I would play the flip side until the groves wore out. As a CD, though, the less focused and less successful first half of Same Mother buries the good work on the second.

“Gangsterism on the Rise” starts the album on a promising note, with Moran pounding out figures with the left hand while adding a graceful, slightly off-kilter run of notes with the right. It’s his signature style, which owes an enormous debt to Andrew Hill, and the composition recalls Moran’s best work from previous albums. No surprise, since a song from the Gangsterism series, inspired by the paintings of Jean Michel Basquiat, appears on every album Moran has recorded. Like a clock winding down, the song slows to the halt, promising that something completely different will come next.

“Jump Up,” which follows, seems less a new direction than pandering. With the addition of guitarist Marvin Sewell, best known for his work in Cassandra Wilson’s band, Moran and his band, bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, romp through the kind of overblown blues more often played by middle age white guys with beer bellies. Moran claims to be inspired by roadhouse blues, but neither “Jump Up” nor “I’ll Play the Blues for You,” an Albert King ballad from the 1970s, bristles with the raw energy of good blues.

When the group turns to “Fire Waltz,” a classic by Moran’s teacher Jaki Byard, they finally find focus. The song begins with an urgent, buzzing bass line by Mateen before breaking into a lopsided waltz. Almost melodramatic, it builds in intensity with a classical precision before splintering apart at both the low and the high registers.

From that moment on, there are no more missteps in Same Mother. “Field of Dead” is a heartbreaking performance, with the Sewell’s sliding acoustic guitar grasping like an exhausted man reaching out for help. “Restin’,” an airy, atmospheric piece proves more affecting for its minimalism. “The Field” continues the minimalism with Moran creating echoing patterns that move far from jazz into contemporary classical music before returning to more familiar ground with a lovely series of chord changes.

The second half of Same Mother feels like a breakthrough for Moran. His previous recordings were overflowing with ideas. With the composition that end Same Mother, Moran welcomes space into his work and creates devastating power with a few well chosen notes. This is the music I want to hear more of, not the overproduced blues that mars the first half of the album. Let’s hope that Moran feels the same.

Also posted at Blogcritics.org.

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To Do List:

Catch modern jazz master Dave Douglas at Snug Harbor.
Hear jazz legend Randy Weston at the Contemporary Arts Center.
Watch the Oscars and cheer for movies I haven’t seen.

Posted by Todd at 4:44 pm | No Comments

16 February 2005

It’s been three years since I last visited Spain, but the growing popularity of Spanish food means I’m not completely cut off from the culture. For my first restaurant review in the New Orleans Gambit Weekly, I sampled the tapas prepared by Chef Adolfo García at RioMar:

It’s impossible to be stingy at RioMar’s lunch. The small plates of tapas — the sublime bar food of Spain — arrive at the table as soon as the kitchen finishes them. Staring at a plate of hot bacalaitos, deep-fried pillows of salt cod drizzled with homemade mayonnaise, I couldn’t resist taking a bite, but I knew that not sharing with my hungry companions might end a friendship or two.

To read the rest, visit the Gambit Weekly’s website.

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14 February 2005

Other People’s Prose:

Imagine finding the first baker of apple pie. She’s been dead for centuries. How about the first cook to stuff a broiled meat patty between two slices of bread? True believers will still be squabbling over the inventor of the hamburger when the Southern Baptist Convention elects its first openly gay leader. But here, at the 1940 vintage Anchor Bar, a vaguely Italianate warehouse on a forlorn street south of downtown, one can pull up a stool, order a beer, and pay homage to the maker amidst the trappings of true cathedral of creation.

John T. Edge in Fried Chicken on visiting the birthplace of the Buffalo wing.

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I heard on a television ad that a local funeral home offers both traditional and jazz services. I sure hope I die in New Orleans.

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7 February 2005

New Orleans, the city of cheap trinkets. I’ve collected a plastic chicken, rubber balls, frisbees, a rubber egg, drink holders, cups, whistles, a mini squirting toilet, a vinyl stuffed king and plush lips that say “Muses.”

I’m still enjoying my first Mardi Gras, but the experience peaked last Wednesday. Nothing could top the Muses’ throws that night, and while the floats have gotten bigger so have the crowds. I’m glad that I saw the fiber-optic gilded behemoths of Bacchus and Orpheus, but the smaller day parades this weekend have been more fun.

Last night, I walked down to the French Quarter, where the tourists are providing a simian parody of the parade. A certain mock nobility reigns along the parade routes, with commoners in the streets begging the float riding royalty for trinkets. On Bourbon Street, the drunken visitors are like ape tossing shiny beads in all directions. Instead of beating their chest, they bare their breasts. Everyone both begs for beads and distributes them in a pointless exchange. I saw more beads from Harrah’s casino than from the krewes, and the strands that attracted the most interest were marijuana shapes beads purchased from a cart a few blocks away.

Walking home from Orpheus tonight, my shoulder aching from the pounds of beads draped around my neck, I saw two mounted police officers waiting for their order at the McDonald’s drive-thru window.

Zula starts at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, so I must get some sleep.

Posted by Todd at 11:08 pm | Comments (2)

6 February 2005

Yeah, it’s been quiet around here. Mardi Gras has kept me busy. Belinda Carlisle tossed me a throw. Plenty of cheap beer has been consumed. I’ve got two grocery bags full of beads. Yesterday, I was handed both a plastic chicken and a rubber egg.

I must get some work done before the parades start. Maybe I’ll have more to say later, but I’m not making any promises.

Posted by Todd at 7:34 am | No Comments

3 February 2005

People have been waiting since Tuesday for a table at Galatoire’s Friday lunch, according to the Times-Picayune. In front of the venerable French Quarter establishment, unemployed men and college students out for extra cash have been paid to camp out. Wealthy patrons or Galatoire’s waiters who want to hold a spot for their favored customers pay up to $500 to the campers.

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