Musically speaking, episode 3 is a toss-up between piano players and Mardi Gras Indians – and the piano players win, by a hair. Even so, the pianists slide into some Indian music now and then. In fact, we're introduced to five icons of New Orleans piano music this time: Dr. John, Huey 'Piano' Smith, Tom McDermott, James Booker, and, by way of Davis McAlary, the late Professor Longhair. We start with Dr. John, aka Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr., or Mac to his friends.
The episode's title is taken from what is probably Dr. John's best known tune. From the 1973 album In The Right Place, "Right Place, Wrong Time" was a huge top-40 crossover hit and is heard early on in the episode. A second hit single, "Such A Night," came from the same album. Whereas Dr. John's earlier records were best described as a blend of voodoo R&B and traditional New Orleans blues, In The Right Place was seasoned with a generous dose of funk, an element that has remained part of his playing style to this day.
The album was produced by the locally ubiquitous Allen Toussaint and for back-up featured The Meters, who were probably one of the most influential exponents of funk nationally and the most influential funk band in New Orleans. Art Neville was the group's leader. It depends on whom you ask, but there's a pretty good consensus that James Brown, Toussaint, and The Meters are most responsible for the introduction of funk in R&B, providing the musical foundation upon which other blues and soul musicians built.
Toussaint had a considerable stable of musicians for whom he wrote and arranged and whose records he produced and promoted, including Dr. John, among many others. Toussaint and The Meters were connected at the hip: they were the house band for Toussaint's label, Sansu Enterprises (Toussaint even wrote several songs under the pen name 'Naomi Neville;' his connection to the Nevilles goes back at least to the early 1960s). After The Meters broke up, the Neville Brothers formed their own group and continued the funk tradition. For an excellent retrospective of The Meters' work, check out Funkify Your Life: The Meters Anthology – at $25 for 43 tracks via Amazon, it's a steal.
In this episode, we also hear Dr. John playing "My Indian Red," a traditional New Orleans song for Mardi Gras Indians that he recorded on an album of New Orleans favorites, Goin’ Back To New Orleans. Finally, over the closing credits, we hear him backing homeboy saxophonist Donald Harrison on another version, "Indian Red" from their joint album Indian Blues. The album is best described as half jazz, half chant, and respectful of both. Harrison himself is chief of the Guardians Of The Flame, a position previously held by his father, Donald Harrison, Sr., who founded that tribe. In a later episode, we see Harrison's tribe meet up with Big Chief Albert Lambreaux's tribe in the street when both groups 'mask' and march on St. Joseph's Day.
Both Indian Blues and Dr. John's 1968 debut album, Gris-Gris, feature several Indian chants. Typically, many Mardi Gras Indian chants and ceremonies are considered private; strangers aren't allowed to witness them, and the Indians themselves don't talk about them. This is a lesson that the tour bus driver and tourists learn during the episode when they are bluntly turned away from an Indian memorial service by Chief Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) and his fellow Indians. During the service, we hear them chant an Indian standard, "Hey Pocky Way" – not to be confused with a Meters song of the same name that references the chant but sounds way different (and funky, of course).
Tom McDermott, a contemporary of Dr. John's, shows up as himself during this episode and tempts Annie (real-life violinist Lucia Micarelli) into accepting an invitation to play a paying gig with him. The song they play together during the gig, "King Porter Stomp," is a jazz classic. McDermott reappears in later episodes.
Huey 'Piano' Smith, now 76, is better known outside New Orleans as the one who gave us the "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu." Backed by his group, The Clowns, Smith's style was highly influential on early rock 'n' roll. He himself was influenced by one of his own contemporaries, Fats Domino, as well as Professor Longhair, boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson, and the granddaddy of all New Orleans and jazz pianists, Jelly Roll Morton.
Morton, another son of New Orleans, had a style that blended ragtime, stride piano, and barrelhouse, and he was gifted and prolific. Fans of traditional jazz piano would do well to check out the 8-CD boxed set of Morton's work that music historian Alan Lomax recorded, called The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings. It's currently an incredible bargain at $19.98 for a full MP3 download at Amazon. Chicagoans should get a kick out of the fact that disc 5 contains a track titled "State And Madison," which no doubt originated during the brief period of Morton's career when he was living and playing in Chicago. I've referenced the boxed set in the playlist below as a suggested alternative to an unrecorded version of "New Orleans Blues" played by Annie and Tom McDermott during the episode.
If Morton was the granddaddy of New Orleans piano music, the late Professor Longhair (aka Henry Roeland Byrd, or Fess to his fellow musicians) must have been at least its godfather. Indeed, he's probably the pianist most closely associated with New Orleans music during the second half of the 20th century and Mardi Gras music in particular. During the episode, we see the usually irreverent Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) solemnly trying to teach Sofia Bernette (India Ennenga) to play "Tipitina," one of Longhair's most famous songs. Davis also tries to imbue his young student with the proper amount of respect for the Professor, whom he considers a music god.
Another note of interest to Chicagoans: in 1980, Professor Longhair appeared on PBS's Soundstage (a production of WTTW-Chicago) with Dr. John, The Meters, and blues guitarist Earl King, yet another son of New Orleans. That's one show I'd love to see rebroadcast, or at least released on DVD. Shortly after that program, Longhair was in the middle of filming the documentary Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together when he died of a heart attack in his sleep. The film is available on DVD from Louisiana Music Factory. Joining the Professor in that film were two other New Orleans pianists, Allen Toussaint and the late Tuts Washington. Some of Washington's music is heard in later episodes.
The late James Booker is the one whom Dr. John and Harry Connick, Jr. consider the greatest New Orleans pianist of their generation (well, Mac's generation, anyway). Connick was a student of his and considers Booker an important influence. Booker was classically trained and considered a young virtuoso, but he was already being influenced by Tuts Washington early on. At the age of 19, Booker was introduced to and played for the great classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein when the latter came to New Orleans for a concert; Rubinstein was duly impressed and amazed at the speed at which Booker played some of his offerings, remarking that he himself could never play at that tempo. By that time, Booker had already done some session work in the studio with Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, and Lloyd Price.
Booker's rendition of the jazz standard and ballad "Angel Eyes" is heard during a scene in Clancy's restaurant. It's from Classified, the last album that Booker recorded. He died in late 1983, just shy of his 44th birthday. To date, he has more albums that have been released posthumously than he did while he was alive.
Here's the episode's playlist, with the tracks in their order of appearance:
- Tremé Song – John Boutté from the album Jambalaya
- Lake Charles – Lucinda Williams from the album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
- Think Deep – Coleman Hawkins form the album The Hawk Flies High
- unrecorded version of La Vie En Rose performed during the episode by Annie and Sonny (Lucia Micarelli and Michiel Huisman)
[suggestion: ballad duo version by Ingrid Lucia on the album St. Valentine’s Day Massacre] - unrecorded version of Toulouse Street Blues played by Annie, Sonny (Lucia Micarelli, Michiel Huisman) and The Black Dogs
[suggestion: version by The Black Dogs on the album Black Dogs on Bourbon, Amazon and CD Baby only] - Right Place, Wrong Time – Dr. John from the album In The Right Place
- My Indian Red – Dr. John from the album Goin’ Back To New Orleans
- Dog Days – Leigh 'Li’l Queenie' Harris from the album Polychrome Junction
- recently recorded version of (I Don't Stand) A Ghost Of A Chance With You performed by Annie, Sonny, and Antoine Batiste (Lucia Micarelli, Michiel Huisman, and Wendell Pierce) from the Treme Season 1 soundtrack album
- Funky Liza – New Orleans Nightcrawlers from the album Mardi Gras In New Orleans
- Ace In The Hole – The Radiators from the album Dreaming Out Loud
- A Certain Girl – Ernie K-Doe from the album Ernie K-Doe – Selected Hits, Vol. 1
- unrecorded version of King Porter Stomp by Lucia Micarelli and Tom McDermott
[suggestion: version by Tom McDermott and Connie Jones on the album Creole Nocturne or the version by Jelly Roll Morton on the album The Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax] - Angel Eyes – James Booker from the album Classified
- recently recorded version of New Orleans Blues by Lucia Micarelli and Tom McDermott from the Treme Season 1 soundtrack album
- unrecorded version of Tipitina performed by Davis McAlary and Sofia Bernette during the episode
[suggestion: live version by Professor Longhair on the album The London Concert] - unrecorded version of Hey Pocky Way chant by various Mardi Gras Indians during the episode
[suggestion: Donald Harrison and Dr. John version of Two-Way Pocky Way from the album Indian Blues] - Indian Red – Donald Harrison with Dr. John from the album Indian Blues
As always, your comments on any of these are most welcome.
Next: Doc film 4U: New Orleans Music In Exile, episode break
