Music Finds You in New Orleans
Miss Sophie Lee at the Spotted Cat, New Orleans, pre-pandemic
It's been a very long time since I last posted here. I've been busy on the air, writing for wrti.org, and, like all of us, dealing with the unbelievable tragedy and difficulty of the pandemic.
But now, I'd love to do some occasional blogging about music and life again, right here on my website. To get back to it, here's something I penned about the great music city of New Orleans, long before anyone heard the word COVID-19.
Hope you enjoy!
Music finds you even when you're not looking for it in New Orleans. My husband Tom and I decided to spend a few days in New Orleans before heading to my niece's graduation further north in Louisiana. We hadn't been to the Crescent City since before Hurricane Katrina, and we went without much of a plan, except to find a beignet and keep our ears open.
The first thing you've got to admire, upon arriving in New Orleans, is that they've named their airport after a musician, not a government figure. After all, what feat of statesmanship could spread more good will than Satchmo's smile and trumpet? Walking toward baggage claim in Louis Armstrong International, we enjoyed the recorded modern jazz, a smart touch in keeping with the airport's namesake. Our cabbie, who seemed about 70, assured us he was "too old" to listen to jazz, though he was playing it on the radio. A quick ride brought us to the French Quarter, where live music greeted us on every block. Lone cornettists and singing guitarists, five-piece jazz bands of astonishing refinement, deafening brass and percussion ensembles -- all these musicians offered their gifts for a few dollars dropped into an open instrument case, a little applause and appreciative ears.
Our one concession to planning had been to take the advice of our friend Mignon, a native, who had suggested we buy tickets online to Preservation Hall. We'd nabbed 2nd row "Big Shot" seats to a ten o'clock show on Wednesday night. This gave us a spot to the left of the fabled door on St. Peter Street, where we could hear a lot of cheering and clapping through the walls. "We don't sell drinks inside, but feel free to buy a drink somewhere else and bring it to the show," said a young woman with a clipboard who was managing the lines. Duly prompted, Tom purchased a Guinness from the Irish bar across the street, and I rounded the corner to Bourbon Street for a frozen margarita in a styrofoam cup. A few minutes before ten, the audience from the nine o'clock show came wafting out the doors of Preservation Hall, smiling as if they'd all taken happy pills.
Preservation Hall is no big concert venue, but a dimly lit, purposefully rustic space the square footage of a one-room schoolhouse, with hard plank benches and a few floor cushions for "Big Shots." Everybody else stands at the back. The audience assembled quickly, and the Preservation Hall jazz band, which numbered six that night, filed in with their horns. Dressed in black pants and jackets, white shirts, ties, they started to play "Come With Me (to New Orleans,)" and big shots and little shots all around the room started to sway and clap. The teenage girl in front of us started weeping. The musical banter between clarinetist Charlie Daniel and trombonist Frank Demond made everyone laugh. Pianist Rickie Monie projected a velvet tone from the purposefully out-of-tune upright in the corner, whose front was removed to reveal the piano's action. After the one-hour set, the final one of the evening, the band seemed as joyful as the audience. They posed for pictures and clasped our hands in theirs.
In the foyer, the cash register rang constantly, as fans bought albums, T-shirts, and paraphernalia.
The concept of the hall is ingenious, and the marketing professional, but neither could happen, set after set, unless the music were authentic and plain old good.
Our Thursday lunch reservation at the turquoise Commander's Palace in the Garden District promised culinary creations and 25 cent martinis, but no live music except the sound of birds above the outdoor patio. However, one of our attentive waiters, Jordan Gonzalez, told us he was a guitarist, and had recently graduated from Tulane University.
"I'm also studying for the LSAT," he mentioned, "but I play almost every night with different bands on Frenchman Street."
That night he would be at Café Negril, from 6-9. We promised we'd try to catch his show.
Despite the sedation caused by 25-cent martinis, we managed to rise from our naps at 5:45 p.m. and walk briskly from Conti Street to Frenchman in the Marigny District. Jordan's band was still setting up, so we wandered across the street to The Spotted Cat, where we could see a throng gathered through the open door. We snuck in, ordered our requisite bottle of beer and bottle of cider, and listened to Miss Sophie Lee, a chanteuse with a keen delivery and regal presence. Her high cheekbones, coffee-and-cream complexion, delicate polka-dotted dress and red hibiscus in her hair, evoked the style of Lady Day. Trumpeter Dave Boswell and pianist Bart Ramsay, in Birkenstocks, at an upright Mason and Hamlin, swung their Trad jazz tunes so infectiously that a couple got up and danced song after song, with quick, precision steps that the rest of us could only admire. After each song, the gentleman whipped out his wallet and dropped a dollar into the tin tip pail. "Thanks for dancing," Miss Sophie Lee said softly.
At the end of her set, she made the rounds with that same tip pail and her CD's; we bought one and thanked her. I had to applaud her pluck; I hoped she was making a living. We would have stayed through the end of her show, but it was time to get back to Café Negril. The rock soul band Jordan was subbing in with was playing full out by now. His shredding was fiery and brilliant, and did much to elevate the rest of the crew. I thought he deserved more of a showcase, but amiable guy that he seemed to be, he was equally fine playing rhythm guitar. He was on his way back home to Atlanta to visit his mom for Mother's Day, he told us, early the next morning.
9:30 p.m. found us two doors down, in front of The Three Muses, where we could hear energetic gypsy jazz through the tall, shut door. The harried host at the entrance informed us that no table inside would be free for another half-hour, but he offered, "You may stand at the bar." We agreed, and he opened the door a crack to admit us, as if we were entering a speakeasy. Inside, the burnished walls, high tin ceiling, glimmering bottles in front of the mirrored bar, and tantalizing aromas reminded us of a Paris bistro. On a small platform in front of the window of the restaurant, the Ben Fox trio, headed up by a biting, precise fiddle player self-styled as "Dr. Sick" and a lovely guitarist/singer named Amalie -- hair tucked up in a beret, and wearing mismatched striped socks and loafers, captured her audience.
We chatted up the bartender, who managed to sound convivial despite shaking complicated signature cocktails, two at a time. (The Muse, with infused cucumber, was particularly fine.)
"This is a lovely place," I said. "And we just heard a wonderful singer across the street, Miss Sophie Lee."
He looked at us. "She owns this place."
Digesting this information and feeling glad that Miss Lee did not have to rely solely on her tip jar, we ordered from the small plates menu, which included, to my surprise, a "Mrs. Moon's bulgogi rice bowl with house-made kimchi." Growing up Korean-American, I had eaten bulgogi with my family on special occasions.
Later, walking back from the ladies' room, I saw, among the framed pictures decorating the walls, a photo of an Asian woman with a 70's, feathered hairstyle.
Back at the bar, I asked our talented mixologist, "Is Miss Sophie Lee by any chance part Korean?"
"Yes," he said. "Mrs. Moon is her late mother."
I felt a proud kinship with hardworking Miss Sophie Lee who shared, at least partially, my forebears' nationality. She didn't sing in her own restaurant, the bartender said, because she didn't want to take advantage of the place.
The Three Muses was closing down for the night, so we made our way down Decatur Street, where a pick-up truck camper, festooned with miniature lights, was wedged in tight along the row of parked cars. The camper's side had been sawed away and replaced by folding plywood doors that opened to reveal -- yes, an upright piano at which a young woman was serenading the crowd, including a bachelorette party, that had gathered to listen. Her bared shoulders and back were toward us; she was concentrating on the music.
It wasn't a storied venue, jazz café or street band, but something in between and even more imaginative -- a pianist's own portable Preservation Hall.
We ended our evening around midnight with crisp beignets and hot chocolate served by indefatigable Vietnamese waiters, at Cafe du Monde. Just beyond, in the darkness, the mighty Mississippi River flowed -- steady and incessant as musicians' dreams.