Posted in "St. James Infirmary", New Orleans on April 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Whether you’re in town for the Fest, or the Stomp, or because, you know, you live there, I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Offbeat and check out something they asked me to write. To wit:
Rob Walker presents his liner notes to an imaginary compilation of versions of the New Orleans classic, ìSt. James [...]
Posted in Musical context, New Orleans on April 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The NYT, if you didn’t see it, had what I thought was a pretty good article about “Louisiana 1927,” the Randy Newman song that has a kind of second meaning now, post-Katrina. I almost wrote something about that song on this site once, and maybe I’ll dig up my draft and try to revive it [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, New Orleans on April 17, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I’m pretty late with this news, but those of you who follow things in New Orleans are no doubt aware that Al Copeland passed away recently.
He died of a malignant salivary gland tumor, near Munich German; he was 64. The Times obit failed to explain what he was doing in Germany, but it did provide [...]
Posted in Friends, New Orleans on March 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Our estimable pal Jed Horne has this piece about the “new” New Orleans, and the challenges ahead. It’s a very clear-eyed overview, and worth a read if you’re intersted in the future of the 504.
Posted in Musical context, New Orleans on March 20, 2008 | No Comments »
Irvin Mayfield’s latest venture: “A multimillion-dollar library system that reflects the city’s identity. It would start with a jazz-themed branch housing early recordings and reviews.”
I’d visit!
Posted in New Orleans, Other Music + on March 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I’ve been very delinquent here, too much else going on lately. But please enjoy this Trombone Shorty overview/roundup on the very fine site NolaFunk NYC. Music, video, links — it’s all there.
One more thing: Trombone Shorty at SXSW, reviewed.
(Earlier post on Trombone Shorty’s version of SJI is here.)
Posted in Letters From New Orleans book, New Orleans, Non-musical context on February 15, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Every city has its dive bars. Sometimes those bars have a reputation for being a bit dangerous, a bit of a risk. We all know these places; we’ve all been to them. The vague sense of edginess is part of the appeal.
Back when we lived in New Orleans, we had quite a number of such [...]
Posted in Musical context, New Orleans on February 7, 2008 | No Comments »
I just recently mentioned the Trombone Shorty version of “SJI,” so I thought I’d pass along this: A recent NPR piece on Trombone Shorty. No mention of “SJI,” sadly, but interesting comments from writer Larry Blumenfeld, pillar of the N.O. music community Bob French, and Trombone Shorty’s brother James Andrews (also a pillar of the [...]
Posted in Musical context, New Orleans on February 6, 2008 | No Comments »
By way of WFMU’s Beware of The Blog, I came to this online exhibit by the Tulane University Hogan Jazz Archive. The subject is Riverboat Jazz, and it’s pretty interesting.
It’s sort of set up like a slideshow, and doesn’t take all that long (20 minutes?) to read through, so I recommend taking a peek. But [...]
Posted in New Orleans, Other Music + on February 3, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The always amazing Home of the Groove has a particularly choice cut for you to give a listen to for Carnival season: Go here, and scroll down to “Shot Gun Joe,” by Ernest Skipper with Flag & The Boys. Mixing brass and Indian music and some guitar funk flourish (and maybe, to my ears, a [...]
[Or: The Point of this Site]
A couple of years ago I did some research into the song "St. James Infirmary," wrote up what I found, emailed that essay to friends and posted it on my web site (as part of a series of "Letters From New Orleans," as I was living in that city at the time). Based on the feedback, I wrote a second version of the essay, and asked for more feedback. Based on that, I wrote a third version.
And now, this site: A place to collect some of the links, leads, thoughts, and suggestions relating to the song that readers (from Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, Spain, England, Sweden, Canada, and all over the U.S.) have sent me. This may lead to a fourth and significantly expanded version of the essay, some day. Also on this site: Plenty of tangents.
Never heard "St. James Infirmary"? Start here.
The most recent version of my "St. James Infirmary" essay is now a few years old. But it's still a fairly decent overview of what I know about the song, and why I'm interested in it. You can read it either in the book Letters from New Orleans (see below), or in the archives of The Gambit, the New Orleans weekly that published the piece as a book excerpt when LfNO came out.
This site is a partial spinoff of the book Letters from New Orleans, published by the unstoppable Garrett County Press. My interest in "St. James Infirmary" is the subject of one essay in the book. All author proceeds from the book still go to post-Katrina relief efforts, so I think it's okay for me to say: You ought to buy it.
