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1Vol. II, issue 3

Vol II issue 3

THE EYES OF JAZZFEST

2 NEW ORLEANS BEAT STREET MAGAZINE 3Vol. II, issue 3

There is a place in New Orleans, a fi gurative address that is home to all that is real.

New Orleans Beat Street is the home of jazz. It is also the residence of funk and the blues; R&B and rock ‘n’ roll live here, too. When zydeco and Cajun music come to town, Beat Street is their local address.

Beat Street has intersections all over town: from Uptown to Treme, from the Ninth Ward to the French Quarter, from Bywater to the Irish Channel, weaving its way through Mid-City and all points Back o’ Town.

Beat Street is the Main Street in our musical village. It is where we gather to dine and to groove to live music in settings both upscale and downhome.

Beat Street is where we meet to celebrate life in New Orleans with second line parades, festivals and concerts in the park.

Beat Street is lined with music clubs, restaurants, art galleries, recording studios, clothing shops, coff ee emporiums and so much more.

New Orleans Beat Street is a mythical street in New Orleans surrounded by water and fl ooded with music.

Where is Beat Street?

PublisherStephen Novak

EditorJay Mazza

Account ExecutiveKatie SmithArt Director

Andy SchulzPhoto Editor

Bob ComptonCover Art

Mike Williamson

WritersWarren America

Karl BremerJerry BrockRobyn LodaJay Mazza

Spike PerkinsRob RudnerJoan Wade

Beat Street LogoMike Williamson

8403 Willow StreetNew Orleans, La. 70118

[email protected]

Photo Michael P. Smith


In This Issue...We celebrate Jazz Fest with a look at the gospel music traditions and photographer Michael P. Smith! Jerry Brock talks about the greatest gospel singer ever and discusses essential gospel recordings. Joan Wade, Robert Rudner and Robyn Loda discuss the local gospel scene. Spike Perkins explores other Christian musical traditions and takes a closer look at Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers.

Turning our attention to Michael P. Smith, Jazz Fest’s official “unofficial” photographer- Karl Bremer reflects on his legacy. Jerry Brock looks back on his friendship with the man and Spike Perkins explores the details of the award-winning photographer’s life.

Finally, in celebration of 10 years of South African Independence, Jay Mazza looks at the long history of music in that country.

Mahalia Jackson: The World’s Greatest Gospel SingerJerry Brock 6

The Birth of Cool Gospel with Jo ‘Cool’ DavisRobyn Loda 12

Classical Music In New Orleans Churches Spike Perkins 16

QuartetsPictorial 20

Mama Rebirth: Gospel Is Where it All BeganJoan M. Wade 22

Marva Wright’s Amazing JourneyRobert V. Rudner 24

New Orleans Gospel TodayJerry Brock 28

Who Is Daddy Cotton?Joan M. Wade 36

Essential New Orleans Gospel Recordings Jerry Brock 38

A Photographer’s PhotographerKarl Bremer 40

Michael P. Smith - A Musician’s PerspectiveSpike Perkins 44

Michael P. & MeJerry Brock 50

Michael P. Smith: 40 years documenting New OrleansPictorial 52

Steeped in Lasting Rapture- the Music of South AfricaJay Mazza 55

MP3 ConfidentialWarren America 58

contents

Photo Michael P. Smith


Mahalia Jackson’s “joyful noise” touched millions the world over. Growing up in repressed and poor conditions she spread hope and praise to people in need for decades.

Over the past century New Orleanians have been at the forefront of American music. Louis Armstrong the King of jazz; Fats Domino King of rock and roll; CBS Records simply called Mahalia “The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer.” Truth is, they were more than that. They were leaders in race relations in the U.S.

Mahalia Jackson was born in New Orleans on October 26, 1912. On the bank of the Mississippi on Waterfront Street at the uptown bend in the river. One block off River Road at Audubon Park, just past the corner of Constance and Leake, towards the railroad tracks built when she was young.

To many Bill Russell was the lanky white hair man at Preservation Hall, To some he was an intellectual artistic giant. Mahalia and Bill met in Chicago circa 1944 and became close in 54. For two years he worked as her unoffi cial and unpaid personal assistant. They remained friends for life.

The following draws quotes in part from the Bill Russell Collection of “Mahalia Jackson Papers” at the Williams Research Center.

Mahalia knew poor but she also knew love and respect, was taught religion and picked up singing. She was the third of 6 children. Her father was Johnny Jackson, longshoreman, barber, and on Sunday’s a clergyman. Her mother passed away when Mahalia was 6 and Aunt Duke took her in. They lived at 7465 Pitt Street.

She brought her to Plymouth Rock Missionary Baptist Church. Here she began to sing in the church. Mahalia

told Bill “a fi shmonger taught me one of my fi rst hymns ‘Oh Pal, Oh God.’ Not yet 10 she became a soloist in the choir at Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church on Milaudon.

This church has a long history of Civil Rights activities. At an early age Mahalia became active in the cause for equal rights and justice.

Mount Moriah held an annual parade with brass band from c. 1890 to 1987. Pastor S. L. Harvey was President of the Southern Christian Leadership Council in the 60s and worked with King and other leaders. In 1985 he explained, “The parade is an opportunity so that the church can go out and see the community and in turn so that the people of the community can see the people of the church.”

She attended McDonogh #24 public school on Adams St. near Dominican. Her neighborhood was full of life and music but not money. At 13 she left school in eighth grade and went to work as a washerwoman and cook.

Aunt Duke was a very religious woman and didn’t allow Mahalia to listen to secular music. “All around me in New Orleans were the deep moving hymns – the swelling, rocking spiritual and gospel songs. I loved the hymns and gospel songs but I disobeyed my parents and listened to the blues, the sorrow songs of my people. I heard the rich throbbing voices of Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith”

“There was other music – the haunting rhythms of the work songs chanted by the Negro men as they sweated and strained, laying the railroad ties … the wail of the blues, church music all got mixed up together in my brain” Mahalia wrote in 1954.

In 1928 at 16 Mahalia moved to Chicago to live with another aunt and

Mahalia JacksonThe World’s Greatest Gospel SingerBy Jerry Brock Photos courtesy Bill Russell and Historic New Orleans Collection.

8 NEW ORLEANS BEAT STREET MAGAZINE 9Vol. II, issue 3 Photo / Michael P. Smith

worked in hotels, laundries and private homes. “There was no money for lessons and I saved to buy phonograph records of Grace Moore, Mariam Anderson and Paul Robeson. From

them I learned diction and breathing. I learned style by listening to Bessie Smith’s records. She always meant the most to me,” Mahalia said.

She sang in the Salem Baptist Church Choir, joined the Johnson Gospel Singers and then traveled with Prof. Thomas Dorsey’s Choir performing in what she described as “Storefront Churches.” She performed at tent revivals with Rev. A. A. Childs and with Rev. J. C. Austin and Rev. Seal of the Pilgrim Baptist Church she sang at services, jails, reform schools and hospitals.

It is hard to imagine today but Mahalia and her contemporaries were criticized in the church for adding bounce to the music. Bounce is the term used by rappers today to define the New Orleans sound. Bounce was the word Mahalia used to describe her style of gospel.

In 1954 Mahalia explained, “Not everyone knows of the bitter fight it took to win that acceptance. When I was a teenage girl I sang in Chicago churches literally for my supper. To earn five dollars was to be very successful. I sang on the street corner of cities all over the world, sang the gospel music written by such wonderful composers as Prof. Thomas Dorsey.”

“We were pioneering then, Professor Dorsey and I and everyone else who was singing the then ‘new’ gospel music. We were lonely because the great Baptist connection to which we belonged frowned on our style of singing. Gospel music – the way we sang it – was the same old church music, but with a little bounce. Sunday after Sunday, the finest preachers in the connection railed and stormed at us from their pulpits, accusing us of bringing jazz into the church.”

In 1934 she traveled to New York with Elder Brodie for a ten-day revival at the Golden Gate Theatre. This led to her contract with Apollo records. She received $25.00 to make her first record “God’s Gonna Separate the Wheat From the Tares.” By 1951 her recording of “Move On Up A Little Higher” sold over two million copies. “It was a song I sing that really launched me with the public.”

“Who would have thought that a little barefooted girl from Louisiana who played ball along the levee by the Mississippi River would someday stand on the stage at Carnegie Hall with it’s thunderous ovation from an

appreciative audience sounding and resounding in her ear in the concert hall of the world, Carnegie Hall” she said.

By the late 1940s her popularity was immense. In 1948 she performed for

21,000 at the Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta, GA. In Dayton, Ohio over 50,000 people lined the streets to welcome Mahalia Jackson.

On October 4, 1950 she packed the house at Carnegie Hall. When she returned on October 7, 1951 they put 300 chairs on the stage to accommodate the crowd. Over 3,500 people were turned away at the door. Busloads of people coming from Massachusetts were turned away by the state police.

In 1954 she signed with Columbia Records. A letter from George Avakian to Russell stated, “For Mahalia’s first album, I told her she should record what she wants to record. That, she said would be a collection of true gospel songs. I think she should begin preparing a group of them (about 36 minutes of music in all) for a 12” Lp.”

Her Columbia albums are “Mahalia Jackson,” “Bless This House,” “I Believe,” and “Newport 1958.” In 1955 she also recorded a Christmas album titled “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

“They’re not spirituals because they don’t have the tradition of slavery

behind them. But they express another kind of slavery from which we want to escape’” she told Russell.

Mahalia worked hard for people’s rights and to offer hope and relieve suffering. In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr. asked her to sing prior to his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. At his request she sang “Buked and Scorned.”

“I been buked and I been scorned / I’m going to tell my Lord / When I get home / Just how long you’ve been treating me wrong.”

Mahalia sang at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. She sang at prisons, children’s homes, hospitals and for “dope fiends.” Harry Belafonte said of her “the single most powerful black women in the United States, the woman power for the grass roots.” He said that there was not “a single field hand, a single black worker, a single black intellectual who did not respond to her civil rights message.”

For several months in 1955 Russell documented Mahalia’s daily professional life in a journal. In some he went into great detail. Every couple of weeks the only entry would be “Gumbo Dinner,” evidently an important event.

In 1955 she performed weekly on the TV program “In Town Tonight” on channel 2 WBBM TV in Chicago. She had a weekly half-hour radio program broadcast on CBS Radio.

April 1, 1955 Russell wrote, “I got to Mahalia about 6:45 and asked at once if Mahalia was to be on TV at 10:15 (In Town Tonight) but she wasn’t. They had wanted her for the program but she’d told them she couldn’t take it because of the concert [in East Chicago] previously scheduled. When she saw the ad in the morning paper

Visiting New Orleans, 1960

She performed at tent revivals here with Reverend A. A. Childs, at the corner of 3rd and Giles, in Chicago

New Orleans; 1714 Joliet Street, 1960


India and Europe. In India she sang to a large audience that included Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to whom she dedicated, “We Shall Overcome.”

On January 27, 1972 Mahalia died of a heart seizure at the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, Illinois.

President Nixon in a White House statement said, “America and the

world, black people and all people mourn the passing of Mahalia Jackson. She was a noble woman, an artist without peer, a magnetic ambassador of goodwill for the United States in other lands, an exemplary servant of her God.”

“All her years she poured out her soul in song and her heart in service to her people. Millions of ears will miss the sound of the great rich voice ‘making a joyful noise unto the Lord,’ as she liked to call her work – yet her life story itself

sings the Gospel message of freedom, and will not cease to do so.”

Mrs. Coretta King said “the causes of justice, freedom and brotherhood have lost a real champion whose dedication and commitment knew no midnight.”

Mahalia was laid to rest at Providence Memorial Park cemetery following a hugely attended service in Chicago and an enormous funeral service in New Orleans. At her death her estate was valued at 4 million dollars.

“Gospel singing is the only thing that expresses the soul of an individual and his hopes, dreams, and faith in God. No if’s, and’s, or buts about it, I believe in what I sing. My faith in God and my songs are the only thing that have helped me.”

“People should come out of a gospel concert uplifted. All people need their souls fed. There are plenty of people around who can entertain and make people have fun. That’s not for me. I’m not trying to be a Sarah Vaughan.

I’m a gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson.”

A National Historical Marker should be placed at the spot Mahalia Jackson was born. Accessibility is there and it is close to the zoo. School children could visit it on field trips to see the place where that little barefoot girl played ball along the levee, an important place in American history.

she called up Lewellyn to ask why he hadn’t made it clear that she couldn’t be there.”

“Wills Jones, Ralph, Mildred and Princess were at Mahalia’s when I got there. They were interested in Rev. J. H. Jackon’s TV interview at 7 on a news broadcast in which he told about his invitation to speak in Russia. (Evidently he had accepted). Mahalia said from now [on] everybody (in U.S.) is going to watch him, to see if he is a communist etc.”

“Mahalia had Ralph drive over on Route 41 (after going through Washington Park. When they went past Billings Hospital … both Mahalia and Wills talked a lot about it, and faith healing,

especially by a Rev. (Freeman) I believe, whose brother is a good doctor. Wills told of remarkable cures of crippled children etc.”

“She said she’d made that trip so many times the last 28 years and got to

talking about the 5 cent and 10 cent concerts. Some friend from Buffalo (probably Mrs. Pratt) had recently found some 5 cent tickets and if Mahalia ever gets on ‘This Is Your Life’ she wants that woman on just to prove that she really did give 5 cent concerts.”

In 1964 she began to experience health problems but wouldn’t slow down. She performed in almost every major city in Europe. In 1971 she toured Japan,

Birthplace of Mahalia Jackson


Jo “Cool” Davis makes no apologies for his name, his god, his music. It’s all-powerful and all-cool.

“‘Cool’ is very powerful,” he says from a comfy brown armchair in his Central City apartment living room. His bright yellow T-shirt reiterates this in big, black letters: “Jo * Cool”. “It’s a hard name for most people to handle. People hear it and expect Big Al Carson or Isaac Hayes, but mine is a smooth sound.”

A smooth N’awlins sound, he means. Born and raised here, Davis is well aware that his brand of gospel is a direct product of this culture. But his work was never simply about the status quo.

During Davis’ childhood, the gospel apocalypse raging within the church finally smoldered to an end in the late 1950s. “The church really only had songs that were anthems and hymns before. It strongly resisted gospel,” he explains. “I was always an artist, not a gospel singer per se, but the church did have a huge impact on me. I always wanted gospel respected as music, not just as church music.”

Fortunately, Davis came up through New Covenant Baptist Church led by Rev. Louis Landem. Soon he encountered an angel in Clara Ward. “Rev. Landem was a musician like Chicago’s Rev. Thomas Dorsey, who was the grandfather of gospel but is rarely

ever mentioned. Rev. Landem also came out of one of the best gospel choirs. Then when Lawrence Welk pioneered gospel music on his show with Clara Ward and the Ward Singers, it was incredible. They were taking gospel to a whole new place. It was a surprise that Lawrence Welk would have gospel on there in the first place, but he ended up featuring Clara as a guest fairly regularly. He also had (Sister) Rosetta Tharpe on there, who was out of New Orleans, but she was doing more traditional, commercial gospel, not going in that new direction.”

Davis believes that the genre speaks to something deep, particularly for Southerners, and particularly for male singers in the South. “Being a Southern boy meant going to church and hearing gospel,” he

The Birth of Cool Gospel with Jo ‘Cool’ DavisBy Robyn Loda

says. “Even Elvis wanted to be a gospel singer.”

Other male singers he cites include Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Al Green, Smokey Robinson, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Jerry Butler. All were important influences on Davis. “I’ve been compared to Sam Cooke,” he says with a big smile. He pays homage to this icon on his most recent release, 40 Years of Gospel Plus a Tribute to Sam Cooke, released in 2003 on his own record label, Jo Cool Davis Productions.

If Clara Ward opened Davis’ eyes, his congregation organist Mildred Lyons, who is now 80, taught him to see. “She worked with me and helped me so much,” he says. “I was nine when I started singing. I started incorporating that new direction and began recording at age 16. I had always dreamed of becoming a recording artist.”

Davis remembers being popular as a kid singing gospel. His first recording, “I’m Happy with Jesus Alone”, included the late, great New Orleans pianist Ophelia Bloson of the Guiding Light Baptist Church. “She was great. And Dr. Daddy-O pushed my record on WYLD.”

While his family and friends were proud of his talent, Davis had to quietly rail against their belief that if a singer wasn’t a huge commercial success, there was no success at all. But Davis says he’s always made his money through gospel and is proud

of his career. He traveled regionally and sang with Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers and later Harold Lewis and the Rocks of Harmony. “We’d go to little country towns and sing in the black churches,” he remembers. “We were well received. Of course, there were few integrated audiences until the 1980s.”

In 1980, when Davis was 27, the then-manager of Tipitina’s Nick Tryvacosta told him he needed a doorman and hired him on the spot. When an opening act for the Neville Brothers cancelled one night, Davis offered to replace them. “I saw the opportunity and I had to take it,” he says. “With me that night were the late Sammy Berfect on organ; Oliver Corney on bass; Gable Watkins on piano; and Paula (Rangell) of Paula and the Pontiacs on sax. It was incredible.”

His career at Tip’s has endured for 21 years, making Davis its longest-running employee. “Working at Tip’s gave me an informal yet important education in music that’s been invaluable,” he explains. While he still handles security, he also emcees there…except on Saturday nights. He’s been hosting the House of Blues’ Sunday Gospel Brunch each week with Paulette Wright since the venue opened in 1995. Davis is also a regular at the Gospel Tent during Jazz Fest.

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every time he takes the stage. “God is always there. Always. I feel him when I sing. He gave me this voice. Only him. When I sing, it’s like an offering to him, every time. But he’s always there. And he’s real. God is very real, all around us, all the time.”

Given this kind of faith, it’s no wonder Davis is proud to have always made his living through gospel. “I’ve always made my money this way, and it’s my money, to do what I want with it. That feels great. A lot of people dropped out of gospel because they feared there would be no living in it. It’s a business.”

Davis has a special relationship with Tipitina’s, which he considers to have been a sorely needed neutral ground between blacks and whites during integration. “It was the only music club where gospel could have come out of the churches in New Orleans because it was always about the local music. Sonny, who used to book Tip’s, is from here. He got it.”

Acting as a confluence between otherwise seemingly disparate music genres is a hallmark for Davis, who has opened for such unlikely stage partners as Fugazi and Cowboy Mouth. He has also sat in with numerous acts including the Radiators.

Equally important for him, though, is passing on the hard-won business knowledge that can help younger New Orleans artists help themselves. “I’ve had a number of rappers come and ask how to promote themselves actually, not gospel singers, but, like gospel was before, rap has been a new, emerging art form,” he explains. “These young people thought you needed a million dollars to record, but not at all, especially these days. I’ve helped them understand how to produce their own records and even have their own recording companies.”

He’s also big on helping the gospel community in New Orleans host events each year, as well as mentoring kids through library programs.

So he’s big, strong, kind, perseverant, savvy and has a voice that’s clearly a blessing. But why “Cool”? “I had a group that included three members of the Bates family in 1970 called Cool Enterprise,” he reveals, “and they dubbed me ‘Jo Cool’. It stuck, and like I said, ‘Cool’ is powerful. You’ve got to have what it takes to do this gospel.”

Robyn Loda is a freelance writer living in New Orleans for the second time and loving it. She is a regular contributor to Beat Street. Contact her at [email protected].


Not so long ago, in many mainstream church denominations, most of the music heard in church was classical. For those who experienced it growing up, there was something about the beauty and power of that music that made a connection to a cultural tradition that may have lasted long after they might have begun to question the doctrines of the church itself.

Services usually began and ended with an instrumental organ piece. Choirs often sang anthems from the cantatas of Bach or the oratorios of Handel and Mendelsohn. In the Episcopal Church, one musical setting of the communion service was by Healey Willan, an English-born musician who emigrated to Canada and became one of that country’s most celebrated 20th century composers. Many of the hymns were arranged by Ralph Vaughn Williams, an English composer of the early 20th

century who combined the medieval modality of early choral music with the lyricism of English romantics like Elgar.

If you think classical music has little to do with the culture of New Orleans, think again. New Orleans-born Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a celebrated concert pianist of the mid-19th century, was one of the fi rst Americans to publish classical compositions, some of which were based on Creole dances. Wynton Marsalis has won Grammys for his classical recordings, as well as being one to the best-known jazz musicians of his generation. The late Moses Hogan, a black man from New Orleans, began his career as a concert pianist, but in later years returned to his roots and was known for writing and performing choral arrangements of traditional spirituals. Our resident orchestra, the Louisiana Philharmonic, is the only musician-owned symphony orchestra in the United States.

In this day and age, with many other styles of religious music in vogue, and churches seemingly willing to try any gimmick to get people in the door, one might wonder about the state of the classical church music tradition. Here are some local church musicians and their perspectives:

Elise Cambon

At age 87, Elise Cambon is the grande dame of classical church music in New Orleans. She began playing the organ at St. Louis Cathedral in 1940, and just retired from the post of music director in 2002. Cambon came from a well-to-do family that owned plantations in the Houma area, and her father also held a position in the customs offi ce. Cultured and traditional, the Cambons made a point of speaking only French at home. In the early 1920s

Classical Music In New Orleans Churches By Spike Perkins

her father was appointed as an attaché to the American Embassy in France, and he moved the family to Paris. There young Elise was given piano lessons, and proved an unusually talented student, sometimes learning whole pieces by ear after a single hearing.

The family moved back to New Orleans after a few years, and their fi nances were devastated by the stock market crash of 1929. However, the discovery of oil on their land around Houma provided the income for Cambon and her sisters to go to college, and she enrolled at Newcomb.

Elise Cambon continued her music studies, and as a member of a devout Catholic family, had occasional opportunities to play the organ at the Cathedral. In 1940, the late Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel heard her playing the fl ashy toccata by Charles-Marie Widor, and took her under his wing. According to Cambon, “he loved me like a daughter.” She was given a position, and in 1950, was sponsored to return to France and study with the Benedictine monks at Solemes,

outside of Paris. Cambon continued to study music in the summers, and eventually earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate from Tulane.

In the years before Vatican II, the masses at St. Louis Cathedral were conducted by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a holy order. The music, provided by the choir from the Cathedral school, was mostly Gregorian chants sung in Latin.

After Vatican II, the masses were in English, the Oblates were replaced by secular priests, and Elise Cambon was

given more responsibility and creative latitude. She now had an adult choir to direct, with a full range of voices, and had the opportunity to perform the great masses of Bach and Mozart, as well as sacred works by other composers in the classical canon.

Over the years, Cambon and her choir performed works ranging from early composers like Palestrina to late romantics like Bruckner. At the age of 85, she was


gently asked to step down, reminded by the priests that even archbishops are required to retire at 75. Ever the faithful servant of the church, she relinquished her post.

Jack Hutton

Jack Hutton sees classical church music as somewhat endangered by new trends in worship. He says, “When you get churches that no longer use hymnals, but put the words up on a screen in front of the church for people to read, you know something is going on.” For 38 years, he has led the music program at Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church, as both organist and choir director. Recently, vision problems have forced him to give up playing the organ, but he still directs the choir. Despite his traditional stance,

he has made it a point to include music by contemporary composers, saying, “I don’t want this to just be a history lesson.” He has performed works by the relatively well-known Randall Thompson and Alan Hovhaness, and also, a number of more obscure composers, many born since the 1940s—Heinz Werner Zimmerman, Joel Martinson, Gerald Near, and Bob Chilcott, to name a few.

Hutton is also open to other genres of sacred music, if the quality is there. The church has a jazz service every Mardi Gras, and he once rehearsed and led a combined choir that performed with Duke Ellington’s band for the New Orleans premiere of one of Ellington’ sacred works.

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Lucius Weathersby

In addition to holding a teaching post at Dillard University, Lucius Weathersby has played the organ at a number New Orleans churches, and is currently the organist and choir director at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. One thing his varied experience playing in different churches of different denominations has taught him is that congregations still respond to the music of the classical masters, particularly if they don’t get to hear them all the time, but the organist must be versatile. He points out that many congregations today are mixed among black, white and Hispanic people, as well as those with different musical tastes and interests, and the trend is toward “blended services,” that combine different musical styles. For example, St. Anthony of Padua uses “Missa de Pueblo de Inmigrante,” or Mass For The Immigrant People,” for some services, which is designed to be sung in English or Spanish, and requires him to “almost sound like a mariachi band.” Nonetheless, he feels that classical music is very much alive in the church, and notes that there has been a renaissance of building new pipe organs in the city.

Weathersby also has some interesting things to say about African-American churches, spirituals, and classical music. Although the spiritual was, “the primary song of praise in African-American churches, in New Orleans,” many, including The Central United Church of Christ, which helped to found Dillard University, had a strong classical tradition, too. Black people often excelled at classical music when given the educational opportunity to learn it. Also, some white churches hired some of the best black singers as paid soloists, so there was a two-way exchange, with them bringing the spiritual tradition to the white churches, as well as bringing more of the classical repertoire back to their home churches.

Albinas Prizgintas

Albinas Prizgintas and Trinity Episcopal Church have brought the kind of “blended service,” of which Lucius Weathersby speaks, to a high art. Though Prizgintas holds advanced degrees from Julliard School of Music, and excels at playing the classical repertoire on the church’s newly-restored four manual pipe organ, he also plays a dobro guitar, and his office is full of instruments and electronic equipment of all types.

Prizgintas believes not only that music signifies the presence of the divine, but that all music styles are “spiritually equal.” An Advent meditation service at Trinity for which he wrote the music made the front page of the Times-Picayune a while back, and he drew on jazz and blues as well as classical sources for inspiration.

The Trinity Artist Series is a big part of the music program at the church. Sunday afternoon concerts are presented, which sometimes are classical chamber music, sometime include jazz, blues, and many other genres. Prizgintas sees this as an opportunity to bring the community together. One of the highlights of the series is Bach Around The Clock, an annual 28 hour presentation to honor the composer’s birthday. It includes Prizgentas and his choir, members of the LPO, and sometimes jazz musicians offering their interpretation of Bach’s music. This year, Prizgentas will perform Bach’s B Minor Mass, including some sections. that he has rearranged, or “deconstructed,” in an attempt to get to a deeper meaning of the composer’s work.

Classical music is alive and well in New Orleans churches, although it exists, like everything else in the city, not in ivory tower isolation, but as another flavor to be savored in the cultural mix.


uartets were the elite gospel groups in New Orleans during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. A quartet doesn’t mean that there are four singers, rather it represents that the group sings in four-part har-mony. The photos reproduced here are from the collection of Lynn Abbott.

The Gloryland Singers, C. 1940Back Row, L to R: Ed Lewis, Leonard Wilson, Ernest Clay, Victor JosephFront Row, L to R: Elliot Jackson, Herbert Lee Johnson

Golden Chain Jubilees, Late 1940sL to R: Willie Williams, Clyde Barnett, Robert Adams, Joe Thomas, Elliot Green, Eddie Smith Jr., Albert BatesThis is the group Ernie K-Doe claimed to have first sang with.

The Jackson Gospel singersC. Late 40’sL to R: Felton Jackson, Nora Hall, Dorothy Squire, Emma Golden, Alma Jackson, Mary Thames

Southern Harps Spiritual SingersL to R: Helen Matthews (Linda Hopkins), 1st Tenor, Chap-lain: Alberta F. Johnson, 2nd Tenor, Inst. And Mgr; Bessie Griffin, 2nd Baritone, Rec. Sec; Lucille LeBeau, 1st Baritone, Fin. Sec.; Ruth A. Jackson, Bass, Treasurer

Zion Harmonizers, C. 1958Standing L to R: Sherman Washington, Joe Maxon, Nolan Washington, Graity PleasantSeated, L to R: Lewis Johnson, Josh Hawkins, Charles Taylor

Soproco SingersL to R: Herbert Lee Johnson, Leroy Lee, James Payne, George Croffett

Robinson’s Humming Four, C. 1939L to R: George Parks, Paul Excano, Sherman Sheridan, Albert Veal, Buddy Morris

Q


Many times we wonder who are the most infl uential people to our musical geniuses, supreme actors and creative poets. We also wonder how did they reach this focal point in their lives? Was it because of their parents and how they were reared? Or was it their inherited desire through their parents or a hobby groomed for greatness?

In the case of Phillip and Keith Frazier of the Rebirth Brass Band and Kerwin James of the New Birth Brass Band, part of it has to be the genes. These members of two of our most recognized brass bands inherited their talent for music from their mother, the matriarch of the Rebirth Brass Band, Mrs. Barbara Jean James Frazier, also known as “Mama Rebirth”.

Frazier has worked throughout her life in the gospel community and has played organ in a variety of churches throughout the New Orleans area. Her sons also captured the love of music by watching, listening and learning through her heart and soul.

Mama Rebirth is a genius in her own right. She is the mother of six children and eight grandchildren. As a widow, she was left to rear her children alone in the 9th ward. While raising her children, Frazier

instilled in them the main quality that her parents instilled in her- to love God fi rst.

Barbara Frazier was born in West Feliciana Parish on March 10, 1944 and moved to New Orleans at a very early age. She grew up in the Carrollton area on South Murat Street. Her parents were Mr. Will James and Mrs. Juanita

Prout James. Her father was a lamplighter for the railroad and her mother was a cook in a restaurant.

Frazier remembers her parents telling her how she liked pretending she was playing the piano at the age of three. She recalled, “My mama had this old vanity and stool… I should (have) kept it.

They said I used to sit on that stool for hours playing like I was playing the piano and after that my father started me with music lessons.”

She started music lessons at the age of four and music school at 5-years old. She studied under Miriam Purnell and Annabelle Jones. She was taught by private certifi ed teachers and took the John Thompson course. Her greatest

infl uence in music was Sis. Lee from Nazerene Baptist Church. “ When I was little, I always wanted to play like Sis. Lee; Sis. Lee played from the heart.”

Mama RebirthGospel Is Where it All BeganBy Joan M. Wade

She considers herself to be a soul gospel musician, “I play how I feel- you ever heard Rebirth play, ‘Just A Closer Walk With Thee?’ They play it like no other band in the city play it, I taught them how to play it with soul.”

Frazier was baptized at Sixth Union Baptist Church on Orleans Avenue and began to play for Sixth Union’s Sunday School at the age 12 under Rev. Dave Dennis. She began branching out by playing for other churches at the age of fi fteen.

Frazier graduated from Joseph S. Clark High School, the same institution that would incubate the Rebirth Brass Band twenty years later, in 1962 and began teaching music in 1965. She taught Janice Vaughn, Verdell Comeaux, Louis Torregano and many others, just to name a few.

Frazier’s curriculum vitae includes a variety of churches that requested her services “back in the day” and now. In her early years, Mama Rebirth played for St. Luke, Antioch and Christian Mission Baptist Churches. She played organ and directed the choir at Mission for over 20 years.

Frazier actually retired from playing music after an illness, but came back into the industry 10 years ago and began playing for Mount Bethel Baptist Church. She celebrated her 10th year appreciation in March. It included her favorite musical selection, “I Walk With The Lord” and her

favorite bible verse- the 23rd Psalm.

Normally, when someone is appreciated, they are the ones being honored but at Mama Rebirth’s appreciation, she honored others. This year she paid tribute to fi ve ladies in her life- Cyril Afread, Irvenia Alfred, Millie Cosey, Bernice Rogers and Linda Tapp.

Frazier’s vitae includes playing and singing for churches but also includes being on a panel for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Foundation and working for Werlein’s Music Center that was formerly located on Canal Street. Frazier was Werlein’s organ demonstrator in the late 1960s and early 70s. Her job entailed going to local churches and demonstrating the operation of the organ.

She is no longer demonstrating the operation of organs but she continues to demonstrate the greatest love of all: her love for God, family and gospel music. She says, “I had my fun, but all my life I’ve been in church and I know nothing else.”

Mama Rebirth and her sons have been great pillars in the gospel and brass communities. They are wonderful models for showing us how to take a little of our past into our future. The gospel foundation that Mama Rebirth instilled in her children has given “birth” to the modern day era of New Orleans brass bands.

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“Your life is what you want it to be- you make your own destiny,” says Marva Wright, the Blues Queen of New Orleans, and she has truly lived those words traveling throughout this country and Europe singing the blues and spreading the “gospel” known as New Orleans Music. This journey has taken her to France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Brazil.

The blues may have taken her around the world, but her musical roots are fi rmly planted in gospel music. Without question, her gospel pedigree is impeccable.

It should be no surprise that her strongest infl uence and inspiration was her mother, Mattie Gilbert, a member of one of the fi rst female gospel quartets. What is not as well known is that her mother just happened to grow up in New Orleans as Mahalia Jackson’s best friend and schoolmate. Jackson and Wright’s mom even sang in competing gospel groups.

After Jackson moved to Chicago, Gilbert would stay with her when her group, the Jackson Gospel singers, was performing in Chicago. In addition to being a gospel singer, Gilbert was a pianist of some renown. Her rollicking, barrelhouse style made for many a rousing Sunday service at St. John Baptist Church #3 at the corner of Leonidas and Panola streets in uptown New Orleans.

Gilbert also traveled on the same gospel circuit as Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, the Soul Stirrers and the Caravans. According to Wright, “many popular Motown artists had strong ties to gospel music. Most

all of them got their early training singing gospel.”

Wright was introduced to the gospel world at 9 years old when she was asked to sing solo on “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” at her church. Just before the song was about to begin, the deacon leaned over and whispered to Wright’s mother, who was accompanying her on piano, “Mattie, now you make sure that little Marva sings loud enough.”

Wright has been belting them out ever since. She says she remembers Deacon Winston Kilborn’s advice before she starts every show. A few years later, Wright and her mother changed churches and began attending services at Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church on South Liberty Street.

It was during this time that she really received her musical education. She sang in a group called The Christian 4 Gospel singers. Along with Geraldine Wright, Catherine Jelks, and Diane Fountainberry, Marva sang, traveled, ate, slept and learned gospel music. “Remember, I had no brothers or sisters, so we were really like a family,” says Wright. The Christian 4 Gospel Singers performed on WYLD’s Sunday morning gospel show with DJ Sherman Saul, who was instrumental in their early success.

She also has fond memories of their pianist, Arlene Williams, who is now the choir director at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church. Marva remembers, “She took us under her wing and really pushed me to be better and to sing more lead.”

Marva Wright’s Amazing JourneyBy Robert V. Rudner

Any discussion of Wright’s gospel roots would not be complete without paying homage to the late, great Sammy “the Bishop” Berfect. Wright and Berfect grew up next door to each other in the Carrollton neighborhood and he was the closest thing to a brother she ever had. He accompanied her when she sang in church on Sundays and followed her when she started singing the blues professionally in 1987.

Not everyone from her church understood or accepted her singing the blues or any secular music for that matter. It was the reassuring presence of Berfect on organ that steadied her during the early years of establishing herself as a new and exciting player on the local blues scene. “Sammy was the best musician I’ve ever been onstage with and he was my brother, “ Marva proudly proclaims. “The Lord must have planned for me to be out of the country when he passed, because I would not have been able to bear it if I had been here when it happened.”

Marva now attends the Christian Unity Missionary Baptist Church. She is happy there and the pastor and the congregation understand and accept that she sings the blues for a living. They understand that the secret of life is to share all of God’s gifts. So, she sings at her church and she performs gospel songs in her stage shows.

When asked about her transition from gospel to the blues, she was quick to respond, “there was no

transition.” She proudly states that, “gospel is an added attraction to my current stage show and when I’m performing in Europe at blues and R&B festivals, I get invited to sing at the churches in the cities I’m visiting.”

It was during one of these European tours that Wright’s musical journey was brought full circle. While in France, a grateful fan at one of the church services where she was singing presented her with a rare recording of her mother’s gospel group, the Jackson Gospel Singers. Wright had long since lost all of her mother’s recordings, so this was an amazing gift made even sweeter coming as it did from halfway around the globe.

When asked to comment on the current gospel scene in New Orleans, Wright says it has much more of an R&B presentational style now than when she was growing up. She enjoys listening to Yolanda Adams and Sean Pace, who presently sing at the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church. She gives them praise and high marks also for, “living their words, not just singing them”.

Wright’s musical journey has brought her a long way from Carrollton, all across the United States and around the world. It has brought her much joy and many friendships. It has given her the opportunity to work with many great artists including Harry Connick, Jr., Allen Toussaint, Glen Campbell, Joe Cocker, Aaron Neville, Fats Domino, Lou Rawls,


Marcia Ball and Bobby McFerrin. She knows that gospel music has been and will always be a major component of that journey. To borrow the words of the late, great Muddy Waters, it sounds like Marva Wright, “lives the life she loves and loves the life she lives.”

Marva Wright’s Discography

Heartbreakin’ Woman- Tipitina’s Records (1990)

Born With The Blues- Sky Ranch Records-France (1993); Virgin- Point Blank USA (1996)

Marva Wright- Blueshouse Records- Switzerland (1994)

My Christmas Song- Mardi Gras Records (1994)

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For- Aim Records- Australia (1995)

Marvalous- Mardi Gras Records (1995)

Marva Wright Live- Recorded at the Bourbon Street Music Club Sao Paolo, Brazil (May 1996)

Bluesiana Mama- Aim Records- Australia (1999)

Let Them Talk- Aim Records- Australia (2000)

Break Free from Apathy and Cynicism If You Want It Bad Enough It Will HappenThis City Has What It Takes To Be An Economic PowerEmbrace Diversity And We’ll All Be Rewarded


New Orleans currently has a vibrant and lively gospel music scene. There are literally hundreds of gospel groups and nearly every one of the African American churches in the city feature gospel performances as part of their weekly services. From the sanctified to the spiritual, including both Baptist and Catholic, they rejoice with music. Some of the artists venture into the nightclubs but the real place to hear gospel is in the church. If you visit a local congregation please keep in mind to respect their hospitality, dress appropriately and remember that the primary purpose of gospel music is to spread the word of God and Christ.

Franklin Avenue Baptist ChurchThe Franklin Avenue Baptist Church has emerged as the place to go for exhilarating choir performances. They have eight choirs in the church including the mass choir containing over 300 voices. The music ministry of the church’s stated purpose is, “to glorify God by ministering God’s word through song. We minister to the emotional and spiritual needs of the congregation; thus winning lost souls for Christ.”

John Lee & The Heralds of ChristJohn Lee is the true veteran of New Orleans Gospel today. Born in 1925, he sang his first lead solo at the age of six at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. At nine, he joined the Gospel Bell Jubilee Jr’s with Henry Dupree. As he matured he organized the L & B Choir with Sammy Berfect. This group represented the state of Louisiana at the annual James Cleveland Gospel Workshop and toured the country with Cleveland. In 1978 he formed John Lee & The Heralds of Christ. His son Ivan Lee is the organist with the group. Two of Mr. Lee’s favorite songs to sing are, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “I Open My Mouth to the Lord.”

Betty Winn and One A-Chord Gospel SingersThomas and Betty Winn organized One A-Chord in April 1995. Betty is the primary lead singer and she is joined by between six and twelve other singers. They are a composite of talents from local churches. Betty says her passion for gospel music is inherited from her mother. She grew up

at a community church that was built by her father and his brothers. She is presently a member of Christian Bible Ministries and her cousin is her pastor. One A-Chord has recorded two CDs. Bound for Glory in 1997 and Shout Hallelujah in 2001. The first has a traditional approach and the latter adds the soulful swing of New Orleans funk. They perform at church programs, festivals, conventions and supper clubs. They have made several tours to Europe. Visit their web site at www.oneachord.net.

The Friendly Travelers Like many groups today the Friendly travelers perform traditional style gospel and add contemporary sounds of R&B, jazz, soul and reggae to the mix. Formed in 1959 by Reverend Clint Jones, they are sure to raise the level of sanctified style excitement at any event. The current group features Floyd Turner, L. D. Hirams, Alfred Penns and Wanda Joseph. They perform a capella or with a rhythm section. The Friendly Travelers have shared the stage with Gladys Knight, Al Green, the Zion Harmonizers and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. They’re newest recordings is Search My Heart released on Rampart Street Music in 2003.

Paulette Wright-DavisPaulette Wright-Davis is a gospel singer with a powerful voice who gives an uplifting performance and is strongly influenced by Mahalia Jackson. She combines traditional and contemporary gospel songs with hair-raising fervor. She performs a number of songs associated with Jackson including “Walk Around Heaven,” “His Eyes On The Sparrow,” and her own “Tribute to Mahalia Jackson.”Paulette’s career got a boost as a featured singer in the touring stage play “I Need A Man.” She is featured monthly at the House of Blues Sunday Gospel Brunch.

Reverend Lois J. DejeanRev. Lois Dejean is the executive director of Youth Inspirational Connection, Inc. She is a third generation gospel singer who has worked tirelessly for decades performing and promoting gospel music in New Orleans. She produces the annual “Rejoicin’ in the Park” festival and promotes concerts with

James Cleveland, Kirk Franklin, the Williams Brothers, the Edwin Hawkins family and dozen of others.

Today Rev. Dejean directs the Youth Inspirational Choir that actively works with inner city youth providing important educational and performance opportunities.

Jamalar Entertainment & Rampart Street MusicJamalar Entertainment & Rampart Street Music deserve recognition as the leading gospel record company and booking agency in New Orleans today. The organization was started in the mid 1980s by members of the gospel group, Joyful. They have expanded their operation to include a recording studio, international representation at trade shows in addition to the record label. Their artists represent the elite in contemporary gospel including the Joyful Gospel Singers, the Friendly Travelers, Sjuwana Byers and the Children of God, J. C. & Company, Lyle Henderson, Delma Trosclair & The Heaven Seekers, Ebone, Beatrice Ward & Angelic Voices, Golden Wings Gospel Singers and Anointed Harmony.

Other groups of note include

The Zulu EnsembleThe Smooth Family of SlidellRocks of HarmonyBishop Paul Morton and the Greater St. Stephen Baptist Church Mass ChoirGospel Soul ChildrenChurch StreetSoulful Heavenly StarsCoolie Family Gospel SingersThe First RevolutionJerome AlexanderThe CrownseekersLyle Henderson & EmmanuelJai Reed & Co.Carl MarshallMighty Chariots of FireNew Orleans Black ChoralePersuadedThe Second Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church ChoirThe Wimberley FamilySt. Francis De Sales ChoirSouthern BellsNew Orleans Gospel SpiritualettesSt. Raymond Gospel ChoirSouthern Gospel Singers

This article was underwritten woth the help from Mid City Lanes Rock ‘n Bowl. New Orleans Gospel TodayBy Jerry Brock


Images ofNew Orleans

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Who Is Daddy Cotton?By Joan M. Wade

“They call me Daddy Cotton,” says, Eugene Cotton III as he signs on as gospel disc jockey for KKNO 750 AM. Daddy Cotton, as he is so dearly called by his gospel family and radio followers, is one of the most highly respected gospel musicians, singers, songwriters and teachers in New Orleans. He is the patriarch of the “Cotton Clan,” which he governed with his wife of 43 years, the late Marion Mae Joseph Cotton. Together they raised six sons and became the grandparents of thirteen.

Daddy Cotton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 2, 1939 to Mable Jackson Ford as his mother’s only child. He lived on the West Bank and in the 9th and 3rd Wards. Growing up, he listened to all types of music- classical, jazz and blues. He also

observed his mother and aunts who studied piano and were influenced by Liberace and Professor Edwin Hogan.

As a child he says, “I would bang on keys and sing to myself and I was always in church or on someone’s program. My mother was the radio disc jockey for Veterans Hospital and she was a speaker and she had a reputation where people used to call her to speak on programs. She composed, but memorized everything. She didn’t read from a paper (sheet music).”

Being Ms. Mable’s child he did poems at church, school and whenever he was asked. “I used to be nervous, shaking like a leaf,” says Cotton.

Whatever nervousness Daddy Cotton had back then went unnoticed because he’s been singing since the age of 10 after being baptized at the Rose of Sharon Baptist Church. In that same year, he sung his first solo, “Come Ye Disconsolate” and went on to learn how to play the piano.

“As I got older, around eleven or twelve, my mother bought a piano and started giving me piano lessons. My first piano selection was, ‘Jesus Lover of My Soul’.” Daddy Cotton continued to study piano under Professors John Williams and Edwin Hogan. Mr. Harold also taught him to play the organ in 1960.

In his pre-teen years, Daddy Cotton continued to sing or play whenever

asked as a soloist. He did not begin singing with a group or choir until the age of fourteen when he began to sing with Community Baptist Church Youth Choir.

After singing throughout the Greater New Orleans area as a teenager he began to be known as, “King Jesus” after the song he would always sing as a soloist, “King Jesus Will Roll All Burdens Away.”

Daddy Cotton did not limit himself to singing for churches he also sung in the choir at Joseph S. Clark Senior High School. He says, “We didn’t sing gospel but show tunes, songs from Porgy and Bess, spirituals and chorale music.”

Daddy Cotton’s professional career began when he was only 16 years old. His first paying church job was to play for St. Paul Baptist Church on Robinson Avenue in Marrero for $10 per month. He had recently relocated to the neighborhood. He says, “The church was down the street from my house and the pastor and two ladies came to my house and asked me to play for their church. I said, ‘Rev, I can’t

play,’ and then I banged out “Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross” on the piano and got the job.”

After getting his first paying church job before going to the military, requests began to roll in for Daddy Cotton. The second church he played for was Ray Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans East and then Stronger Hope Baptist Church.

While in the military, Daddy Cotton held positions in warehouse supply and as an aircraft refueler. He was also a member of the chapel choir in the United States Air Force where he served at Lockland AFB and then overseas in Greenland. After returning home from the military, he proceeded with his music lessons and continued to play and sing for more churches.

In 1961, Daddy Cotton began to play for Jerusalem Baptist Church where he organized the first youth choir and is currently an active member of the church. One of his sons Aldon E. Cotton is the current Pastor and another Allen E. Cotton is the Minister of Music.

In 1966 he also played for a band of churches in New Orleans and joined New Home Baptist Church after directing its choir for over one year even as he continued to play for Jerusalem. Daddy Cotton directed at New Home for nineteen years and was a member for 30 years. He was also the choir director for Second Mount Triumph and worked as their choir director for seventeen years.

Over the years, Daddy Cotton also sung duets with his late wife. In 1984, he was given an opportunity to sing at the New Orleans World’s Fair with her. In 1990, he went on tour with jazz musician Wallace Davenport to Norway and did a recording of, “I Won’t Complain.”

While Daddy Cotton was busy attending singing engagements, classes

and directing choirs, he was still trying to pursue his dream of becoming a disc jockey. He would train at WBOK, which was the second, all black station in New Orleans and was located on Baronne Street.

After management changes and a move to Tulane Avenue, WBOK no longer had a training program for disc jockeys and Daddy Cotton’s dream was deferred. It was not until December 1996 when he was given an opportunity to train again to be a disc jockey at KKNO with the Classic Praise Program. After learning all the updated equipment and given a trial air run, Daddy Cotton was heard by the CEO of the station and began his passage as a gospel disc jockey.

Daddy Cotton is currently a disc jockey with KKNO and each year does he does live remotes from the Fairgrounds during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He is also a vocal music, fine arts and choir teacher at Alcee Fortier Senior High School. He is an active member of A.C. Gospel Singers, Praise Community Choir, and Jerusalem Baptist Church Choir. He currently plays the piano for Pure Light Baptist Church.

Through all the accomplishments and praises that Daddy Cotton has been given, he has never thought that he was very famous within the gospel sector of New Orleans. He says, “My goal was not to be famous but to be the best musician I can be.”

Who is Daddy Cotton? Daddy Cotton is the man that all little boys and young men should be trying to imitate. He is the daddy of all daddies, a lover of God, a great provider, and a mentor when needed. He is just a stand up guy. And a humble man, indeed.

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Louis Armstrong- Louis and The Good BookVerve RecordsLouis Armstrong liked to say that he was raised as a Baptist, always wore a Star of David around his neck, and was friends with the Pope. In other words, Armstrong’s religion was as hard to characterize in a single word as his music.

No jazz artist’s music was as spiritually moving as Armstrong’s, but this 1958 LP was his only religious album. The results are joyous, solemn, whimsical, even at times gently mocking - but always upliftingly Satchmo.

Mahalia Jackson- Greatest HitsColumbia Records

If limited to just one, these are the classic recordings Mahalia made for Columbia. Collected from LPs made between 1954 and 1958. There are a total of ten tunes including “The Upper Room,” “Move On Up A Little Higher,” “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen,” and “Walk In Jerusalem.” Mahalia’s rich contralto swings from subtle to powerful to lush. For recordings with more bounce and vigor that are less produced, check out her earlier Apollo records. Several good collections are available.

Franklin Avenue Baptist Church- Worship Celebration In Remembrance of What Jesus DidFABC 2287

This record was recorded live in the church. It celebrates the ministry of the Mass Choir that creates moving, clap-your-hands, shout-hallelujah gospel. Some songs are much more subtle and gracious and build to a crescendo. The recording features wonderful lead singing by seven different members accompanied by the choir and a rhythm section of organ, bass, keyboards and drums.

Annie Pavageau & The Morning Star ChoirSouthland 1001

This is pure old time religion. Recorded in 1970, it captures the sound of a community black Baptist church in the 7th Ward. There is nothing fake here. These women lived this music like they lived their lives, unadulterated, sincere and in the spirit. Annie Pavageau was the sister of the New Orleans jazz bassist “Slow Drag” Pavageau. She

is heard here on piano and lead vocal along with seven female singers from the Original Morning Star Church. Familiar songs include “Old Rugged Cross,” “Down By the Riverside,” and “Call Him Up.” They are all sung from the heart.

Reverend Charley Jackson-The Legendary Booker & Jackson SessionsCase Quarter 101Imagine R.L. Burnside playing gospel. This is rare, raw and completely on edge. Collectors have searched for this stuff for 20 years. Rev. Charley Jackson tore up on guitar. The vocals are some times over the top and growling. Blues folk will love it. “Wrapped Up and Tangled Up In Jesus,” “God’s Got It,” “Fix It Jesus,” and the soulful “Morning Train” are classic yet obscure.

Raymond Myles- A Taste of HeavenSony Legacy 85768

This recording is the swan song of the late Raymond Myles and was aimed to put him in the national spotlight. The arrangements are lush, contemporary, funky and full of Raymond’s charm. He sings pop full of spirit and positive messages, “Wake Up Everybody” and “Put A Little Love In Your Heart,” mixed with traditionals “Elijah’s Rock” and “Precious Lord.” His voice bends, turns and soars accompanied by a choir that adds fi re and exhilaration on top of a syncopated beat. He travels from down home church to concert stage fi nesse spun with his charismatic voice and piano.

Zion Harmonizers- Best of New Orleans GospelMardi Gras 1013

The venerable Zion Harmonizers sing with Milton Batiste and members of the Olympia Brass Band in a collaboration of gospel jazz. The Zion Harmonizers are New Orleans oldest active quartet. Sherman and Nolan Washington are in fi ne form. The songs are all associated with New Orleans roots music- “Old Rugged Cross,” “Saints,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “Down By the Riverside,” and “Closer Walk With Thee.” The vocals and music swing with New Orleans brass band swagger. Sherman’s lead on “Riverside” presents his fi ne emotional delivery.

New Orleans Gospel Quartets1947 – 1956

504 Records 81

This article is underwritten with the support of Dos Jefes Uptown Cigar Bar

Essential New Orleans Gospel Recordings By Jerry Brock

The most signifi cant historical post WWII quartet recordings are collected here. The fi rst recordings of the Zion Harmonizers capture them at their peak. Two sides by the Southern Harps present the fi rst recordings by Linda Hopkins and Bessie Griffi n. “Bye and Bye” by the Delta Southernaires features the solid baritone voice of Chuck Carbo with whom his brother Chick later performed and recorded as the Spiders. “Heaven Bound Train” by the Jackson Gospel Singers snare a strong female quartet. The music is driving, melodic and beautiful four part harmony singing.

New Orleans Spiritualettes- I BelieveSounds of New Orleans 6012

New Orleans Spiritualettes are a traditional female quartet that sings four part harmonies with strong leads and pulsating rhythms. Recorded in 1992, Ruby Ray, Audrey Ferguson, Eliza McMillion and Dremetricus Thurmond perform together in a program of rousing songs. “I Believe,” “Ninety Nine and a Half Won’t Do” and “Two Wings” are gems.

Also worth checking out:

Aaron NevilleBelieveCDT 20381

Irma ThomasWalk Around HeavenRounder 2128

Various ArtistsMidnight at St. JudesWith Aaron Neville, Allen Toussaint, Mighty Sam McLain

Orleans 1211

Sister Gertrude MorganLet’s Make a RecordPreservation Hall 06

Betty Winn & One A-ChordShout Hallelujah!Spirit Records 001

Armand St. Martin Sizzlin’Be forewarned, this CD is a mood-elevator of the fi rst order! Even the bluesier cuts on Armand St. Martin’s latest effort are infused with a rollicking beat and the irresistible rhythm of his boogie-woogie piano playing that, while reminiscent of the maniac from Ferriday, is inexorably linked to St. Martin’s New Orleans roots. It may be swingier than it is funky, but the infl uences of Toussaint, Domino, Rebennack and even Booker are there.


New Orleans photographer David Richmond calls Michael P. Smith, “the last true great undiscovered photojournalist of the 20th century,” and places him in the pantheon of such giants as W. Eugene Smith, Dorothea Lange and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Jeff Rosenheim, a former assistant of Smith’s in the early ‘80s who is now associate curator of photography for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, asserts unequivocally that, “Mike Smith’s life’s work should be preserved in perpetuity in New Orleans for the study of the culture of New Orleans in the last third of the 20th century.”

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest Producer Quint Davis calls Smith, “one of the great documenters and great depicters of a unique aspect of American culture,” and adds that “Mike is not just documenting, he’s creating great art.”

But it’s the words of Larry Bannock, Big Chief of the Golden Star Hunters Mardi Gras Indian tribe, that will most likely to bring a smile to Smith’s face.

“Mike Smith wasn’t a cultural pirate,” Bannock says. “He gave back.”

Bannock’s use of the past tense reflects the bittersweet fact that Smith hasn’t been a fixture on the streets for the past couple of years, capturing the pulse and spirit of New Orleans’ mesmerizing subcultures of Mardi Gras Indian practices, social and pleasure clubs, second-line parades and spiritual churches. His battle with Parkinson’s and possibly Alzheimer’s diseases has kept him from pursuing the mission that has been his vocation and avocation in life: preserving on film the living, breathing, organic, cultural wetlands known as New Orleans.

“There’s a popular misconception around town that Mike is, like, gone,” says New Orleans photographer Bob Compton. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s still light in those blue eyes.”

There’s also a lot more information behind those blue eyes that Smith is frantically trying to download into his latest book, The Spirit of New Orleans, before it slips away. Smith has also co-authored a book with University of Munich professor Berndt Ostendorf on New Orleans jazz funerals that is essentially complete but remains unpublished.

While the subject of Michael Smith’s physical and mental health has been of concern to many in recent months, the health and preservation of his legacy—

and his monumental archives—has become of paramount importance as well.

“The value of this life that Michael has led is enormous, and it would be a shame to let it slip through New

Orleans’ hands like so many other things,” declares Rosenheim.

Rosenheim was 22 years old when he moved to New Orleans in 1983 and went to work for the Louisiana State Museum. Smith’s first book, Spirit World, a captivating look at spiritual

A Photographer’s Photographer By Karl Bremer

churches, Mardi Gras Indians and other aspects of African-American culture in New Orleans, had just been published and planning for a related exhibition of his work was underway.

“I had the pleasure of being involved in his exhibition at the Louisiana State Museum,” recalls Rosenheim. “I had a lot of experience working with archives of both living and deceased

photographers. And I could recognize that Michael was not just a local photographer, but a local photographer who was connected to some of the best aspects of New Orleans culture. Michael not only had a remarkable commitment to his subjects but he seemed to be blessed with being at the right place at the right time. … He did

some very innovative things, and he just ‘had it.’”

Rosenheim worked in the darkroom with Smith to put together two duplicate sets of prints from the exhibition for a traveling U.S. Information Agency show. “One would travel to the Caribbean—the Black Caribbean—and the other would go to Africa. It traveled for years and years. I used to get photographs from people who saw this exhibit all over the world.”

The cross-cultural appeal of the exhibit was remarkable, says Rosenheim. “Music culture is an international language and so is photography, and they both come together perfectly in Michael Smith.”

Besides documenting New Orleans culture with his camera, Rosenheim says Smith also maintains a vast audio archive of events he’s covered.

“He used to wire himself with sophisticated stereo equipment and record these parades and funerals.” Listening to those recordings as he worked in the darkroom with Smith’s powerful images, “was like a kinetic experience.” The sounds of Smith working his way through the drum section of a jazz funeral, then the horns, constantly finessing his position for the maximum vantage photographic point provide an aural context for these images that should be preserved as well, says Rosenheim.

Smith’s body of work reaches deep into the subcultures of New Orleans. But he is probably best known for his images from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Smith is the only living photographer to have shot every Jazz Fest, according to Fest producer Quint Davis.

Jazz Fest is recognizing Smith this year with a showing in the Grandstand of his images printed in large format by David Richmond, and 50-60 of his images reproduced, mounted on boards and placed around the fairgrounds as close as possible to where they were originally shot. His work also is being exclusively featured in this year’s Jazz Fest program.

“We’re going to celebrate our 35th anniversary through the eyes of Mike Smith,” says Davis. “The whole infield is going to be a Mike Smith kaleidoscope of the festival.”

Since the beginning, Smith has been “Jazz Fest’s unofficial official photographer,” says Davis. “When you start to do a heritage festival that has New Orleans street culture in it, Mike comes along with it. Because in addition to being an artist and a photographer, he’s an intrinsic part of the culture himself. When we started doing this festival, he was part of New Orleans street culture. Then he


became part of the festival culture. He was also unbelievably steadfast. He came every day, every year and went to every stage. Multiply that times 35 years.”

But Davis is quick to note, “Jazz Fest is really just a spoke in the wheel of Mike Smith’s work. We’re maybe a big spoke … Having created this great body of artistic work, he also has brought the images and the awareness of the culture to a lot of people. His photography of those things is a window to the world and he helped to both popularize and legitimize those cultures.”

Says Big Chief Larry Bannock: “He gave something to the people that a lot of guys don’t. Mike was one of the

first whites to see one of these (Indian) suits put together. Mike was there when you be sewing and for years, when I was making my Indian suits, Mike would give me books. Whenever Mike would go traveling and there was a book on Native American culture, he brought it back and said, ‘Maybe you can use this.’

“A lot of times when I was doing patches, Mike would go out and take pictures of landscapes and color to make it come out right. There’s not a lot of photographers you could ask that of.”

Smith recognized the value of preserving the Mardi Gras Indian culture and he encouraged Bannock: “Don’t just do the beadwork. Know the culture, know the history, know why the blacks ran away and how the Native Americans helped them.” He also urged Bannock to become registered as a, “master craftsman in black Mardi Gras Indian beadwork” with Louisiana Folklife.

“One of the people that made me a Big Chief was Mike Smith,” says Bannock. “When I first became a Chief, I was going through a problem and I was talking to Mike about it. And he said, ‘When you become a Chief, you become the center of attention. People say things about you—negative things. That’s all part of being a Chief.’

And the first thing he said was, ‘Buy your own equipment.’ Everything I needed to make a suit, Mike said that’s what I need. When you got your own, nobody can come at you.

“Mike isn’t a 9-to-5 friend. He’s a 24-hour friend,” Bannock continues. “Whenever you called him, he was there. There’s a lot of people that’s on the street (and alive) today because of Mike. Carpenters, contractors, when things were slow, Mike would help them get jobs. He wasn’t just a little white boy who came along and took all the pictures and made all the money.

… When the testimony is given, they can say Mike gave back—he didn’t take away.”

Becoming a part of the culture he was documenting had its downside, too, says Bannock. “Mike and Jules Kahn were taking pictures of second lines when it wasn’t popular. Mike Smith was run out of places, Mike Smith was harassed, the same thing we (the Indians) went through. But when Mike Smith went Uptown (Bannock’s neighborhood), he was protected, and a lot of people knew what he was about.”

David Richmond first knew Michael Smith in 1969 when he took Smith’s place as an assistant to local Black Star syndicate photographer Matt

Heron. He ran into him periodically in the mid-70s, although they were never close friends.

“I had a little gallery in New Orleans in the 70s and that was the first real gallery showing of Mike’s work—the Spirit World stuff. But Mike didn’t hang out with that gallery group. He never spent any time being a dilettante photographer. He was hanging out with people closer to the culture—Jerry Brock, Jason Berry, Jeff Hannusch.

“

I really lost track of Mike for about 15 years,” Richmond continues. “Two years ago I started this exhibit space and went over to Mike’s place and said this can’t happen. There was nobody to really champion his work and he certainly wasn’t going to do it anymore.”

Richmond selected about 30 images for an exhibit. “I started printing them bigger, and cleaner. And I just realized that I’d fallen in love with the images. His best pictures—they’re alive, they’re not two-dimensional. You don’t look at the pictures—they come out and knock you out, especially when you’re giving birth to something like that in the darkroom.”

And, Richmond observes, “I’ve come to the conclusion, in looking at the proof sheets of his stuff and working with the images, that Mike didn’t just take pictures, he received pictures. He just went out there and wrestled away until some spiritual force said, ‘You’re gonna receive this one.’”

The Louisiana State Museum raised the bar for recognition of Smith’s work last year when it purchased 75 archival-quality prints for its collection. “These pictures are going to be the museum’s basis of the representation of African-American culture in New Orleans,” says Richmond.

Rosenheim says Smith’s entire collection—photography, recordings, notes—should find a permanent and appropriate home in New Orleans, perhaps the New Orleans Museum of Art or the Louisiana State Museum. “It should be there, in the city that created him and in the city that created the music and culture. I would urge any one of the museum directors in the city to preserve this archive in all its complexity and richness.”

The archiving of Smith’s work, “is an ongoing process,” says Bob Compton. “The phrase ‘treasure trove’ does not do it justice. There must be 100,000 images in that Race Street building. It physically fills up five great big rooms in an old hotel-size house.”

Meanwhile, Smith races against time to finish Spirit of New Orleans, which his daughter, Leslie, describes as “an exploration of freedom rituals in New Orleans,” from jazz funerals to the underground gay Mardi Gras.

Bannock hopes the recognition that’s due Smith happens soon.

“There’s an old saying in the black church,” he muses. “Give me my flowers while I’m alive.”

Karl Bremer is a freelance writer in Stillwater, Minnesota


Michael P. Smith - A Musician’s PerspectiveBy Spike Perkins

For the last 35 years, photographer Michael P. Smith has been as much a part of the Jazz Fest as anyone. Moving from stage to stage with his camera, he has documented thousands of Jazz Fest moments—the inspired, the outrageous, the humorous, the sublime. His 1991 book, New Orleans Jazz Fest- A Pictorial History, is full of unforge� able images—Stevie Wonder jamming with the Meters, Dizzy Gillespie taking a turn at Bongo Joe’s home made drums, James Booker at the keyboard with a very young Harry Connick, Jr.

He has also been a chronicler of South Louisiana’s ethnic culture, particularly

that of black New Orleans, for more than 30 years. Though always trying to be unobtrusive to his subjects, Smith’s photographs and essays have powerfully and persuasively advocated the value, depth and beauty of that culture.

Smith’s own upbringing couldn’t have been more antithetical to the world to which he would later be drawn. Born into a well-to-do family, raised “in the middle of Metairie,” and educated at Country Day and a New England prep school.

When it came time for higher education, the United States Naval

Academy at Annapolis proved to be a poor fi t for him, so he enrolled at Tulane University as an English major. He became interested in photography through Ma� Heron, a local freelance photographer who lived near the Tulane campus.

In 1966, as a photographer for the Jazz Archives at Tulane, he began photographing jazz funerals and brass bands at second line parades and he longed for more in depth knowledge about the people involved in them. He writes, “Initially, I was most interested in the styles of the people and their recreations, and in the character and imagination I found in small, ramshackle houses and businesses…the expressions of individualism and freedom I saw everywhere, despite extremely depressed economic circumstances.”

It was in this spirit that he began photographing the outside of

Spiritualist church buildings. Eventually, someone came out at one and asked him what he was doing. He says, “They asked me a question, and I must have given the right answer, because they invited me inside.”

Smith was interested in music of all kinds. During the same period he was documenting the exploding rock culture of the day—Jimi Hendrix at Tulane Stadium, the Allman Brothers at the Warehouse, Ike and Tina Turner at City Park. He also shot peace demonstrations, rock festivals, and police crackdowns on hippies. Much of that was lost, however, when his studio fl ooded. Smith and his daughter Leslie, a songwriter and busy vocalist in her own right, worked furiously for days to save what they could. Choices had to be made. Music and culture won out over politics.

photographing the outside of Louisiana’s ethnic culture, particularly education, the United States Naval


Leslie Smith remembers, “Mike shot energy. His interest was in passion and uniqueness—it didn’t really ma� er what culture it was coming from. It was the inside of New Orleans, the special, unique New Orleans. But the whole thing was happening at the same time—churches, street parades, music, white and black culture, diff erent styles.”

Michael P. Smith began exhibiting his work in galleries by the late 1970s and shortly therea� er it was appearing in museums. He has exhibited at the Museum of American History and The Smithsonian Institution. His work is part of the permanent collections at the Bibliotheque National in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Historic New Orleans Collection and other museums and archives. He has published fi ve books: Jazz Fest Memories, Mardi Gras Indians, New Orleans Jazz Fest: A Pictorial History, Spirit World: Pa� ern in the Expressive Folk Culture of African-American New Orleans, and A Joyful Noise: A Celebration of New Orleans Music. In addition he has won two Photographer’s Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and numerous other awards.

Though his pace has been slowed by Parkinson’s disease, Smith continues to write and take photographs. He currently has two non-fi ction books and a fi ctional screenplay in the works.

His daughter has become his darkroom assistant and archivist of his work. She fi nds that she is reconnecting with her own childhood memories of accompanying her father to music and cultural celebrations, as together they bring the images she remembers to life in the photographs. In this way, his own family life refl ects the continuity and value of tradition he has tried to document in his work. This year, she will be taking time out from her schedule to assist her father full time at the Fairgrounds.

Writing in his 1983 book, Spirit World, Smith notes that the end of segregation as well as other changes

have brought about new opportunities for appreciation: “These changes in our society bring a great opportunity to recognize the value of ethnic diversity and traditional cultures so we can all benefi t from their collective genius and creations.”

No event has brought the opportunity to appreciate traditional New Orleans culture to more people than the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. As one who was there from the beginning, Smith says, “In New Orleans, it evolved naturally.”

He does have concerns, though, that having helped put New Orleans culture on display, some people don’t show the proper respect. In an October 2001 interview with Jason Berry he said, “There was a gradual increase in outsiders, tourists--I’m not sure how I feel about that. A beautiful tradition should be shared with outsiders, but some tourists don’t have the ability to truly understand it. That’s why I did Spirit World -- to help outsiders understand the religious side of this city.”

It’s a fact of life that one can’t always see one’s visions realized in exactly the way that one would hope. Nonetheless, Michael P. Smith has succeeded in realizing his be� er than most. He has brought New Orleans culture to the world. Along with it, he brought respect and some degree of greater fi nancial opportunity to the communities that nurtured it. This year, same as always, he will be at the Jazz Fest with his camera.

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In the late 1970s, I was at a Koko Taylor show at Tipitinas and noticed two bearded men walk in like they owned the place. Little did I know that they were stockholders in the club- Michael P. Smith and his long time friend Thornton Penfield.

My brother Walter and I were trying to muster support for a community radio station that became WWOZ. Michael, like many others, assisted the cause.

Early in his career he made the conscious decision to become a documentary photographer and many future generations of people will benefit from this body of work. He is truly a great photographer. I’ve seen him go out and shoot five 36-exposure rolls of film in one day without a throwaway shot in the bunch.

He introduced me to the New Orleans world that he documented. He brought me to the spiritual churches, second line parades and Indian practices.

Today friends and I joke about the “third line.” That’s what we call the dozens of photographers and cameramen and women who get in the way at second line parades and jazz funerals. Twenty-five years ago there were only two, Michael and Jules Cahn, and they seldom got in the way.

Mike shared a mutual respect with the people who organized these events. He always made prints at his own expense and gave them to the folks he was documenting. Contrary to what some believe, Mike probably spent more money buying and developing film than he ever made documenting African-American culture in New Orleans. The people were genuinely happy to have him photograph the important moments in their lives.

In the early 1980s, there were far fewer second line parades than there are today. We seldom missed one. The High Rollers, Money Wasters, High Steppers, Lady Zulu’s, Avenue Steppers, Young & True Friends and Young Men Olympia were rolling.

While there were fewer parading organizations, they retained an obvious respect for the community and the tradition of parading that seems less present today. Each member of the organization had a specific role to perform in the parade. As a group they often moved in highly choreographed marching steps that you rarely see today.

Indian practices began in September. I won’t forget the first time Mike took me to the Glass House to attend the practice of the Wild Magnolias. Big Chief Bo Dollis arrived amidst fiery drumming and chanting. He walked into the middle of the small room and sung out loudly, “Big Chief wants fire water!” A cap was passed about and filled with money. Bo took the money, handed the cap back to its owner and walked to the bar. The practice continued.

The Black Eagles’ practice led by Big Chief Pete at the Second Base Lounge had more structure. Chief Pete would open and close each practice with the prayer, “Indian Red.” Once practice was over, a tray with plastic cups filled with T. J. Swann, a sweet pink wine, was passed around and Chief Pete would offer a toast to everyone there.

One Sunday afternoon Chief Pete called and asked, “are you coming to practice tonight?” I said that I wasn’t sure, but he wanted me to come and bring my tape recorder. Since Mike had the photography covered I had begun to carry around a cassette recorder. That night we went and Chief Pete sang a version of “Indian Red” calling out the names of many past Chiefs. Most of the names I’ve not heard since.

Having been raised Protestant in the Church of Christ; the spiritual churches offered a refreshing change. Mike introduced me to Bishop Lydia Gilford at the Infant Jesus of Prague Spiritual Church on Columbus Street. I thought that I was intruding but Bishop Gilford assured me, “come as you are and be who you are,” she said.

Mike introduced me to Deacon Frank Lastie. He was the patriarch of the musical Lastie family and the one credited with bringing the drum set into the church. He played snare drum in the Milne Boys Home marching band at the same time Louis Armstrong was there.

When Deacon Frank’s son, the drummer Walter “Popee” Lastie, passed away on December 28, 1980, Mike helped organize a tribute to Walter and the Lastie family.

With Deacon Frank we visited the Antioch Spiritual Church in the 9th Ward. Once a month, Rev. Francis led the congregation in a monthly cleansing. Everyone got down on their knees and a woman, the eldest member, would start in the back of the church and crawl upright on her knees to the front moaning the whole

Michael P. & MeBy Jerry Brock

way. As she passed your aisle you joined in the moan. What started as one person quietly moaning grew into a full fledge church house moan as she reached the front. Rev. Francis explained that this was a way to cleanse away the sadness and grief that one experiences in life.

Twice I witnessed Michael get up and testify in a spiritual church. With his testimony he explained why and what he was doing. The people appreciated that. He truly became a member and friend to the church. If someone had a flat tire he’d go out and change it.

No one documented the 1980s revival of the brass bands like Michael. Among his photographs you can witness the beginning and development of the Dirty Dozen, the Chosen Few and the Rebirth brass bands.

He would take me to Daryl’s in the 7th Ward where the Dirty Dozen played once a week for about two years. This led to the Dirty Dozen making their first recording at Grouse House studios. In simplest terms, we wanted something we could play on WWOZ.

Tex Stephens, writing for the Louisiana Weekly, called the Dozen the “house band” for the station. Michael and I produced a 90-minute radio documentary about the group called, “We Been Here Since Dirt.”

On the day that Kermit Ruffins and Philip Frazier attended their last day of school at Joseph S. Clark Senior High, they organized a parade from the school to the Grease Lounge on N. Robertson Street. Michael’s photograph of this parade is on the cover of the Rebirth Brass Band’s first recording, Here To Stay, on Arhoolie Records.

When we planned the photo shoot for the Treme Brass Band’s Gimme My Money Back, it was Michael who suggested that we borrow a coffin from the Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home. It seemed a bit spooky at the time, but it turned out to be the cover shot.

Michael took the photos that the bands used for publicity at no charge. He helped out many local groups this way.

Regularly we dropped in at Professor Longhair’s house on Terpsichore to hang out, eat some of Alice’s fresh baked cake or help out with whatever needed to be done.

Fess had turned what had once been a garage into his music and hang out room. Fess didn’t drink, but he loved his “mutah,” his slang for marijuana. He didn’t like to pass joints around. If there were six people in the room he’d roll up six joints. It got awful smoky in there.

Michael certainly influenced the brass band and Mardi Gras Indian programming on WWOZ in the early days. From 1982 to 1987, I would program six hours of Mardi Gras Indian music from 12 AM to 6 AM on Mardi Gras. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of recorded Mardi Gras Indian music- you had to struggle to come up with six hours of it. Tribes would make homemade cassettes and bring them to the station. This was a result of my friendship with Mike.

With the publication of his first book Spirit World, Michael took his work to a new level. He was no longer interested in just “taking photos.” He actively worked for official New Orleans government recognition and support for the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and the Indian tribes. To this end and to his credit, many people began paying attention to the wonderful contributions these groups make to our city.

These are a few of my memories of Michael P. and me. Mike I want to say thank you for your friendship and hoist a cold ice tea to toast the great times that we shared. You made a helluva difference and a great contribution to this city. Your photos will last forever. But it is your genuine love of people, expressed by your hugs and wide smile, that I always think of when you cross my mind.

Polaroid of Michael by Jerry


Michael P. Smith: 40 years documenting New Orleans


Have you ever noticed that places where the people suffer under great oppression produce great music? It seems that the indomitable human spirit manages to fi nd beauty in the worst of situations. Consider New Orleans, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, Jamaica and the travails that Africans in the New World faced. All fi ve places are famed the world over for the great music that developed in the face of misery and hardship.

The Americas are not the only place where Africans were subjected to horrid conditions. Their extraordinary ability to fi nd grace amid chaos is also evident in other parts of the Africa diaspora as well as on the continent of Africa itself.

Black South Africans suffered under one of the most brutal systems ever to be devised by the human mind. Apartheid reduced an overwhelming majority of that country’s residents into second class citizens systematically denied basic human rights and dignity for generations. Yet, the music that was created during the reign of Apartheid conveys powerful emotions and captures a depth of feeling as powerful as any on the planet.

South African music comes in a variety of styles refl ecting the polyglot culture and the history of the nation. Anthropologists believe that the southern portion of the continent was one of the fi rst areas occupied by modern humans. The entire history of Africa is refl ected in the copious amount of music that has emerged from South Africa including pop, jazz, gospel and dozens of subcategorizes within each of the main genres.

Much of South African music can be traced to two specifi c musical forms- vocal music in the choral tradition that is often sung a capella and originated in the countryside and mbaqanga- a swinging sound that emerged from

the sprawling townships that are home to many urban blacks.

The vocal style, which is best represented to American ears by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, is often referred to as Zulu music but more specifi cally it has its origins among the Bantu language speaking people who migrated to present day South Africa around 200 A.D. By the mid 1600s, the area was almost completely dominated by three groups- the Sotho, Xhosa and Zulu.

Each tribal group had its own set of customs and rituals that were tied to music specifi cally song. There were distinctions among the different groups, but they all shared the notion that music was central to every facet of existence. They created work songs and songs that represented everything from the sacred to the mundane. Music became the spiritual backbone of their cultures.

These songs shared a basic style that is often referred to as call-and-response. The style has permeated every culture that is part of the diaspora including American gospel, blues, soul music and rap.

These forms emerged in modern South Africa when the country fi rst began experiencing industrialization in the early part of the 20th century. Rural workers migrated from the countryside to work the mines and factories. They brought with them the ancient tribal forms and within a few short years a capella vocal styles were predominant in the urban areas.

This transition of the vocal style from rural to urban areas mirrors the progression of the blues in the United States out of the fi elds of the South and into the major metropolitan areas including New Orleans, Memphis, Kansas City and Chicago. It was even happening at approximately the same time.

The role and infl uence of African

This article was underwritten with the support from the Maple Leaf Bar

Steeped in Lasting Rapture- the Music of South AfricaBy Jay Mazza

NNEW EW OORLEANS RLEANS BBEAT EAT SSTREETTREET MMAGAZINEAGAZINE


impacting South African jazz. While it has been documented that American performers from early genres regularly visited South Africa, the first prominent American jazz artist would not visit South Africa until Tony Scott arrived in 1956.

The acrimonious split in the jazz world that occurred in the post World War II years in the United States, as swing and the more traditional sounds were gradually relegated to relic status in favor of bebop, didn’t happen in South Africa until the 1960s.

This corresponded directly with more overt political expressions against the repressive apartheid regime. Following the infamous Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the regime closed ranks and began to fiercely enforce the laws that kept the races separate. Not only were interracial relationships illegal, but any fraternization between the races, as in mixed race bands and/or audiences, was also illegal and punishments were severe. Major stars from this period such as Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly known as Dollar Brand), Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela went into exile.

The impact of this huge blow on the development of South African jazz cannot be underestimated. At the time, South African jazz musicians were just beginning to be a force in the country. Those that left became internationally known stars whose politics eventually help drive out the Apartheid system. Those who remained, like the influential alto saxophonist and clarinetist, Kippie Moeketsi, were essentially doomed.

Moeketsi died young and broken in 1983 long before the Apartheid regime was dissolved. Masekela had this to say about the genius of his partner from the early days of South Africa jazz: “(He) could have blossomed into something as great as anything Charlie Parker had already shown us… If he had lived in America he would have up there with Bird and ‘Trane. He blew his horn with that kind of power, with that sort of shimmering strength…”

Since that fateful day when “Kippie Lives!” was scrawled across the wall separating the cemetery where the great man who many called the “father of South African

music” was laid to rest from Soweto, much has changed in South Africa. Apartheid has been dismantled; the exiled greats have returned home. Other pop styles including a healthy rap industry have developed. The music of South Africa remains, as it has always been, “steeped in lasting rapture.”

music on the rest of the diaspora is complicated and it is rarely a one way street. There are numerous examples of music crossing the Atlantic ocean only to return slightly changed to affect Africans again. This circuitous path of influence can be seen in African reggae and pop as well as Afro-Cuban sounds.

Around the same time that the a capella vocal styles were gaining a foothold in the cities of South Africa, American musicians were finding there way to the country and cross pollinating the music. Instruments like the guitar, the banjo (actually African in origin) and the saxophone and styles such as ragtime, spirituals and eventually American jazz began creeping into the equation helping to create a new urban South African sound.

In the early years of the country’s development there was not much of a music infrastructure. Music was still an everyday activity for most South Africans revolving around recreation and work. There were few recordings outside of field recordings that paralleled the work of Alan Lomax and others in the American South. All that changed in the mid 1930s when an Englishman named Eric Gallo built the first recording studio in sub Saharan Africa.

One of the first of the new styles to develop widespread appeal and commercial potential was known as pennywhistle jive. It developed when rural herders migrated to the city. They played simple three hole reed whistles that had a variety of practical uses in the countryside. These newly urbanized youngsters quickly gravitated to an inexpensive German tin whistle that was pervasive in the towns.

In a phenomenon that parallels the widespread adoption of black musical styles by whites in America, these young pennywhistlers became popular among suburban whites in South Africa. They renamed the style kwela, which translates as “climb up” and was the curt demand of the police that followed being arrested and led to being placed in custody. Generally, it referred to the arrest of street corner musicians but also reflected the prohibition of interracial fraternizing.

In 1954, Spokes Mashiyane released a single of pennywhistle music featuring the songs “Ace

Blues” and “Kwela Spokes” that became a huge hit. The pennywhistle craze lasted a mere four years until Mashiyane released, “Big Joe Special” that featured his saxophone playing.

Almost overnight the scene changed dramatically and the saxophone became the instrument of choice leading to the development of a new style- sax jive. It became the dominant musical form even though it was occasionally rejected by more urbane (read jazz) music lovers who thought it was too primitive and its practitioners crude and musically illiterate.

The name of the overriding music style, mbaqanga, actually means “dumpling” in Zulu, which referenced its homemade elements. The term, which was originally meant as a slur or insult, eventually was popularized and its negative connotations were mostly eliminated except to the purists.

Mbaqanga also has a vocal component that began developing in the late 1950s. The style drew heavily on African-American inflections popular among doo wop singers. Yet, as with most examples of cross-pollination, the South Africans expanded upon the traditional four-part harmony popular in the States and developed a unique five-part harmony.

This was a crucial link between modern South African vocal styles and the traditional tribal vocals. It also led to the development of one of the most distinctive South African sounds- groaning. Personified by the late Simon “Mahlathini” Nkabinde, groaning is typically performed with the male lead vocal at the lowest bass level contrasted with higher pitched female vocals. Mahlathini went on to great fame with his background singers, the Mahotella Queens.

While most of the above mentioned styles would fall loosely into the pop category, South African music also includes a number of other styles both traditional and modern. Jazz has enjoyed a similarly convoluted history in South Africa.

While there are numerous examples of cross Atlantic influences, the development of jazz in South Africa lagged behind America and it wasn’t until the 1960s that American jazz began


Like most computer professionals, I’m spending inordinate amounts of time mopping up viruses, worms, dialers, browser “enhancements” and other malware that accumulate on my colleagues’ systems. Malware is geek-speak for noxious, undesirable programs. These things grow more pervasive and pernicious each season and they’re sapping productivity everywhere you turn.

Users who are lax about things, through naiveté or sloppiness, get hurt the worst and cause the most problems for others. It’s time to all of us to clean up our acts for the sake of self-defense and social courtesy. And so we present Beat Street’s ten-point program for safe and sensible computing. The next time someone tells you they clicked on an email and everything blew up, you can staple this column to their forehead.

Watch Out for Attachments – Attachments are files included with email messages; one clicks on an attachment to save or open the file. DO NOT click on any attachments you aren’t expecting, or attachments from people who are unknown to you. We’ve seen lots fake admin messages and bounced email notifications recently; again, don’t open those attachments, just delete the messages. Even your friends can inadvertently pass along worms or viruses, so be conscious and cautious with every email attachment.

Use the Current Operating System – If you’re not already on Windows XP you should be, if only because it crashes less than its predecessors. Mac users should likewise stay current; OS X “Panther” has been practically trouble-free for us.

Moreover, you must download and install every Critical Update and Service Pack for your operating system. Windows XP’s default behavior will alert you when updates are available; you should always take them, because they’re bug fixes and security patches. If you’re not sure whether your system is current: Click on the Start menu, open the Programs menu then select Windows Update, it’ll scan your system and tell you what you need. We take all Critical Updates, Service Packs and Driver Updates, but we pick and choose among the non-critical Windows updates.

Use Anti-Virus Software – This is a must. Repeat: You MUST use anti-virus software. Norton and McAfee are the big names, but we’re pushing Grisoft AVG 6.0 free version, available at www.grisoft.com. Although a bit bland cosmetically, and slightly less user-friendly than its more famous competitors, AVG is just as effective. It scans incoming email, attachments and downloads, alerts you if it detects anything, is regularly updated, and did I mention that it’s FREE!?!? Whatever anti-virus software you choose,

MP3 ConfidentialThe Anti-Malware Action Plan: Ten Steps Toward Better Computer Hygiene By Warren America

make sure to always have the latest version of the software AND the latest virus description file (or “profile”). The same goes for your anti-spyware software:

Scan for Spyware – The terms “spyware” and “adware” refer to bits of commercial code that track your web surfing behavior, and/or advertise to you. Some are fairly innocuous, others totally adverse. High-profile spyware pushers include DoubleClick, Gator, Bonzi Buddy, and Altnet.

Spyware is invasive, annoying and takes up precious computing power. We use a free program called Lavasoft Ad-Aware, obtained from www.lavasoft.de (that’s dot-DE, they’re in Germany). Ad-Aware will identify, quarantine, and delete all manner of cookies, trackers, data miners and other sleazy tidbits. Run Ad-Aware at least once a month, or whenever the pop-ups crop up.

Several well-known Peer to Peer file-sharing applications depend on spyware for their revenue, they get paid each time they plant the stuff on a new system. If P2P’s your thing, use Kazaa Lite/K++, Shareaza, or another spyware-free client. If you surf porn sites, you’re certain to have accumulated some spyware. If the computer keeps trying to dial the Czech republic, then you’ve definitely been seeded, but seriously, anyone who surfs the Web is vulnerable.

Run the Disk Cleanup – Worms and viruses often infect the Temporary Internet Files, or “cache.” Flush the cache, and reclaim space from other unnecessary files with the Windows Disk Cleanup utility. It’s under the Start menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup.

While you’re at it, run the Disk Defragmenter utility, also located in the System Tools. It can speed up disk access.

Disable Windows Messenger Service – Pop-ups with the words “Messenger Service” in the title bar exploit a feature of the Windows operating system called the Messenger Service. Not to be confused with MSN Messenger, Messenger Service is a somewhat vestigial, rudimentary messaging system. It wasn’t used much until spammers got hold of it. If you’re seeing messages such as “your computer is at risk, you’re exposed to the entire network” while your Web browser is closed, it’s probably Messenger Service spam.

To turn off the Messenger Service, go into the Start menu > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. In the Services dialog, scroll down until you find the word “Messenger.” Click with the left mouse button on the word “Messenger,” so that it highlights, then click with the right mouse button and select Properties. In the Properties dialog click on the Stop button. Then select Disable from the Startup Type pull-down menu. Click OK to exit the dialog. Messenger Service cannot be disabled in Windows 98 and ME, all the more reason to upgrade to XP.

Use a Firewall – Think of the firewall as another line of defense. It can alert you when a rogue program tries to access the net. One may actually catch a worm or virus in action, as it reports back to its master or tries to spread itself to other computers, if you pay attention to your firewall’s messages. Firewalls cease to be effective if you blindly okay every alert. Allow frequently used programs


virus per se, spoofing is a type of anti-social Internet behavior that can accompany criminal activity. The trend in spoofing is fake security alerts, emails that say your account will be terminated unless you confirm your username and password immediately. Anyone with a PayPal or eBay account is a potential target for this scam; we’ve seen very convincing emails that use actual artwork and web pages from the companies.

We know of one local individual, an intelligent guy, who fell for the ruse. His lucrative eBay business (with a 97% customer satisfaction rating) was taken over by scam artists, who duped him out of his password through an email spoof. They ran fraudulent auctions through his account, now eBay won’t let him sell anymore, customers are furious, and he’s still sorting things out. Don’t ever give sensitive passwords to anybody, and stay aware and critical about where you’re entering them. Ask yourself: Is this really the log-in page? If you’re unsure, contact the company in question, email

[email protected] and [email protected] to report suspicious activity.

Accept the Inevitable – Even the best of us stub our toes on the Internet now and again, no one’s immune from it. Despite your best efforts, it’s very likely that you will catch viruses or worms, get hacked, receive billions of spam emails, and encounter other new and exciting digital maladies in the course of your computing life. Assume it will happen, not if, but when. Make it a habit to back up your data – so when catastrophe strikes, you won’t lose all your work. When something does go wrong, take comfort in knowing that it’s probably fixable, and can happen to anyone.

Oh, and one more thing, when you get email from people in Nigeria asking for help with large cash transfers, don’t give them your bank account number.

He’s an author, entrepreneur, gear queer, and bon vivant; it’s Mister America to you, tough guy.

to access the network, but challenge unknown programs for your own safety. Firewalls can also shield against attacks that may come from outside, such as hacker probes. There are a lot of firewalls out there, we’ve been using Zone Alarm, but we don’t have a strong preference.

Download Cautiously – There is no evidence that anyone has ever put a virus or worm inside an MP3 file, a digital video file, or a graphic image. Things just don’t work that way. But be super-careful of executable code, meaning programs that can be run on your computer.

If some worm (or email) can convince you to accept and run a program, they can take over your computer and do just about anything. Don’t download or open any programs, specifically any .exe files, unless you’re absolutely sure about them. While audio/video files aren’t the problem, be alert for files with bogus extensions, for example .exe files with .mp3 or .mpg added to the file name. Which leads to the next item:

Watch Out For Spoofs – A “spoof” is someone or something masquerading as something else. While not a


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