Customer Reviews

Our New Orleans: Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A wonderful mix of NOLA soul, R & B, Jazz and almost everything New Orleans, the Nonesuch release Our New Orleans just goes to show you that down does not necessarily mean out. The artists here are telling us that they and their music are still around, thanks, a fact most of us suspected would come to pass even through our shock and our grief at the horrible losses.

The problem with many "benefit" albums that offer play lists of "various" numerous artists is that the bands usually cover a broad range of styles, and sometimes such divergent sounds crash headlong into each other. Worse, such efforts sometimes come off as trite, patronizing to their cause or even indifferent.

Happily, this is not the case with Our New Orleans. The material, whether Jazz, Cajun, Creole, Rhythm & Blues, Gospel, Second Line or whatever, all have one common current running through their collective wires - the spirit of New Orleans. And the love if it.

As others have pointed out, picking out a favorite from so many first-class tracks is next to impossible. Just because Irma Thomas happens to be one my favorite vocalists of all time, doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other first-rate performers here to make us jump around the room and celebrate. Celebrate what? I don't know - celebrate those who made it, I guess, and give those who didn't a real New Orleans tribute. From the familiar to the revelations (and there were a few revelations for me hiding in this album) all the participants give 1,000%. It wouldn't be fair to single out any unless I mention that every performance is as heartfelt as it is hearty.

One of the revelations for me (for I was not heretofore familiar with the singer or the song) was TOU' LES JOURS Ç'EST PAS LE MÌME, a burning Creole bouncer by Carol Fran.

And any album that proffers the song Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans is a winner in my book. Originally warbled by the great Billie Holiday to Louis Armstrong in the motion picture New Orleans (1947) I got chills when I noticed it was being performed here by the venerable Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Since the day Katrina hit, I have been singing snatches to myself in a kind of macabre search for the perfect New Orleans swan song. But of course, we always knew the survivors would bounce back...

Do you know what it means
To miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day
Well I know I'm not wrong
The feeling's getting stronger
The longer I stay away
Miss those moss-covered vines
The tall sugar-pines
Where mockingbirds used to sing
And I'd like to see the lazy Mississippi
A hurrying about to spring
The moonlight on the Bayous*
Those Creole tunes that fill the air
You know I dream about magnolias in bloom
And soon I'm wishing that I were there
Do you know what it means
To miss those Red Beans
When that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more
I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans


*Billie Holiday sings this line as:
"The Mardi Gras, the memories
Of Creole tunes that fill the air"

Our New Orleans is highly recommended!

Somehow, despite being an extremely fervent admirer of Randy Newman, I'd become slightly jaded about "Louisiana 1927"...I'd heard it too many times, in too many crummy versions, to the point where it had become almost corny, a trope. With Katrina and its aftermath though, it lives again, and I am reminded what a brilliant and beautifully crafted piece of work it is. There's a lovely, grief-laden take on it here...

Although I've only listened to this once, the highlights that stood out are too numerous to neatly encapsulate here. But, having said that, listen for: the Donald Harrison sax solo on "Wonderful World", the forlorn Buckwheat Zydeco track, "Crying in the Streets", with great, wailing, sorrowful guitar work from Ry Cooder, and Irma Thomas's take on Bessie Smith's "Backwater Blues" (where's Irma been lately?)...And oh, Dr. John's weary, resigned "World I Never Made" and Allen Toussaint's "Yes We Can Can", a perfect opening salvo - if you ask me, there can never be enough versions of that song in the world.

Great music and a chance to do a good deed (all proceeds go to Katrina-related causes)? Sign me up, Coach!

I am rendered speechless by this album. I put this CD on for backround music while I was reading because it would remind me of home. When the song "Tou' les jours ?'est pas la m?me" came on I could no longer concentrate on my book, it aroused so much emotion in me. It is definitely rare for a song (actually, the entire album) to be able to do that and now I can't stop listening to it. This is a most powerful experience. Do not miss out on this album.

This is a wonderful album. It collects the best sounds of the south under one roof for the healing of New Orleans. Listening to this, you feel like you are in New Orleans feeling thier pain and feeling like you can and should do something about it. This album will uplift you, and soothe you. It helps to remind America of the rich musical sounds that could come from no other place in the world than New Orleans. It reminds us why we love the place and why we should all treasure that beautiful land. Songs like Yes we can can will have you feeling peppy with its base player and snappy drummer and vocalist. The world I never made will make you feel like you are in a piano bar sippin iced tea in the heat of summer. Great album. Great. Great. Great.

I live in Louisiana, and naturally, these old tunes (and the musicians who perform them) hold a place very near and dear to me. This album, however, has the most moving renditions of the old classics I've ever heard.... from "Yes we can can" to "Back Water Blues".. Unlike other tribute albums that have been released since the storm, this is not merely a collection of old recordings. Every song was recorded by New Orleans artists -- many of whom lost their homes -- in the weeks immediately following Hurricane Katrina... and the raw emotion that comes through in each performance brings new life and new meaning to old music. Each piece is incredibly moving and well performed. Beyond the simple fact that the proceeds from the CD will benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina, this is a must-buy CD for the simple fact that it reflects some of the very best of what New Orleans has to offer in music and culture. Before anyone writes-off New Orleans as just another washed-out city, they must hear this album!

I had no idea this recording would be so moving. On paper, the stellar lineup of artists in brand-new recordings of superb material seemed about as close to ideal as one could imagine -- and all to benefit a good cause -- but of course projects like this sometimes turn out to be well-meaning but artistically inert. This is not one of those times.

To go on and on about every track would take hours of writing, so I'll just cite my favorites, beginning with Allen Toussaint turning "Yes We Can Can" into an something with the primal power of "We Shall Overcome." Irma Thomas is mesmerizing in "Back Water Blues," followed by Davell Crawford's equally poignant "Gather by the River," leading into Buckwheat Zydeco's aching anthem, "Cryin' in the Streets." With its mournful slow step, it is the one track that evokes a New Orleans funeral march, and one of the disc's emotional high points.

Later Donald Harrison and the Wardell Quezergue Orchestra polish "It's a Wonderful World" to a gleaming shine, and the great Preservation Hall Jazz Band burnishes "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" with a nostalgic glow, not to mention some fabulous musicianship. In between the mood is sometimes more upbeat, even humorous. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is optimistic in a festive "My Feet Can't Fail Me Now," and Dr. Michael White's fluid clarinet is almost too happy in a foot-tapping "Canal Street Blues."

With many of the artists in temporary exile, the entire disc was recorded in various locations shortly after the overwhelming sadness of Hurricane Katrina. If there is any common thread, the selections show an enormous fighting spirit, but one that still makes time for grief to show through. I confess I haven't heard any of the other recorded projects released to help victims, but it would be hard to imagine one better conceived, performed and recorded than this.

True New Orleans-area music is captured here on this benefit disc. If you've ever experienced this gem of the world, the CD puts you right back there. It doesn't stop throughout: you are cermoniously dropped right into the flavor and feel of New Orleans at the first note of Allen Toussaint's Mardi Gras-flavored version of "Yes We Can Can" and you stay there until Randy Newman and the accompanying orchestras hit the last note in "Louisiana 1927".

Do you feel any melancholy? Yeah, you right! Do you wish you could do more for those who have suffered? Yeah, baby.

This is a wonderful compilation of artists from the area, and even more than a year after Katrina - it's worth buying and supporting the Habitat and musicias who lost their homes.

I DO know what it means to miss New Orleans...

I bought this CD for a woman I work with who's childhood home was New Orleans. Living in Connecticut she is far removed from zydeco and red beans and rice. She was, needless to say, devistated by Katrina even though she was so far away. Her face was priceless when she opened this CD. She immediately put it in the office CD player and began to dance around the office. I joined her as did others and in the middle of well below freezing temperaturers and mounds of snow and ice we all experienced N'Oleans. This CD as she put it, is real Cajun music. I don't know what higher praise it can be given.

I give it three stars because anything by Allen Toussaint, Randy Newman, Buckwheat Zydeco, Irma Thomas and the Wild Magnolias (and many others) should get at least that many. But, man, is this a depressing CD. One funereal piece after another until the Magnolias kick it. And Newman's "Louisiana 1927" has always been gorgeous, sly and elegiac -- suitably ironic to include it here. Doubtless everyone was shocked and depressed when they cut this, but geez -- the New Orleans music I love, even the funeral songs, is infused with joy and an infectious second line beat that you just can't help moving to, even when you're down. I had to go back to the splendid 4-CD "Big Ol' Box of New Orleans" to recover.

I was a little skeptical, ordering this sight unseen, but I'm a sucker for causes and the plight of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast moved me to purchase it.

Not disappointed! Some dynamite songs on this! Dr. John is outstanding and it's amazing how Randy Newman's "Louisiana" can still be so topical when it was written about a flood in the early part of the 20th century, just goes to show. Haunting soul song.

I'd recommend it for anyone who likes blues AND Zydeco...great cut by Buckwheat Zydeco, the premier Cajun group.

Remember, a portion of the proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity, building new homes in the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast...buy it.