Fat Tuesday at Mexicali Blues Café
Sponsored by New York Blues & Jazz Society
Teaneck, NJ - February 28, 2006
by Thomas M. Kitts

Teaneck, New Jersey is an unlikely location for a Mardi Gras celebration featuring one of New Orleans's finest blues vocalists, several veteran blues and jazz musicians, and filmmakers flying in from around the country just for the occasion. Yet on a frosty Fat Tuesday night, Mexicali Blues Café housed one very hot celebration of all things NOLA. Organized by the New York Blues & Jazz Society, under the leadership of WFDU-FM deejay Bob Putignano, the evening was divided into three segments: New Orleanian Michael Murphy presented Make It Funky!, his extraordinary documentary on the NOLA music scene; "Piano Night (NOLA Style)" featured keyboardists David Maxwell, Bruce Katz, and Dave Keyes; and Luther Kent with a true all-star band led by Melvin Sparks brought all to a rousing climax. It was a dazzling evening of sound, sight, and maybe even a little voodoo magic

. Native New Orleanian Luther Kent arrived in New Jersey after a recent tour of Japan and in between a weekend of gigs in his home town and a couple of weeks of upcoming gigs in Italy and Switzerland. Kent with help from Putignano arranged for a stunning back-up band. Guitarist Melvin Sparks, who has performed on over 150 recordings including nine solo albums, was joined on trumpet by Lew Soloff, who has collaborated with Gil Evans and supported a wide range of performers from Lou Reed to Frank Sinatra, and on saxophones by Blues Brother alumnus Blue Lou Marini, who flew in from Dallas with co-Chickenhawk and ace guitarist and producer Jack Calmes. Returning to the stage were Bruce Katz on Hammond B-3 and David Maxwell on keyboards while the rhythm section, on loan from the Dave Keyes Band, was formed by Sue Williams on bass and Terry Silverlight on drums. In composition and in musicianship, the band itself reflected the generous and communal nature of the NOLA scene where, as Make It Funky! emphasizes, musicians routinely inconvenienced themselves and, in the Jim Crow South, put themselves at risk to jam with one another.

After the band opened with a hard-driving blues stretch, Luther Kent took the stage and launched into "Flip, Flop and Fly," the rollicking opener off his recent live CD on which he was backed by the Chickenhawks. Kent next took the band down low with the tenacious riff of "Just a Little Bit," which featured a stinging solo from Sparks and a riveting piano solo from Maxwell. Throughout the set - a jambalaya of NOLA musics - the band stirred colorful and complex solos into basic song recipes. It was a treat to see these performers play so well together, to watch the pairings of Marini and Soloff, Sparks and Calmes, Katz and Maxwell, grind out steady rhythms and accompaniments and then, in the best spirit of the music, challenge each other through solos.

As impressive as the band was the vocalist would not be outdone. Luther Kent, an inductee in the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame and an all too rare performer in the New York City area, has an absorbing stage presence. His deep husky voice, which could have only been born in New Orleans, can be demanding and boastful or pleading and vulnerable, but it is always expressive and, at times, spellbinding. Kent becomes the character of his songs and tells or sells very convincing stories. He simply makes us believe everything he sings. Indeed, he has ninety-nine women and he is a genuine Hoochie Coochie man, and he did drink at Old Joe's barroom and he could use just a "teeny weenie bit of [his women's] love." With the funky "Pocky Way," he put us all in the second line of a NOLA street parade.

Big and burly, Kent dances and shimmies around the stage clapping hands or extending an arm and hand all aquiver with always an expressive countenance. His eyes stretch high and low or squint to a squeeze; his mouth grimaces, opens widely, rounds itself off, frowns, or smiles. In constant animation, he growls, laughs, and cheers on the band. After all, he is a product of his home town, a town that does things larger than life, that dances at funerals and turns a day laborer into a credible Mardi Gras Indian. Kent can even make a sip of water dramatic.

Before Kent took the stage, "Piano Night (NOLA Style)" featured David Maxwell, Bruce Katz, and Dave Keyes, each of whom performed some twenty minutes solo before performing collectively. New Orleans has been the breeding ground for some of America's greatest pianists, and together and solo, Maxwell, Katz, and Keyes evoked the aura of most of them.

Maxwell, who has released several solo cds and was a regular performer with James Cotton among others, started off the segment with a sparkling set that took us on a tour of New Orleans. He began with "Breakdown on the Bayou," which incorporated funk and Caribbean rhythms, and then turned to the boogie-woogie of "Twisted Tendons," the bluesy gospel of "Take Me on Home," the up-tempo blues of "Blues Don't Bother Me," and closed his set with the dramatic "Sister Laura Lee."

Bruce Katz was not to be outdone. A veteran of the Broadcasters and the Duke Robillard Blues Band, Katz began his set with the soulful "Crescent Crawl," the title track from his 1992 release. He then ranged through an eclectic set with mood shifts that at times echoed Jelly Roll Morton and Professor Longhair.

Next was Dave Keyes, who won the 2000 New York Blues & Jazz Society's Battle of the Bands before going on to win the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Keyes, a solid vocalist, opened with a tribute to Doctor John, with whom he has performed frequently, and then moved the audience with a jazzy and soulful, almost gospel rendition of Lead Belly's "Goodnight Irene," which captured the spirit of a New Orleans funeral march which, as Make It Funky! informs us, celebrates life while it honors death. Keyes closed his set with some early rock and roll: Clarence Garlow's "Route 90," the inspiration for "Sweet Little Sixteen." He then called Maxwell and Katz back on stage for a barrelhouse boogie-woogie jam with Katz on Hammond B-3.

The tone of the evening was set in its opening segment with Make It Funky!, a documentary which through performance, interviews, and archival footage celebrates NOLA music and the struggle of musicians to overcome Jim Crow laws. Director Michael Murphy, a fourth generation New Orleanian and a fixture on the NOLA music scene, combines candid interviews with concert footage from a six-hour show he presented in April 2004, which featured performances by the Neville Brothers, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Lloyd Price, Earl Palmer, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, and others, all of whom added a bit of their own flavoring to the zesty gumbo of New Orleans funk. Of course, Murphy shot more concert and interview footage than he could possibly use, but the former president of House of Blues Productions promises a more complete concert film and hopes to publish extended versions of the interviews in a volume with photographs.

Narrated by Art Neville, Make It Funky! is not just a must see, but also a must have. The performances will provide repeated pleasure and the interviews repeated insights while the proceeds from the DVD benefit the recovery of New Orleans, which according to Murphy and seconded by Kent, will take between eight to ten years. In both practical and mystical ways, only music can resurrect the Crescent City.

Completed before Hurricane Katrina, the film seamlessly weaves scenes of Mardi Gras Indians, funeral parades, and voodoo ceremonies among the performances and interviews, all in the spirit of celebration and triumph. Make It Funky! was an uplifting beginning to a festive evening of great New Orleans music and culture. Not for a minute were we in Teaneck, New Jersey.