Concert Reviews

They came to play and boy did they! Led by long time Les Paul Trio member Lou Pallo (Haledon, NJ, age unknown but no "Spring chicken"), and joined by Al Caiola (Jersey, City, NJ age 93!), Bucky Pizzarelli (Paterson, NJ age 87) and Frank Vignola (from Lon Guyland but forgiven and the kid on the block at 47), the quarter produced sublime music and demonstrated throughout guitar virtuosity that was always mesmerizing and occasionally thrilling.

Like Steve Earle, Ryan Adams and other distinctly American artists, Shelby Lynne finds it difficult to settle down musically in one place.

Since releasing I Am Shelby Lynne in 2000, she’s been a moving target for her fans and critics alike. Though she won a “Best New Artist” Grammy® Award for that album, in fact, it was her sixth record! Go figure.

(As we approach the August 29th 2007 second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we thought it a good time to reflect on the pathetic response by the Bush administration then and now and to present our man in New Orleans's Roger Hahn's coverage of last spring's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival—ed.)

There was a moment early in the afternoon of the last Sunday of New Orleans’ first post-Katrina Jazz Fest when it appeared to me that everything about the event, my perception of it, and even my hopes for the damaged city I’ve come to call home for the past ten years, changed dramatically. I was standing just outside the Economy Hall tent listening to the Trémé Brass Band, one the city’s oldest and funkiest old-time-jazz aggregations, when it started to rain.

Up to that point, the festival had managed to avoid bad weather. First, it outlasted an early heat wave that had collapsed a week and a half earlier, just as music fans began streaming into the city, then it successfully dodged heavy periods of rain that fell overnight on the first weekend. Another wave of rain showers had passed immediately north of the city on the second weekend. Now, however, it seemed the festival’s luck had pretty much run out.