As I drove to the New Orleans All Star Jam-Balaya, I passed a small pack of Hilary Clinton supporters half-heartedly waving an upside down “Hilary” sign at passing cars. A couple of Native American Indians were walking Colfax in their traditional wardrobes, but they walked like they were going home, not like they had an agenda.

The New Orleans show was hosted by Friends of New Orleans, and though it was scheduled to start at 8 p.m., the first act – Lauren Barrett – went on at 7:30 when the doors opened. She was backed by Donald Harrison and his band, who also backed Mary McBride for a version of Otis Redding’s “Freight Train,” Johnny Taylor’s daughter(? granddaughter? I don’t remember) for a song, before he led the group, which included Walter “Wolfman” Washington, in a few Mardi Gras standards. That set was done before significant numbers were there.

I’m told 2,000 tickets were sold for the show, tickets going for $500 a pop. Not bad, and though another 1,000 would have made for a more impressive audience to play to, it was a solid audience. It beefed up after the Louisiana Delegation party ended, when some of the delegates and performers from the show made their way to the Fillmore for the event. With tickets going for $500, it was obvious there was money in the room, but it sometimes took an eye to spot it. There were a lot of men in blue sport coats and Dockers, which they wore like the casual dress of the wealthy, but the people I spotted in the crowd that had real money dressed down further. Not rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts, but no jackets, no shirts that had recently been adorned with ties – genuine casual wear.

After a video and recognition interlude as the stage was reset, we got a half-hour of “Brother Ray,” a theatrical performance based on Ray Charles’ life. The assumption everyone around me made was that the producer of the show – or some backer – broke off a check to Friends of New Orleans big enough to get the preview of the show on the bill. It was fine, but the “huh?” factor was hard to get around, particularly in a show that promised to be long without Ray.

Also in the crowd – Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu, Senator Mary Landrieu and, later in the evening, former mayor Marc Morial. There was some speculation as to whether or not Mayor Nagin would show, but he didn’t. The area near the entrance to the backstage was the unofficial New Orleans cocktail party, and most of the people in that area were visiting from New Orleans or used to live in New Orleans. Actually, the whole show had more of the vibe of a cocktail party than a concert, complete with an open bar and Louisiana food (though the gumbo was burned and should never have been served). 

The next segment was the Wild Tchoupitoulas accompanied by the Soul Rebels, and they entered from the back of the room and snaked through the crowd before the Indians went to the front of the stage and the Soul Rebels made their way to the stage for three songs. Two security people tried to get people out of the way – “A band will be passing through here” – as if people wouldn’t know enough to get out of the way of a man in feathers or a marching band.

After another short round of speeches and videos about post-K New Orleans, the Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars came on with Henry Butler subbing for Dr. John. Actually, the All-Stars seemed to sub for the New Orleans Social Club as designated backing band. After two V.O.W. songs – “Bayou Breeze” and “Louisiana Sunshine” – the set lost any political edge it might have as they backed Butler, Marva Wright, Marcia Ball, Irma Thomas and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux. All fine, but nothing special. At 11:15, Tab Benoit made the first openly political statement from a musician, pleading for protection for the wetlands, going so far as to point out that we need to protect the wetlands for the oil refineries. Probably true, but not the emotionally strongest appeal. Before Benoit, what political content the evening held came in videos or when the Women of the Storm through toy footballs to the crowd that read, “One football field of land washes away every 50 minutes.” 

The night’s final set started with the Meters (with the String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth subbing for Art Neville) and Walter “Wolfman” Washington backing Randy Newman for “Blue Monday” and “Louisiana 1927,” the latter also featuring Terrance Blanchard. Allen Toussaint soon replaced Newman, and Blanchard was joined by Donald Harrison, Big Sam, Trombone Shorty and James Andrews. The crowd was noticeably smaller, and the set made the Ray Charles segment seem even more of a grievous addition because this was the set people needed to see. In the Indians and the Soul Rebels, people saw cultural practices kept alive. People thanked the Soul Rebels when they walked through the crowd after their performance. But this set was all about the joy of being alive and New Orleanians’ gift for improvisation.

Allen Toussaint sat at his piano in the middle of a funk jam and pounded his piano like it had been a bad boy, playing as hard as I’ve ever seen him play. During “Yes We Can Can,” Marcia Ball and the faux Raelettes ran onstage to wing some backing vocals and a little choreography. During the Meters’ “You Got to Change,” Harrison ran on for a quick sax solo that didn’t look scheduled. During “Hey Pocky-Way,” every horn soloist went off, going straight for showstoppers and high notes, high-fiving each other while someone else played. Periodically, George Porter, Jr. reminded people that Kirk Joseph was in the back corner on tuba, but the vibe of the horn line – goofing then killing – was a statement unto itself. When they closed with “They All Asked for You,” Zigaboo Modeliste dedicated it to Barack Obama, and everybody was playing so hard that Porter had to take off his bass and clown with the horn line until someone could give it back to him in some semblance of tune.

As a night of New Orleans music, we’ve all seen better. Nothing bad, but few moments of brilliance. As a political event, it’s hard to gauge not having seen enough political musical events to gauge. It’s hard to imagine anybody learned that Louisiana needs help last night, and though they might not have known all the details, the attendees likely knew what has happened and been happening.   I left with the suspicion that the political act took place when the ticket was purchased, and everything after that was gravy, but it’s something to think more about.

               

I’m writing from Denver, where the Democratic National Convention starts tomorrow. Tonight is the New Orleans All-Star Jam-Balaya, featuring half of the known New Orleans musical world. The show’s a $500 a ticket wetlands awareness benefit. More on that tomorrow, because it’s hardly the only musical offering connected to the convention. Willie Nelson’s playing a green event, Melissa Etheridge playing a human rights event, and concerts that seem more loosely connected by Apples in Stereo and Okkervil River, and one with Rage Against the Machine that The New York Times reports has had more than 40,000 requests for 5,000 free tickets. Add to that corporate parties – Kanye’s scheduled to appear at one, and YouTube star ObamaGirl is scheduled to host (and perhaps perform) at a few fundraisers.

Star power’s often a pretty good indication of the magnitude of a moment. Ben Affleck is going to play in a giant poker game in Coors Field – seriously – on Tuesday night starting at 10 p.m. But on the trip here, another moment suggested how much this election means. In line at a bank, a woman saw another in line had an Obama pin and she wanted to know where he got it. After a few minutes, he gave it to her, and she held it up like a winning lottery ticket. “The first black president. This is going to be a collector’s item.” The pride and positivity in the African-American woman’s voice suggested how much she had emotionally invested in the election, and it doesn’t take a great leap to imagine the disappointment and defeat she’ll experience if America decides it prefers more of the same to a black president. 

               

In today’s Huffington Post, Harry Shearer analyzes President Bush’s speech yesterday in New Orleans:

As disturbing as the words he spoke were the words Bush never mentioned: in almost half an hour of remarks citing indications of progress in New Orleans since the disaster and citing the work that still needs to be done, the President never uttered the words “coastal restoration.” When he bragged that he had, after protracted urging by the Governor and the state’s Congressional delegation, allowed Louisiana to repay the federal share of levee rebuilding over thirty years instead of three, he said he didn’t think the state should have to choose between better levees and “other” urgent programs. What is the urgent program the state is free to spend the money on? Coastal restoration, the rebuilding of the wetlands being lost at the rate of a football field every hour or so — but the state’s spending plans fall considerably short of what’s needed to repair the buffer that protects New Orleans from more severe hurricanes, an area that also serves as the source for 40% of the nation’s fresh seafood. If we can’t even utter those words, can we face the task of repairing “the mistakes of the past”?

               

If you don’t see links inside the blog posts, run your cursor over the text. I see them on some computers but not all computers, and our tech folks have yet to figure out how deal with this. I’m frustrated by the problem, but almost every post has a link or two, and if you wave your magic cursor over the text, there’s a good chance something wonderful will appear!

               

The Internet and I are together again. Sorry for the radio silence, but server issues shut me down for the last week. We’ve been so busy finishing the September issue that I wouldn’t have had much to say anyway – or nothing that didn’t have a place in the pages.

Two quick notes: Trouble the Water, the Sundance award-winning documentary showing the flooding of the Lower Ninth Ward will open in New York City and Los Angeles the week of August 29, and it opens nationwide the following week. Andrew O’Hehir’s review of it at Salon.com is well worth reading. He addresses many of the race and class issues the movie raises head-on:

Watching Trouble the Water last January at Sundance, in a theater packed with white folks in upscale ski garb – other than the Robertses, the only black person I’m sure I saw there was Danny Glover – was a peculiar, cathartic, almost explosive ritual. Say whatever you want to about the privilege and liberal guilt of that gathering. It’s all true. Say that watching a movie in a Utah resort town with a bunch of people flown in from the coasts is an inadequate way to confront the horrifying legacy of Katrina, and that’s true too. But that’s how it felt. As I wrote at the time, it was hard to imagine anyone sitting through this film without feeling overwhelmed by great grief and great joy, and without being humbled by a sudden awareness of one’s own prejudices about the lives, passions and dreams of poor people.

Also, about a month ago, I posted part one of Garnette Cadogan’s interview with writer/historian/musician/provocateur Ned Sublette. Here’s part two. It’s a wide-ranging discussion, but New Orleans is the center it keeps returning to:

It’s too early to say whether New Orleans will survive. Maybe this is all just a prolonged final breath. Because if they don’t get those wetlands to the south of the city reinforced, if they don’t get those levees right, New Orleans is gonna be taken out. It’s the canary in the coalmine for what we might be seeing in other parts of the country. That tsunami in South Asia that killed 200,000 people? One reason the casualties were so high was that they had taken out the mangrove swamps and replaced them with shrimp and fish farms. The oil companies don’t even necessarily want South Louisiana to exist. They want to get the oil. And they’ve cut thousands of canals that erode away the land. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, which is a lethal water gun pointed at the low-lying areas, is still there. So if we don’t have real protection, we won’t have this city and culture. It’s by no means saved. It’s very much too soon to tell. But one thing we can see in the years since the tragedy of August 29, 2005, is how essential music is to the identity of the city. How essential it is to resisting the erasure of the city and its people. And also how creative the response of New Orleans has been. Music never stopped. The Banks Street Café was having gigs by candlelight before the power was back on. Coco Robicheaux was in a bar in the French Quarter when the power first came back, and he immediately took out his guitar and started playing. Music was one of the first things to get started again, and the response on the part of musicians has been so eloquent. It’s one of the most inspiring things I’ve experienced in my lifetime. Have you heard Terence Blanchard’s A Tale of God’s Will? Gave me goosebumps. At Jazzfest 2007, Henry Butler—this great figure of New Orleans piano, who lost his house, he’s living in Denver—he was back for Jazzfest, and every gig I went to Henry Butler was playing, and he was testifying. When a trumpet player drives six hours each way from Houston to make his Thursday night bar gig, you can feel his commitment in every note he plays. The second lines these days are sublime. I always finish these things by encouraging everybody to go there and see it for yourself, and participate in this culture that is so fundamental to who we are.

               

Here’s part of Chuck Eddy’s excellent take on Isaac Hayes:

When people say Hayes’ early ’70s recordings anticipated — maybe even invented — disco, this is part of what they’re talking about. Of course, they’re also talking about how the epochal wah-wah of 1971’s “Theme From Shaft” so obsessively turned funk rhythms mechanistic; if there’s ever been a more inexorable No. 1 pop single, I don’ t know what it would be. But his more-lasting disco innovation was to expand the soul-dance beat toward eternity.

Oliver Wang introduces his set of Isaac Hayes’ covers:

As promised, a few cover songs of Isaac Hayes tunes and compositions in honor of the late master’s catalog. To be honest, it’s not quite as easy as you’d think. True, there’s a gazillion “Shaft” covers but remember that in Hayes’ post-Hot Buttered Soul career, most of his groundbreaking songs were reinterpretations of other people’s songs rather than original compositions. That said, in the case of JoAnn Garrett’s “Walk On By,” it’s clear that she’s working off of Hayes’ epic version rather than playing with the Bacharach/Warwick versions.

Tom O’Neil reminds us that Hayes was the third African American to win an Oscar:

Hayes was only the third African American to take home an Academy Award — after  Hattie McDaniel won the supporting actress race for “Gone With the Wind” in 1939 and Sidney Poitier prevailed in the best actor category for “Lilies of the Field” in 1963.

The Houston Chronicle’s Andrew Dansby writes about the scope of Hayes’ musical accomplishments:

the sonorous and velvety voice, the grand, orchestral ambition of his arrangements and the general laid-back pacing of the songs were without precedent. Shaft is a great single. South Park is a funny show. But before that anthem and that animated TV show, Hayes made music bigger than a genre that still sounds ahead of its time.

               

I wonder if it’s now possible to imagine how alien the wah-wah in “Theme from Shaft” once sounded? When I was 12 or 13, a friend and I spent an afternoon listening to it over and over trying to figure out how that sound was made.

When I went through the period when I aggressively hunted the soundtracks for blaxploitation films, I discovered another few of musicians who defined the form – Willie Hutch number one among them – but other Isaac Hayes soundtracks became more important to me than that of Shaft, particularly the soundtrack for Truck Turner (sold as a two-disc set with the lesser Three Tough Guys). While most of the soundtrack artists thought really well in short bursts – evocative car chase snippets, slightly longer seduction slow jams – Hayes’ tracks sustained their mood while developing melodies or grooves.

My only experience seeing Hayes live was at Jazz Fest in 2005, when he played the Congo Square stage on the final Sunday opposite the Neville Brothers. I opted for the Nevilles, but after their show, Hayes was still onstage so I stopped to see him. The show went on until 7:30, with the stage manager almost apoplectic trying to signal for him to stop. And he didn’t simply drift overtime. He played another few songs and settled into “I Stand Accused” (I think – it was definitely a slow jam) as if we had a whole night ahead of us. When he finally got to “Theme from Shaft,” it still sounded alien in its way, but also big and lush. It didn’t evoke driving to a showdown at night on rainy, city streets, but that’s because there was a band to look at instead. Otherwise, the song survived the translation to the stage better than I expected. 

Final random Hayes thought for now – I was surprised this morning that Hayes story from The Washington Post this morning omitted the stroke he suffered a few years ago. When a guy’s found dead by a treadmill, that seems like the sort of information that might prove relevant. 

               

Writer Ned Sublette’s appreciation of Bo Diddley was published in the new issue of Smithsonian, and it’s a personal, free-wheeling take on the breadth of Diddley’s accomplishments. Some you know, some you don’t, but all are infused with Sublette’s passion for his subject:

It was positively modernist: a song called “Bo Diddley” about the exploits of a character named Bo Diddley, by an artist named Bo Diddley, who played the Bo Diddley beat. No other first-generation rock ‘n’ roller started out by taking on a mystical persona and then singing about his adventures in the third person. By name-checking himself throughout the lyrics of his debut record, Bo Diddley established what we would now call his brand. Today this approach to marketing is routine for rappers, but Bo Diddley was there 30 years before. He was practically rapping anyway, with stream-of-consciousness rhyming over a rhythm loop.

               

With discussions of “the race card” – Can we finally bury that phrase along with all its variations? – spiking up in the presidential election, Jeff Chang’s Zentronix blog is mandatory reading.  Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is a powerful history of hip-hop, one that carefully and intelligently centralizes the various social and political contexts that are crucial to its development, and he brings the same wisdom to his blog. He is also likely reading sources you’re not, so Zentronix is a useful resource to a broader spectrum of thought and news. His current post on the aftermath of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention and Ludacris’ “Obama is Here” links to this smart take by Bakari Kitwana on the role of hip-hop in the national political debate:

All three organizations, should do themselves and their movement a favor by articulating loudly and clearly hip-hop’s moral center: that hip-hop political organizers are concerned about the negative representations of women, that criminal lifestyles aren’t something youth should emulate, and that young Black, Brown and poor people are concerned about the future of their families and are committed to placing the interest of children first.

To do so will align this emerging voting bloc with Black political movements before them and win allies in the process. But perhaps more important, it will go a long way in helping distance their noble cause from the profit motive of the music industry. It will also distinguish them from the few individuals willing to peddle hyper sexual and violent imagery at the expense of those fighting for an America where young people have a bright future.

               

Friday, Jack Shafer wrote “What’s Really Killing Newspapers?” at Slate.com. He contends that it’s no longer the place people go for “social currency” – ” the information we acquire and then trade – or give away – to start, maintain, and nurture relationships with our fellow humans. ” Not surprisingly, Shafer finds the Internet a better source of social currency, particularly Facebook, which he describes as “the Federal Reserve Bank of social currency.”

The horror stories we hear about the state of the newspaper business are real, but comparatively speaking, The Times-Picayune hasn’t experienced the same crunch other papers have. I wonder if it’s because we live in a city where it still provides significant social currency, one where the news directly applies to our lives and we know it. I’m always reluctant to go to “Best Batch Yet” explanations, but I wonder if we’ve discovered that the news isn’t just the abstract doings of the wealthy and powerful – stuff outside our control - and not knowing what’s in the paper impairs our ability to be part of our community.