The Music of the Pelican State Rises Up From Somewhere Deep

A map to deep musical realms, with crawfish on the side. Rafael Alvarez

"A week and a half before Mardi Gras — early February, in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans — a crowd gathered in the sanctuary of St. Anna’s Episcopal Church, on Esplanade. Though the season of Lent and repentance was just around the bend, they hadn’t come to pray or confess. About a hundred folks had paid the piper to dance to klezmer tunes as old as Hasidic weddings and jazz as local as a wiener sold from a cart shaped like a hot dog on Bourbon Street. ... This was not for tourists, not some clichéd derivative of Bourbon Street Dixieland. It had enough soul to satisfy both musician and audience. An older woman in a pew near the back, sounding as though she had discovered a fat and spicy shrimp in an otherwise inferior gumbo, yelled, 'REAL MUSICIANS!' Indeed, present were banjo, drums, sax, trombone, tuba, and accordion, in addition to Schenck’s rollicking licorice stick. It was seven bucks to get in and seven bucks for a bowl of pasta with crawfish and shrimp. Volunteers sold beer and hard liquor, with plenty of cold water to cool the faithful down. ..."

Voice

Dance your way out of the pews.