The lost year: The failure to rebuild

Another UMM faculty pointed out a recent article in the New Yorker entitled "The lost year: The failure to rebuild" (available on-line here). The piece is about the complex history and politics in New Orleans, and the many problems and issues in rebuilding (or not) since hurricane Katrina, and highly topical given next week's visit by Governor Blanco. The complex racial and ethnic history of the city differ quite a lot from the history of the cajuns we've been reading, but both are indicative of the incredibly rich and varied cultural rivers that are brought together in Louisiana. The article also makes painfully clear how even terrible disasters like Katrina aren't free from politics and economics, issues of skin color and class.

And even in a piece about hurricanes, both natural and political, music plays its role:

I had glimpsed that stubborn affection in October, when the first secondline since Katrina wound its way through the debris-strewn streets of Treme. The secondline is the quintessential traffic-disrupting New Orleans art form; in this case, the Black Men of Labor, a social aid and pleasure club, marched in matching yellow print shirts, with matching hat bands and parasols, while the Hot 8 Brass Band followed behind them, blasting music into the mostly vacant neighborhood.

One thing I find odd about the article (esp. given the broad range of issues it covers) is that it says nothing about the larger questions of whether we should expect more massive storms like Katrina as a result of climate change. 'Cause if the answer is "Yes" (and I've certainly not seen a convincing argument that it's "No") then that has profound implications for these issues of rebuilding, and makes the failure of FEMA and others to objectively and scientifically identify the highest risk areas particularly troublesome. (Note that I'm not suggesting that all such high risk areas be abandoned without discussion. But certainly that data is vital if good long-term plans are going to come out of those discussions, and people should understand the implications of increased storm activity for a re-built New Orleans.)

The other thing I find troubling, and this is a complex issue we're probably going to wrestle with all semester, is the assumed relationship between hardship (in this case poverty) and cultural innovation. Much (probably most) of the music we'll listen to this semester was made by people were by no means wealthy, and in many cases extremely poor. A remarkable thing, then, is this wonderfully rich and valuable music that they brought out of that experience for all of us to share. Is hardship necessary for the creation of certain kinds of great art and innovation? Do we collectively need places like the Lower Ninth Ward to create new cultural ideas? If so, are those new ideas worth that price? Who makes those judgements? The children growing up there, or reasonably comfortable folks at a distance (like us)? How do we even begin to talk about such things in a meaningful way?

'Nuff. Feel free to discuss further in the comments section of this post.

Listen to the first listening list

In class today we'll go over the whole business of coming into the classroom in the evenings and weekends to listen to music via iTunes on the computer there. Our first listening assignment is a collection of cajun and zydeco music, ranging from early recordings from the 1920's to fairly contemporary pieces.

As an assignment, write down three questions that this listening list raises for you and bring them to class Thursday, 31 Sep. These can be factual questions (if so, try to answer them as well - you can still use the question even if you find the answer) or more open ended questions that might be good discussion questions in class. Note that this works best if you can come to the classroom sometime between today's class and Thursday's class, so make sure you schedule a slot for that.

The playlist:

• Amede Ardoin and Dennis McGee - "Madame Atchen"
  
• Ardoin was a creole accordion player and McGee was a white fiddle player. Against the racial/social odds, they played together and made several recordings together in the late 1920's and 1930's. It's likely that Adroin was severely beaten (or killed - the stories differ quite a lot and the records are very spotty), perhaps for having the audacity to accept the offer white woman's handkerchief to wipe his face during a performance. This is from the excellent 4 CD collection American Roots Music, the companion set to a fine PBS series of the same name.
  
• Cleoma Breaux and Joe Falcon - "La Vieux Soulard Et Sa Femme"
  
• A great husband and wife team; these early recordings of theirs were extremely popular. This is from the great Anthology of American Folk Music edited by Harry Smith.
  
• Iry LeJeune with the Oklahoma Tornadoes - "Evangeline Special"
  
• Shows the development of the cajun style in the 40's and 50's, and it's just a ton of fun! His whoops and singing blow out the mic now and then, but we'll all cope.
  
• Dewey Balfa, Marc Savoy, and D. L. Menard - "J'ai Passé Devant Ta Porte"
  
• Dewey Balfa comes from a giant musical family in the cajun universe, and the Balfas were vital in the surge of national interest in cajun music and culture in the 1960's. Marc Savoy also comes from a long line of cajun musicians and is a master at both playing and building accordions. (I'd love one of his accordions, but they're a little too expensive for my wallet.) D. L. Menard is often called the Hank Williams of cajun music. The three of them recording together is just pretty darn cool.
  
• Beausoleil - "Hey Baby, Quoi Ca Dit?"
  
• A contemporary cajun band led by Michael Doucet. I saw these guys play at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans back in the late 80's and people were dancing inside and all up and down the sidewalk; it was enormous fun. I love the amalgam of languages in this song, and only wish I could play accordion like this.
  
• Michael Doucet and Cajun Brew - "Wooly bully"
  
• There's a long tradition of cajun musicians covering popular (non-cajun) songs, and this is just another link in that chain.
  
• Clifton Chenier (the "King of the Zydeco") - "Zydeco cha cha"
  
• Truly one of the greats. His accordion playing, etc., really defined much of what we now call zydeco music, and it's just too much fun. I love the little crawfish bit at the end, so listen up!.
  
• Buckwheat Zydeco - "Think It Over One More Time"
  
• Played in Clifton's band for quite a while, and then went on to a very successful solo career. Here he combines his driving accordion with a seriously funky groove.
• The Flatlanders - "Jole Blon"
• This is actually a bunch of (non-cajun) guys from west Texas who were exploring "traditional" country in the late 60's/early 70's as a response to the increasingly smooth and heavily produced "Nashville sound" that dominated country music at the time. Here they're covering one of the classics of the cajun repertoire (Note their use of a saw in place of an accordion.) I've got a zillion other recordings of that song
  

Cajun readings/listenings for the first week

The bulk of the course will focus on blues and country, since these are arguably the forms of roots music that have had the broadest influence on music around the world. We will, however, explore other types of roots music (e.g., gospel), and our keynote FYS speaker (Governor Blanco of Louisiana) gives us a nice excuse to start with cajun and zydeco, two wonderful local Louisiana musics that reflect the complex and amazing history of the cajun and creole peoples of the region. (Make sure you mark 7pm, Tuesday, 5 Sept, for that talk, as attendance is required as part of the course. We'll talk more about that when classes start.)

The main purpose of this post is to share links to some useful resources. We'll have to get up and running really fast (the Governor's talk is the second week of the semester and we only meet twice a week), so hop to it!

History of the cajuns and overview of cajun/creole music:

• http://www.lsue.edu/acadgate/music/history.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun

A large and wonderful collection of (mostly) very early cajun recordings:

• http://npmusic.org/artists.html

There's a ton of good stuff here, but you need to be pretty open to these scratchy old recordings. Remember that this stuff was recorded on what we would consider pretty primitive equipment, and most of these early musicians were used to performing without amplification, so they often just blow out the poor microphones. Still, there's some wonderful ballads and dance music here. Try to imagine these people sitting on a porch, or playing a party in someone's living room, then try to combine the readings and the music to create an image of who these people were.

Some names or songs to particularly check out:

• "Evangeline" by Iry LeJeune
• Amede Ardoin
• Dennis McGee
• The Falcon family
• Amedee Breaux
• Blind Uncle Gaspard

When we meet tomorrow I'll show you how you'll be able to come in and listen to lots of music, and we'll start with some (more) modern descendants of these musicians like Clifton Chenier. For the most part these aren't available for free, though. One pleasant exception is Buckwheat Zydeco (who played in Clifton Chenier's band for quite a while) who has several complete songs available on his website:

• http://www.buckwheatzydeco.com/bwzydecomusic/bwzydecomusic.html

I especially recommend "Hot tamale baby". It's worth going back and forth between Buckwheat's more contemporary songs and the early stuff and think about how things have changed and (perhaps harder, but more important) how these things are connected (what's remained much the same).