Week in Review – December 14th, 2025

“Chickie Visits”

Diana had some early week accomplishments – Christmas tree up, complete with her angel on top, and streetcar puzzle finished off.  This time she did take time to sleep between puzzling sessions.

Trivia followed the typical routine on Tuesday evening.  We missed the last question (flipped the last two) and fell out of the money.

Wednesday was a pleasant, sunny day and so I was able to walk over to Aidan Gill for my haircut and stop into HiVolt coffee for a snack on the walk back home.

I had read that Joe Krown was going to be on the road with the Kenny Wayne Shepherd band (playing Hammond organ) for most of the first half of 2026, and so we took advantage of the opportunity to listen to him one last time for a while at Dos Jefes on Wednesday evening.  Excellent as always:

Thursday was another pleasant walking day.  We made a lap around and stopped into Feet First to see about some shoes for Diana – nothing fit well enough to warrant a purchase.  I suggested a Cafe Degas Happy Hour in the afternoon – always well received by McD.  We branched out from the usual, trying the shrimp remoulade salad for the first time.  This is always such a yummy, and crazily inexpensive treat.

I had read about something called the Greenway SuperNova close to Cafe Degas.  We navigated over to explore.  I had expected some illuminated art installations along the Lafitte Greenway and that wasn’t really what it was.  It seemed more like an art market with some great food booths and music stages.  The evening was getting chilly and so we had a quick walk through and called it an early night.

 

Our friend Nick “Chickie” was in town on business for a few days.  Knowing that we had dinner plans, we made sure to get a good walk in the morning.  We met up for dinner on Friday at the wonderful Acamaya in the Marigny.  The food, drinks and service are always excellent.  I loved the smoky Manhattan Negra made with mezcal.

We started with an assortment of tostadas and ceviche.  The scallop tostada was my favourite – interesting flavour.  We chose the arroz negra (I think the best menu item with squid and various seafood treats in the deep black rice) and pork chop (perfectly cooked) with a sweet potato side for our larger dishes.

Coffee came in these funky Mayan looking cups:

Chickie was looking for his favourite digestive – Fernet Branca.  I got lucky on my first call to local watering holes – yes, Markey’s Bar has it and they’re just around the corner.  We had a very nice evening sitting outside at the Markey’s sidewalk tables and enjoying the weather.

We picked Chickie up at the Four Seasons (he was slumming), or I should say we tried to – his massage was running long.  Tough life… We ultimately met up at Elizabeth’s for a yummy brunch.

All the usual hits – crabby eggs benedict, fried oyster benedict, fried pickles, and praline bacon.

 

Time for a nap after that.  In the evening we watched the new Michelle Pfeiffer movie, “Oh. What. Fun.”  Not really the light hearted holiday movie that one might expect from the marketing.

At some point on Saturday, Mason graduated from Alabama.  I know he worked very hard these last few months and is happy to be finished.

Kenny, Kara and Nina came over on Sunday.  The girls were off on a holiday home tour.  The Preservation Resource Center puts on an annual tour of homes in the Garden District.

They walked to five or six decorated fancy homes:

Kenny and I walked over the Flako’s – a new Mexican restaurant that occupies what was the most recent home of Tracey’s.  The food was “fine” – nothing amazing but perfectly passable.  Service was good.

We watched some football (a nice Saints win) while the girls chatted after their tour.  Diana ordered some Theo’s pizza and salad – a nice conclusion to a lazy and laid back day.

I made a slow start on “Holy City” by Henry Wise.  I’m enjoying it so far – very much in the style of S.A. Crosby, who’s review encouraged me to try it.  Here’s a short summary:

“Holy City is the captivating debut from Henry Wise about a deputy sheriff who must work alongside an unpredictable private detective after he finds himself on the outs from his sheriff’s department over his unwillingness to look the other way when an innocent man is arrested for murder.”

Jazzfest is front page news in New Orleans.  The lineup for 2026 dropped this week, and it’s a very good one:

So many artists that we would like to see – we may have to take a different approach to tickets this year.  I really like the poster as well – just like Diana’s puzzle:

I watched a documentary about the wonderful New Orleans based trumpeter, Leroy Jones.  He was the lead in Harry Connick’s big band:

 

 

 

 

 

Week in Review – December 7th, 2025

“Much Colder in New Orleans”

I know that I’m having some trouble with videos.  The YouTube plugin for my blogging software is causing a problem with mobile rendering and I haven’t found the best workaround yet.  I spent hours on it yesterday just to determine which plugin was causing the problem.

We flew back home on Tuesday – thanks to Caroline for the airport ride – advance party and departure assistance.  All our Thanksgiving travels were completely smooth – not what it was looking like a week or two before with all the government shutdown and other nonsense.

While we were flying, the Bayou Boyz trivia teams in New Orleans and Boulder were plugging away.  The New Orleans version struggled with the final question – particularly how many territories there are in Risk – I would not have been any help as it’s 40 years since I played (at a minimum.)

The guys ended in third place – very respectable.  Meanwhile, in Boulder, CO, the other team came in a lower place – but against many more teams.

It was too cold for yoga and other stuff outside the house on Wednesday morning.  Diana ventured out to get stuff for butternut squash soup in the afternoon – it was a recipe I’d seen in the paper and asked her to consider making – she made the curry version and it is delicious (we have lots of leftovers.)  Those squash were hard to cut through – I had to take on a knife sharpening task after that.  And what do you know – Amazon popped up with an email recommending a Japanese knife sharpener to me – of course they’re not listening to us.

A beautiful calendar from Mum was delivered.  I always love the nature photographs and the clever titles.

I did some chopping for Diana with the newly sharpened knives on Thursday night.  She made a recipe that I had found and that we had shopped for earlier in the day – a Mediterranean style stir-fry featuring mushrooms.  Here’s the recipe – we substituted barley for the rice:

Mediterranean mushroom stir-fry

The Cowboys win streak ended – too good to be true.  The Detroit Lions were way too much for them.  This means they are for all intents and purposes eliminated from the playoffs – nothing to get too excited about for the rest of the year.

I invited Diana to lunch at N7 on Friday to celebrate our stock crossing the $20/share mark.  Not bad from $11 at the beginning of the year – amazing actually.  We sat in the inside dining room for the first time and had a lovely experience.  Great ambience, service, food and company.

We split the charred romaine salad with clever presentation plate.  Then followed that with the N7 burger – check out the squid ink infused bun.

To cap of the celebration we finished with a pavlova.  The meringue and cream were perfect – so unusual to get that chewy center in the U.S..

On the drive to N7 Diana was explaining the World Cup draw process to me – perfectly.  She had all the aspects covered, including the 6 remaining open spots and how that works.  Where is all this sports knowledge coming from?

Scotland has a touch group with Brazil:

When I think about Scotland and the World Cup, I always map to 1978 against Holland and the Kenny Dalglish goal.  I couldn’t tell you the score in the last Cowboys game, but I know Scotland won that match 3-2.

Kenny and Kara invited us to join them to watch a film by a friend that was playing at the Black Film Festival.  The event was headquartered at Cafe Istanbul which is in the community center on St Claude Avenue.

This is a very cool venue that supports a lot of local community events.  It turns out we got the wrong time for the film that we wanted to see.  No worries – we listened to the panel for the prior film and then transitioned over to the St Roch market.

I really like this venue.  It has space for 10 or 12 pop-up style restaurants and a great bar.  I was wandering around looking for some snacks for us while the other 3 settled in at the bar.  When I got there, Diana was in a conversation with the bartender.  He hails from the English Midlands and has an extremely strong accent.  I was amazed at Diana’s ability to carry on a conversation – she’s come a long way since Ian Fanning from Linlithgow.  The bartender was a very nice gentleman, recently a U.S. citizen, and interested to talk to me about what I missed from Scotland as compared to New Orleans and about the process to obtain citizenship.  He shared a single malt Welsh whisky with me – and it was very smooth.

We stopped into the Avenue Pub (one of my favourites) on the way back home.  This was Diana’s first visit and I talked her into trying some of their excellent food – this time the loaded tater tots with pork – they were very good.

I forgot to mention that before all those festivities took place, I was enlisted to help install the latest blow up holiday nonsense – a polar bear with penguins – hanging off the front porch.  Sitting on top of that hedge doesn’t look comfortable to me.

Our neighbour, Thomas, came walking by right as we started – “That’s perfect.”  Of course it is.  Should I expect an Easter bunny next?

Sunday brought the holiday parade, delayed by the weather from Saturday.

This was a fun parade – Diana found Debra in the hundreds of Dolly Partons and we enjoyed the penguin balloon and Santa:

I had asked Diana (new sports commentator) her opinion about whether Alabama would make it to the college playoffs.  She made some notes:

 

I finished “Flesh” by David Szalay this week.  I can appreciate the sparse writing style that led to this winning the Booker prize.  At the same time, that’s really not my preference.  I felt as if we jumped through things way too quickly without smooth transitions.  Here’s some online review thoughts:

“From Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay, comes a propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp.

Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour—a married woman close to his mother’s age—as his only companion. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control.

As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the currents of the twenty-first century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.

Spare and penetrating, Flesh is the finest novel yet by a master of realism, asking profound questions about what drives a life: what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.”

Spotify sends out an annual “wrapped” thing.  It tells you what you listened to most, and this year provided a “listening age” based on the release years of the songs you play most.  I listened to a lot of new stuff, and apparently a lot from 1970 and 1971 – giving me a listening age of 69.  Younger than Diana’s 89 – she played a lot of Sinatra for her Mom.  Here were my top albums:

Kenny had an age of 34 and Kara was in her forties.  Hopefully they’re keeping us young at heart.

Steve Cropper died this week.  He was a guitar giant, playing with Booker T and the MGs, on most of the famous Stax records, including Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay.”  He was also the guitar player on the Blues Brothers albums and in the movies.  Here are some of the more famous songs:

Steve Cropper songs

As we were driving home from N7, the local radio DJ played some Steve Cropper and gave a recap of his career.  Diana laughed as he said almost all the same things I had told her in the same order.  I told her she had to leave when she didn’t now who Cropper was – kidding as I didn’t expect her to.

 

Week in Review – November 30, 2025

“Happy Thanksgiving – Cowboys win 3 in a row”

We had a smooth flight to San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon with a helpful MUber (Marco’s Uber) pickup.  Caroline had kindly cleaned the house, made up the bed, and shopped for some staples.  What Marco calls our “advance party.”

Wednesday was pretty much an all day preparation day for Diana and Alicia.  The scalloped potatoes are usually Alicia’s dish and this year I gave her a “loaded” version of the recipe – adds in bacon and other cheeses.  Diana worked on her regular and vegan stuffings.  I think I provided adequate supervision as all dishes turned out well.  Ouch – that punch hurt.

One thing you can count on in most Pacifica visits – amazing sunsets.  No disappointment on this trip:

Thanksgiving started out well with ANOTHER Cowboys win – this time over the Kansas City Chiefs – the other Superbowl team from last year.  This is what makes it so difficult to be a Cowboys fan – they beat the elite teams and lose to all kinds of others.

We had a delicious meal and enjoyed the company and particularly the usual excellent hospitality from Amy and Adamo.

Friday was a take a breath day, with Diana enjoying some well deserved veggie time.

Joey (Diana’s stepson) and his lovely family came up to visit on Saturday.  The little monsters were selling cards and gift tags outside of Grace’s shop, Sirens, and so they all went down to support them.  Some amount of the money they raised is going to support a local “resource center.”

Joey’s wife, Bonna, made a wonderful tart with fig jam, goat cheese, and onions.  I’m hoping Diana was paying attention (think she was) as it seemed like a great party guest recipe.

Marco and Julie joined later on Saturday afternoon and we had a fun visit with everyone.

Caroline and Carolyn (Clorinda’s caregivers) came over on Sunday afternoon.  It was so nice to hang out with them in a non-stressful situation.  Carolyn brought over a deep frier and all the stuff to make her famous wontons – yummy!  And she cranks them out so effortlessly.  Caroline told me a funny story that I’m going to call “Tsunami’s Over!”  You can ask me to hear it – think I’ll get in too much trouble if I publish it here.

Later on Sunday the Gypsy Hill krewe – Adamo’s group plus Andy and Jude, Diana, Carolyn, and Caroline – decorated the tree by the entrance to the hill.  Apparently this has become an annual thing with hot chocolate, champagne and carols.   I like it!

I continued with the two books I started last week.  The first was “Licks of Love” by John Updike.  Not at the level of his prime “Rabbit” and other work, but still a great read.

Updike has a way of capturing things that just makes me smile.  For example:

“She was a solid, smooth-faced woman, so nearsighted that she moved with a splay-footed pugnacity, as if something she didn’t quite see might knock her over.”

Not necessarily a kind description, but paints a picture so elegantly.

One more example:

“She had a stern, impassive way of absorbing a great deal of liquor and betraying its presence in her system only by a slight lowering of her lids over her bright black eyes, and an increase of pedantry in her fluting voice.”

 

Just wonderful – “an increase of pedantry in her fluting voice.”

Here’s an online summary of the collection:

“In this brilliant late-career collection, John Updike revisits many of the locales of his early fiction: the small-town Pennsylvania of Olinger Stories, the sandstone farmhouse of Of the Farm, the exurban New England of Couples and Marry Me, and Henry Bech’s Manhattan of artistic ambition and taunting glamour. To a dozen short stories spanning the American Century, the author has added a novella-length coda to his quartet of novels about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Several strands of the Rabbit saga come together here as, during the fall and winter holidays of 1999, Harry’s survivors fitfully entertain his memory while pursuing their own happiness up to the edge of a new millennium. Love makes Updike’s fictional world go round—married love, filial love, feathery licks of erotic love, and love for the domestic particulars of Middle American life.”

The other book I dabbled in this week was “Flesh” by David Szalay.  I’ll say more about it next week.  It did win the Booker prize and is written in a quite different style – like a terse Hemingway.

I came across this on Youtube – just ridiculously talented:

Tom Stoppard died a few days ago.  You may not have heard of him – a famous British playwright who was knighted.  I studied “The Real Inspector Hound” in high school and may even have attended a performance at a theater in Glasgow.  I can still remember one line “vilified and pilloried in the stocks of common gossip.”  Crazy that just jumped into my head, given all that I can’t remember to save my life.

What’s this doing in the music section?  Fair question.  Be patient.

I read a post from our wonderful New Orleanian, originally from England, Jon Cleary.  He describes an evening from Jazzfest last year or the one before when he had Tom Stoppard at a backyard party.  Stoppard comes to see him at the tiny Chickie Wah Wah music club the following evening, and finds himself seated at the bar next to another Sir Tom – Jones.

Here’s a video of Sir Tom Jones joining in with Jon Cleary:

 

Here’s some of what Cleary reported:

“One Sir Tom, Tom Stoppard, the English one, was a knighted playwright, an icon of sixties and seventies London. The other Sir Tom, Tom Jones, the Welsh one, is a knighted singer of equal stature and also in the arts. They chatted amiably, amused to be seated next to one another by chance, caught up in the bonhomie, enjoying the ambience of a neighbourhood saloon bar in New Orleans at night. My job was to play the piano and and Sir Tom, the Welsh one, needed no arm-twisting to bounce over with jaunty enthusiasm to join me on the small stage to belt out an old Joe Turner tune to the delight and surprise of all the ladies in the audience (and the fellas too).”

I like that Jon uses the “proper” spelling on neighbourhood – generating a red spelling underline warning.  Don’t change it Jon.

I cite this as another example of things that only happen in New Orleans.

 

Week in Review – November 23, 2025

“Brigtsen’s Dinner –  Finally”

Monday began with a walk down to French Truck coffee.  Someone did the usual – “Can I have a cappuccino with non-fat milk please?”  To receive the typical hipster coffee retort, “We only have Oat, Almond and whole milk.”  “Ok, I’ll have regular milk.”  Would it be so hard for them to add 2% or non-fat milk to the other three options?

Later in the day we drove over to Louisiana Running and Walking company to see about some new shoes for Diana.  She really likes the ones she’s had for the last year or so, tried on a couple of other options, and decided to stick with the new version of what she’s “been having.”

It seems this business, tucked into a really nice little house on Canal street, would do better with a sign that could be seen from the street and some marketing.  On the other hand, they seem to have a loyal following and I like the non-mall like setting.  And the guys who help are runners, with a treadmill and know what they’re talking about.

Monday night football was a pleasant affair for once.  ESPN and ESPN2 (Manning brothers cast) were all of a sudden available again on Youtube TV, the dispute with Disney apparently resolved.  Dak was able to score many touchdowns and the defense didn’t look as inept as they regularly do.  It was against a losing Vegas Raiders team, but a good sign.

We watched a movie called “Sliding Doors.”  It was entertaining and the ending made no sense to me.  Diana said I needed to understand the parallel planes where things were happening – two dimensions.  Seriously?  She says we need to go back and watch the opening few minutes, with sliding doors on the subway, and her “director’s commentary” to understand.  Surprisingly, we haven’t found time to do that yet.

You should ask me about a funny Gwyneth Paltrow (and her sister) story sometime.

I didn’t make it to trivia on Tuesday.  Here was the final question – put these in chronological order:

First Superbowl, Beatles on Ed Sullivan, First Email sent, Jaws movie release.

I would have gone with Beatles (64), Superbowl (70 ish), Jaws (75), and email (78, 79?).   Seems that’s what the Bayou Boyz decided also and bet 20 points on it.

The first email was actually sent in 1971 – I looked it up to verify.  All teams messed that one up and so we ended up in third place.

“The first email was sent in 1971 by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson, who sent a test message to himself between two computers side-by-side. The message content was likely a random string of letters like “QWERTYUIOP” and the email marked the first time the “@” symbol was used to separate a user’s name from their host machine. “

Diana and Laurie had a night out at “Really Really Nice Wines” while the guys persevered at trivia.   This is a walkable store with good snacks and wine and it seems they enjoyed the couple of hours they spent there.

Wednesday began as usual – run and yoga with Laurie, Kara and Kenny (yoga only – sorry Kenny but no credit for run, but extra credit for coaching the pickleball newbies.)

Then we had an amazing dinner at Brigtsen’s.  I had promised to take McD here before Frank retires (who knows when.)  Denny and Anne heard about our plans and asked to join – why not?

I’ve only been here once before and it was over a decade ago.  I remember having a rabbit dish and being very impressed.

The space is really just a small house in the Riverbend neighborhood.  There are a couple of rooms and you feel welcomed into a home.  The chef, Frank Brigtsen, began at Commander’s Palace and then followed Paul Prudhomme to his new place, K Paul’s.  He ultimately opened his own small place with help from Paul.  Here’s a long, but wonderfully written recap of his life:

Frank Brigtsen biography

If you know me much, you’ll know what point in that story really got to me.  Email me your thoughts.  Here’s a quick summary of a long story:

“Chef Frank Brigtsen and his wife Marna are the owners of Brigtsen’s Restaurant, in the Riverbend neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans. Frank began his culinary career in 1973 while attending Louisiana State University. In 1979, he apprenticed at Commander’s Palace Restaurant under the guidance of Chef Paul Prudhomme. In 1980, Frank became the first Night Chef at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen when the restaurant began dinner service. During his seven-year tenure with Chef Prudhomme at K-Paul’s, Frank attained the position of Executive Chef. Paul and the late K Prudhomme were instrumental in helping Frank and Marna open Brigtsen’s in 1986.”

Let’s move on to the food.  I’ll say up front that this is one of the best meals I’ve had in many, many years.  I started with a “cup” (much more bowl shaped) of the butternut shrimp bisque. This was ridiculous.  Anne tried to order a bowl and our waitress, Amanda, strongly steered her away from that.  If you eat a bowl you won’t be up for anything else – quoting some stat about the amount of heavy cream they used in a day.  A quote from Frank:

“What would he would tell a first-time visitor to order?

“If this is your first time to Brigtsen’s, your first taste should be the butternut shrimp bisque,” Frank says. It’s a dish that brings people back.”

Our server quickly identified Anne as the troublemaker in the group – “I see why you sat her in the corner.”  A discussion of “Nobody puts baby in the corner” ensued and I learned that it’s a Patrick Swayze quote from the Dirty Dancing movie.  I’ve heard it used for years but did not know that origin.

Back to the meal, that bisque was heavenly and a cup was more than enough if one planned to eat anything else.  Meanwhile, Diana had the house salad and pronounced it, “Maybe the best salad I’ve ever had.”  The dressing was sublime.

 

 

Denny started with deviled eggs and shrimp remoulade.  Amazing:

Anne had the bisque – same as me.  She followed that with an appetizer as main selection of barbeque shrimp.  Diana said the sauce was incredibly reduced and rich:

Anne said the combo of the bisque cream, barbeque sauce and deserts gave her a tummy ache that night.  Poor baby (as she was delivering freshly caught red snapper fillets for us to cook up.)

I followed my bisque with a crab crusted drum.  The caramelized onions in the veggie side were a total star, and the fish was the best I’ve ever had – that sauce, crust and beautifully cooked.

Here’s what Frank has to say about the curst and the sauce – I think he figured all this out yeas ago:

 

“In the late eighties, crusted this and crusted that was a buzzword in menus,” Frank says. So he decided to make a fish that had a crust similar to fried fish. Without actually frying it.

He made a crab dressing, then put it really, really thin on top of the fish, cooking it under the broiler to get it brown and crusty. The menu describes it having a lemon crab sauce. Frank lists the components: “Onions, celery, leeks, bay leaf, sliced fresh lemons, a couple pounds of fresh jumbo crabs cooked, cooked, cooked, with crab stock on top to double the flavor, a little turmeric to make it yellow because it’s lemon, and blond roux to give it body. Then strain it all.”

The result? A rich, velvety, buttery lemon crab flavor. Frank smiles: “I’m a sauce guy.”

After her favourite salad, McD opted for the seafood platter.  Here’s the description:

Brigtsen’s Seafood Platter

Grilled Redfish w/ pesto shrimp sauce/baked oyster w/ Herbsaint creamed spinach/artichoke baked oyster/shrimp cornbread w/ jalapeño smoked corn butter/fried calamari w/ cherry pepper aoili
Diana loved this dish – and said that next day leftovers were even better as the sauces got time to seep in.
We had a pecan pie and a lemon ice box creme brulé (wonderful) for dessert.  I think Kenny would love that lemon brulé.
Thursday began with a run in Audubon park – got to work off some of those Brigtsen’s calories.  Then we made a stop at the local coffee shop, Tartine, to read the paper and enjoy a snack.  My quiche and Diana’s bagel with lox were both excellent.  We agree that it might be the best quiche we’ve had – from a hidden neighborhood joint – yes!  Better than filtered in McKinney – definitely.
I heard a good joke (my opinion) when walking in the park – on a podcast, not one I overheard from other runners and walkers.  I’d like to share it with you:
A turtle tries to cross the street.
He’s ambushed by a couple of snails, who rough him up badly.
Police arrive and ask the turtle what happened:
“I don’t know, it all happened so fast.”
In the afternoon, we drove back over to Friends jewelry to get Clorinda’s rings resized and reset for Diana to wear.  This was a typical local experience – dogs in the store, snack bars out, and a bar cart in the back.
Returning home, I did some work outside – washed the car, trimmed the hedge, blew some leaves around, dead-headed and trimmed some bushes.  Diana tagged in and bagged some leaves.  We have no trees on our property and spend a lot of time sweeping up and bagging leaves – seems wrong.
While I was sweeping, Annie O showed up with the red snapper fillets we had forgotten to pick up on drop-off after Brigtsen’s.
I watched an excellent movie on Thursday night – “Lilly” is the story of Lilly Ledbetter, a manager at Goodyear who made about half the salary of the male managers that she trained.  This stars the wonderful New Orleanian, Patricia Clarkson.  You can tell it’s a true story with the Ginsberg and Obama segments.
We made our first visit to a newly reopened venue, the Jazz and Blues Market, on Friday.  This opened a month or more ago and is a real adult jazz club – cocktail table seating, great sound, and a very nice lobby bar.  Another treat – table service with well made cocktails.
We saw Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia with special gest Anders Osborne:
Here’s a lengthy write up from the venue about the musicians (I like the detail they provide for someone who may not be familiar with the artists.):

 

“Mike Zito is a top-tier guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter who has become a major presence…”
— ROCK AND BLUES MUSE


“When you listen to ‘Resurrection’ you will understand why Mike Zito recently won a Blues Music Award for Best Blues Rock Artist.”
— BLUES BLAST MAGAZINE (2021 Album Review ‘Resurrection’)


“Mike Zito Unleashes Ferocious Guitar Attack on Live Set ‘Blues for the Southside’”
— GLIDE MAGAZINE (2022 Album Review ‘Blues for the Southside’)

6x-Blues Music Award Winner and 14x-Blues Music Award Nominated Guitarist, Singer & Songwriter MIKE ZITO and 3x-Blues Music Award Winner and 7x-Blues Music Award Nominated Guitarist, Singer & Songwriter ALBERT CASTIGLIA bring BLOOD BROTHERS to the New Orleans Jazz & Blues Market! Their most recent individual albums BOTH hit #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart!!

This is a 2 Hour Show where both Mike and Albert will be onstage performing together for the entire show, so fans can enjoy the amazing chemistry and creativity that these two musicians share with each other – and the audience!! In addition to their own Rock, Blues and Roots individual tunes, the set will feature a number of songs from the new “Blood Brothers” album.

MIKE ZITO is one of the most lauded artists in the contemporary blues arena today. Zito has won 6 Blues Music Awards in recent years: 2018 & 2021 “Blues Rock Artist of the Year”; and “Blues Rock Album of the Year” (‘Mike Zito and Friends – Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Tribute to Chuck Berry’, in 2021 ‘Resurrection’ in 2022, ‘Blood Brothers’ in 2024, and ‘Life is Hard’ in 2025). Zito has 11 Blues Music Award Nominations and 7 of them have been for “Blues Rock Album of the Year”!!

ALBERT CASTIGLIA won the 2020 Blues Music Award for “Blues Rock Album of the Year” (‘Masterpiece’) and the 2022 Blues Music Award for “Blues Rock Artist of the Year”. Castiglia was also Nominated for the 2020 “Blues Rock Artist of the Year” at the Blues Music Awards.

Both Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia are celebrating the phenomenal success of their most recent albums: Zito’s double live set, ‘Blues for the Southside’ (2021), debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart; and Castiglia’s latest solo disc, ‘I Got Love’, (2022) peaked at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. With both artists on the exciting Gulf Coast Records label, it only made sense to join forces and give the fans what they’ve long been clamoring for: “Blood Brothers.”

Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia are true “Blood Brothers” in life and in the music they create both individually and collectively. They are joining forces in a collaborative effort of songwriting and performances to create a total listening experience greater than the sum of its parts. “Mike and Albert have a special chemistry together when they plug in and play that few have. They finish each other’s sentences musically,” says Award-Winning Legendary Blues Guitarist Joe Bonamassa.

Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia release their album “Blood Brothers” in March 2023, produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith and recorded at Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana. In support of the new “Blood Brothers” album they will bring together their two powerhouse bands for their tour, featuring Matt Johnson on Drums; Ephraim Lowell on Drums; Doug Byrkit on Bass; and Lewis Stephens on Piano/Organ.

“His ability to play any style of guitar with expert skill and sing his artful, meaningful lyrics with soul and passion will put him on top of the blues charts for years to come.”
— BLUES ROCK REVIEW (on Albert Castiglia)


“Albert Castiglia is the best blues guitar player in South Florida and, perhaps, anywhere…He’s a fine player, singer, and songwriter who has forged his own unique brand of rock-influenced blues filled with power and soul…Buy this record [‘Masterpiece’] at once!”
— ROCK AND BLUES MUSE (2020 Album Review ‘Masterpiece’)


“Castiglia does what he does best here – play damn good music…this is Albert Castiglia doing what he loves to do and doing what no one else can. Go get this CD now…”
— BLUES BLAST MAGAZINE (2022 Album Review ‘I Got Love’)

I had a quiet and relaxing day on Saturday.  Diana met the girls at Sunnie’s for morning yoga by the pool and then they hung out and had some good girl time.

 

 

 

Diana met a group for pickleball on Saturday night and seemed to have a good time.  I need to play again soon.

Some kind of a fancy hat parade came by the house on Sunday morning.  I remember this from last year.  Diana looked it up but I can’t remember now what it was all about.  She just reminded me – St. Catherine’s hat parade:

details on St Catherine’s hat parade

The week finished as pleasantly as it started on the football front.  Another Cowboys win on Sunday – beating the Superbowl champion Eagles.

I started a couple of books this week and didn’t make much progress.  More to come in the next couple of weeks.

I really enjoyed this New Yorker profile of David Byrne of Talking Heads fame:

David Byrne New Yorker profile

Another excellent cover from the best pianist performing today:

 

Week in Review – November 16th, 2025

“Po-boy Fest”

Diana and Laurie played pickleball on Tuesday morning.  Laurie clearly liked it – when Diana suggested that they could play on Tuesday evenings when the guys did trivia, she replied “I can play tonight.”  And they did, running in to some of the other girls there.

The Bayou Boyz had an excellent first half at trivia, finishing in first place (for the half).  Michael has been a helpful recent addition – none of us had any idea what the sorceress Circe turned Odysseus’s men into in Homer’s Odyssey.  Michael immediately knew it was pigs.  Apparently, she offered Odysseus’s scouting party a meal of cheese, honey, meal, and wine. She drugged the wine with her potions, and after they drank it, she turned them into pigs using her magical wand.

The plane started to sputter (you really need Thom’s visual and sound effects) in the second half.

I did help with a banking related question – “The Manhattan Company, started by Aaron Burr in 1799, is now which major financial institution?”  Answer – JP Morgan Chase.

An interesting aside – the company was originally formed to supply clean water to New York City.  Burr included a provision (the banking loophole) that allowed any surplus capital to be used for banking, allowing it to eventually operate solely as a bank.

Going into the final question we were ahead by 3 points.  We were unsure about the answer and so only wagered 2 of a possible 20 points, assuming the 2nd place team would get it wrong as well and we would win by a single point.

You had to put four of the wonders of the ancient world in geographical order from north to south.

Wouldn’t you know – we had the correct answer and so did the 2nd place team.  So, we fell to 5th place.

You can imagine the nonsense that ensued second guessing our decision making.

Diana, Kenny, Kara and Laurie played pickleball again on Wednesday morning.  In the afternoon we went to see the movie about Bruce Springsteen working on the Nebraska album.

We really enjoyed the movie.  Jeremy Allen White was a good Bruce, and I thought Jeremy Strong (best known as Kendall Roy from Succession) was excellent as Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager.  My favourite scene is when the two of them are together and Landau puts in a cassette of an old song, saying “Just Listen.”  The love between the two is palpable.

Nebraska is a huge departure from the wall of sound recording of Bruce’s prior few albums (Born to Run, The River).  I can’t imagine that a bigger departure would have been possible.  Stripped down and released exactly as it was recorded in Springsteen’s rental house on a four track recorder to cassette tape.

Kenny asked if we wanted to do anything after the movie and Diana suggested a Happy Hour stop at Beggar’s Banquet.  We had a fun time telling stories and discussing the movie.

I had my teeth cleaned on Thursday morning, right after making a run to the gas station – Diana had left me with an empty tank and I hadn’t really allotted time to deal with that.  I do enjoy this mural on the wall beside the Shell station on Magazine street.

Paul, our financial advisor, had an event at Ralph’s on the Park on Thursday.  It was billed as a “market update” and Sheldon had flown in to deliver a short talk, but it was mainly a client recognition affair.

 

We shared a table with Denny, Anne, another Anne that we met at the event, and Kelly.  This was my first time at Ralph’s, a lovely restaurant that is directly across from City Park.  The food was yummy and Paul a very gracious host.

Denny and Anne joined us at Bayou Beer Garden after lunch so that we could “discuss what we learned about the market.”  It was very pleasant to sit outside and enjoy the sun in mid-November.  As we got in the car to drive home, McD asked “Where to next?”  Really?

We made it to a new festival on Sunday – the Oak street po-boy fest.  They have around 40 stalls selling the signature po-boys of each establishment, and 6 music stages.  What’s a po-boy? (some of my international readers might ask.)

Well, a po’ boy is a New Orleans-style sandwich served on a specific type of French bread with a crisp crust and soft interior.   It traditionally contains a filling like roast beef or fried seafood, such as shrimp, crawfish, or oysters, and is “dressed” with toppings like lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise.  The sandwich is said to have originated during a 1929 streetcar strike in New Orleans, with the “poor boys” being given sandwiches for free.

There are two bakeries that produce the bread for the vast majority of po-boys – Leidenheimer and Dong Phoung.  Both have their supporters, with more places using Leidenheimer (at least where I’ve been.)  George Leidenheimer came to New Orleans from Deidesheim, Germany, and founded the bakery that bears his name in 1896. The bakery was located on Dryades Street, and in 1904 it moved to the brick building on Simon Bolivar Avenue (less than a mile from our home) where the fourth and fifth generations of Leidenheimer’s family still own and operate the business.  Dong Phuong is a much more recent enterprise, started by De and Huong Tran in 1982 after immigrating to New Orleans, and initially catering to the Vietnamese community.  The bakery is well known for Carnival king cakes and is a longer drive for us, located 13 miles away in New Orleans East.

We, mostly Diana, did research on Saturday evening to narrow down what kind of po-boy we should try.  Escargot and soft-shell crab were the leaders and we ended up choosing escargot.  That sandwich was loaded with what looked like 30 of the “slippery little suckers.”  What movie is that a quote from?  We both got our tummies full from one po-boy.  And it was served on a Dong Phuong pistolette.

 

The lady from Ajun Cajun won two awards, including best of the fest po-boy for the yakiniku.  Made with stir-fried ribeye, this is a sandwich the restaurant family has been serving at Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo and other events for many years.

 

The narrow Oak street got very busy as the day progressed – beautiful weather and no Saints game helped with that.  We parked ourselves at a couple of the music stages to avoid the worst of the crowds.  We started with Eric Johansson at the Leonidas stage, followed there by an all star band assembled by Tony Hall.

After that we rendezvoused with the Kirsch girls at the Eagle stage to listen to a bit of a Ween cover band – Pollo Asado.

And we shouldn’t forget the Piano on a Truck – always fun:

 

This was a great way to spend a Sunday and we’ll add it to the annual festival rotation, remembering to get there early to avoid the long lines and crowds.

 

 

We were reviewing Thanksgiving plans with Will and Christine and received these two funny caricatures – it’s amazing what they can create easily these days.

And I still think it’s too early to see Christmas trees everywhere – particularly as I walked into the grocery store earlier in the week.

I finally finished “The Librarians” this week, and I’m not happy with the conclusion.  It’s like watching a movie that you’re really enjoying and then being left with an overdone and unbelievable ending.  There were many unbelievable elements – I would have survived  a couple.  It seemed like every character that I enjoyed early in the book, ended up with unrealistic qualities.  Maybe that’s why it took me a few weeks to finish this.  I would skip it.

 

We’re skipping the music section this week as I need to wrap this up.

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all.

 

Week in Review – November 9th, 2025

“Paradise Point”

Diana went for a run with Laurie on Monday morning.  I finished my reading and decided to get breakfast across the street at Chicory House.  They have a new menu and it sounded very good.  I gave it my best shot, but after waiting in line for five minutes with those entitled McGehee girls running back and forth, I couldn’t take it any more.  It’s like Diana says – “You have to time around the drop-off Moms and the annoying kids.”  Giving up, I had a snack at Ruby Slipper – the waitress forgot my drink and ketchup (two separate requests at two separate times) and so I gave her a good tip – something has to right this day.

Next stop was French Truck coffee – they have never been a problem, and true to form, they had my delicious macchiato out promptly in a “for here” cup.  Things are turning around.

I rambled my way down Magazine Street to Breaux Mart (local grocery store), where I picked up a new puzzle for McD and some other supplies.  The walk back with my purchases was a workout, but good for me.

Diana enjoyed her new “Blind Date with a Puzzle.”  I repurposed the wrapping from the last one and updated the clues:

Diana did not guess the subject of the puzzle yet.  Can you?

Here it is:

Yes – the streetcar that runs a few hundred feet from our house and can be heard from our bedroom in the middle of the night.

Around 3pm, we walked down to Bistro Aquila and split a burger and tater tots.  We had the choice of salad or fries, and one of us decided we needed tater tots.  “But their tots are so good.”

Monday was John Boutte’s birthday (of performance the night before at NOMA) and WWOZ was playing a montage of his songs (with him texting in suggestions – that’s when you know you live in a small town with a close knit musical community.)  I loved this collaboration with Jon Scofield:

Here’s another one from that wonderful album:

I know, sometimes the music and book parts spill over into the weekly update part.  Such is this blog.

On Tuesday we picked up Anne for a drive down to her condo in Navarre (Florida panhandle close to Fort Walton.)  We had dinner at the restaurant on the pier.  My drink was served in a fancy glass, while the girls got their wine in plastic cups.  On inquiry, I learned that “we have 4 of those fancy glasses for Old Fashioneds and the like”, not for wine.  Anne was considering donating some condo glasses.

The girls were very productive on Wednesday morning – boxing up an entire service of china to be passed down.  They earned some beach time in the afternoon.  The place was deserted – great weather, no wind and chilly water.  Perfect!

And later it got very calm and pretty:

Anne and McD made their way to Fort Walton Beach to meet up with Anne’s long time friends Tammy, Susie, and Beth for a pizza dinner:

I decided to enjoy a quiet night alone.

Thursday was similar, Diana and I went for a longish walk and then Diana helped Anne to pack up some glasses and such.  Then we relaxed out back on “Paradise Point”:

 

 

 

 

Anne’s Mum and Dad have plaques on a bench by the point:

We made our way home on Friday afternoon, stopping in Mobile, Alabama for lunch.  The girls chose “Noble South” as our stop.  It had just earned  a “Bib Gourmand” rating from the first ever Michelin review of the South and did very well from the “K Review.”

The food and service were very good.  Diana’s grain bowl was a stand out.

Diana was a trooper on Friday night, going out with the enlarged Krewe to see Hayes Carll at Tipitinas – I knew I would be too tired and stayed in.

This was the opener “A Drunken Poet’s Dream:”

And here’s the great pianist:

Diana bumbled home shortly after midnight to tell me about 45 Chop, a bar down from Tipitinas that I’ve been to a few times, but not in years.  Funnily, Debra and the 300 Dolly Parton marching ladies showed up on Saturday and reported that their afternoon started at 45 Chop – a place Diana hadn’t hear of before last night.

Saturday was free outside music day.  Laurel Street porch concert followed by the Kingpin.  Pedro, Martin and Oscar were together again at Laurel Street.  We had previously seen them at the NOMA last Sunday.  Here they shared all that positive and youthful energy again:

 

 

World class jazz musicians performing on a porch for free.  Only in New Orleans, in my opinion.  We saw the three of them perform some of the same music a week ago.  It was just as good the second time.

After that, we dropped by Martin (local wine store) to pick up supplies to make Spaghetts  for the boys at Denny’s later (MIller High Life, Aperol and lemon juice.)  And then on to the Iguanas at the Kingpin with all the Dolly Partons and Debra.  I finally met Diana’s running friend Laurie at the Kingpin.  Her husband, Michael, filled in for me at trivia on Tuesday and the team won first place – so you can imagine the chatter about that.

Denny and Anne invited a bunch of us over to watch the Alabama and LSU college football game on Saturday evening.  This was a very fun night with good friends.  Greg brought an amazing pork loin, stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon – that and a smoky spaghetti squash side.

My book this week was “The Librarians” by Sherry Thomas.

“”This delicious murder mystery is a must-read for any library lover!”—New York Times bestselling author Shelby Van Pelt

Murder disrupts four quirky librarians’ lives when they try to hide among books to keep their secrets.

A LIBRARY READS PICK!

Sometimes a workplace isn’t just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge….

In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don’t always realize that their librarians are human, too.

Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won’t be enough anymore.

When two patrons turn up dead after the library’s inaugural murder mystery–themed game night, the librarians’ quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library—and themselves—is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together….

All in a day’s work.”

I’m about half way through and am enjoying this book quite a bit.  I put it on Diana’s list – she loves to try and solve the mystery.

I am a huge Rick Wakeman  fan – all the over the top stagings and bankrupting performances notwithstanding.   Here’s a recent performance of the magnificent “The Six Wives of  Henry VIII:”

I lost the recent performance clip and so gave you the old vinyl version.

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all.

Week in Review – November 2nd, 2025

“Happy Halloween”

We drove over to the Bywater for lunch on Monday.  The focaccia sandwiches at Bywater Bakery are ridiculous – wonderfully tasty and huge.  We barely managed to finish a turkey, Swiss and pesto between both of us.  I really enjoy the feel of this section of New Orleans and here’s an interesting article on the challenges with maintaining that in the face of gentrification and ever changing demographics:

Overview of Bywater by CNN

I think the article has some good recommendations on the bars and restaurants in the neighborhood.

After lunch, we attempted to check out the Pompadour hotel on Elysian Fields.  We saw it in the Michalopoulus (thought I was finished trying to remember how to spell that for a while) documentary last week and were intrigued.  He owns the hotel and has filled each unique room with his original art.

The hotel was all locked up and I suspect one has to be a registered guest to get the entry codes.  It does look like a great place if we have adventurous visitors looking for somewhere funky to stay.

We walked from there over to Frenchmen Street to see how things were faring there – it’s been a few years since we spent any time there during the day, having just dropped into Snug Harbor for evening shows.  Several joints had live music going in the middle of a Monday afternoon – the blessings of tourist season being with us again – kinda.  The Spotted Cat had Jenavieve Cooke and the Winding Boys playing and we decided to give that a shot.  This was a typical afternoon Spotted Cat ensemble – some brass, a banjo and a few other players.  The lady on the left was very entertaining – a good trombone player and an ace on the xylophone – I haven’t heard anything like her.  By the time we left, the club was pretty full with what I’m guessing were almost exclusively tourists.

Diana was busted on returning home.  Billy (handyman) was finishing up some repairs and immediately spotted her Spotted Cat roadie with the remains of her mimosa.

Tuesday began with an early walk in the park – relishing the cooler, less humid weather.  That was followed by a drive downtown to the Prytania theaters on Canal to watch the “Blue Moon” movie at the $6 Tuesday price.

This is a biopic about Lorenzo Hart (of Rogers and Hart) and focuses on a night in 1943 when he attends the opening night of Oklahoma!  A running joke from Hart is the use of the exclamation point in the title – he would be horrified at the mass proliferation of that punctuation these days.  Rogers wrote this with Oscar Hammerstein, ending his long running partnership with Hart.  Hart (played wonderfully by Ethan Hawke) struggles with his feelings about his career being over, or at least in a rapid decline, and with his feelings for a young Yale student, Elizabeth Weiland.

The movie takes place exclusively in Sardi’s restaurant and I thought Hawke did a masterful job with the fast and dense, and often very funny and clever, dialogue.  You really had to listen and remember what was said, as things arose again later.

We stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home from the movie, obviously picking a bad time as every space I tried to reach into was blocked by a stocker.  Diana asked one of the stockers and they confirmed that Tuesday afternoon was not a good shopping time.  Good to know.

I met Diana for brunch at Malou (the great new cafe attached to Octavia books) on Wednesday after her run and yoga.  The food was just as good as the first time – this time I tried the mushroom melt with butternut squash soup (both very yummy) and Diana had a cobb salad that was very fresh and tasty (I might have helped finish it.)

We returned to pickleball at the Exchange on Thursday.  It’s fun and I get frustrated if Diana hits shots around my ankles – I just don’t feel like bending down that low.  She decided to compensate by skying her return shots and then laughed when I would take advantage to smash them back at her.  Do what I say, not what I do..  And I know that when we’re playing a real game anything is fair.  I’ll try harder next time.  I preferred doubles when I didn’t have to cover as much ground.

We had a fun time at Gallatoire’s last Halloween and snoozed too late for a reservation this year.  That combined with the fact that it’s a Friday and most of the tables have been on standing weekly orders for years.  We decided to go the bar next door and watch the scene from there.  Usually one can order the same food in there, but there was no service on Halloween.  No worries – we had a drink and observed the costumes for a while.  Flamingoes and Pink Ladies:

My favourite outfit of the afternoon – little Bo Peep with her “sheepdog:”

I suggested to “sunshiny fairy girl”, Amy, that this would be a good costume for her next year and this is what I got back:

Butterfly fairy girl and rocker Grace, including classic Pacifica fog.

Here’s what the main dining room at Gallatoire’s looked like – what a party:

We were getting hungry and headed over to Patula where we enjoyed those crazy Turkish meatballs and the mushroom toast.  Such a great new place.

We did manage to avoid the massive spider web on the way:

 

And enjoyed these high kicking guys that maybe want to be Rockettes one day?

We arrived home in time to see Augie and family heading out to their street party.

As soon as Diana told me Augie was coming out the door as Peter Pan, I knew tony would be Tinkerbell (such a good sport.)  And theater major Britney is such a photographic poser.

Unlike last year, we did get several groups of fun little trick or treaters.   They didn’t last too long – all very well as we had limited treat supplies.

A walk down St Charles Avenue kicked off our Saturday.  I had a visit to Aidan Gill shortly thereafter for a short back and sides, and then we drove over and parked at Kenny and Kara’s home for Freret Street Fest.

This is a really well done street festival with hundreds of booths and several music stages.  I’m good for a small amount of time with that many people trying to move down the street.  Hence, I convinced McD to stop in for a drink and snack at Cure (award winning cocktail bar that the guys always make fun of for being to pompous.)  I had never been before and found it very welcoming with a really quiet and comfy patio.  That was until Anne showed up for a chat and brought in a tiny remaining amount of an outside drink – then I saw how silly and pompous they can be.

We made it down to the Napoleon end of the street and met up with Denny, Kenny, Kara, Nina, Randy, Amy, Brian, and Lisa – the classic festival krewe.  The Creole String Beans, who played Anne’s 50th birthday party at the Chickie Wah Wah and feature Derek Huston on saxophone, played a typically fun set:

The piano truck (last seen with Kyle Roussel at Bywater Bakery) made an appearance – this time with Josh Paxton (last seen at the Broadside Spinal Tap event) on board:

Kenny and I made an early exit to relax and enjoy some college football.  The girls joined a bit later.  Another festival in the book – ‘Tis the Season.

Sunday evening brought a real treat.  I received an invite to attend a tribute to Lillian Boutte at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA.)

The Boutte family has a long New Orleans history – all the way back to Napoleon and Jean Lafitte.  The musical family was headed by Lillian Boutte until her recent passing.  She spent many years working in Germany and launched the New Orleans Musicians Clinic and Assistance Foundation many years ago.

You may have read my previous posts about how much we have enjoyed John Boutte concerts.  He did an excellent song last night right after the family was awarded a proclamation from the city of New Orleans:

The organization does amazing work to support aging musicians with health care, hearing and mental health support.

 

It was encouraging to hear about a new program where elderly musicians will form a band and perform at senior centers.  This is sponsored by Humana health and requires reporting on how this reduces loneliness and isolation for both performers and attendees. “Music as Medicine.”

Additionally, Sun Pie Barnes has been nominated to be the new cultural ambassador for the group – they receive donations from 29 or more countries and need someone to spearhead those efforts.

The world class Oscar Rossignoli (Honduran pianist making his home in New Orleans) led his various ensembles through some astoundingly high quality music.  The NOMA venue had excellent acoustics, clearly designed for these type of evenings.

Here’s the expanded “International Orchestra” with percussion and trumpet:

That’s the one of a kind Pedro Segura on drums and percussion.

A guest vocalist treated us to a poignant version of her song, “The River:”

Here’s the conclusion of their version of “Caravan:”

How about those percussionist in perfect sync with Oscar and his beautiful piano touch.

They finished up with “Bourbon Street Parade.”  It took the ladies in the audience around us about 20 seconds to get up and start parading up and down the aisle.  So much fun:

I loved this evening and hope to be able to help the organization in some way.

Here’s a funny picture that Denny shared this week.  It’s from 19 years ago and we’re on an airboat for a swamp tour, looking for gators (I’m praying that we are unsuccessful):

Here’s a nice picture of Finn and Holly that I received this week.  They look very happy, or maybe they’re just excited about the yummy barbeque that ‘s coming:

Any of you familiar with Tintin?  Just saying:

I almost finished “Buckeye” this week and still don’t agree with the rave reviews.  It’s a pleasant and somewhat interesting read – and that’s as far as I go.  Looking forward to something meatier and more engaging next week.  I think I’ve found it – more to come.

 

I read some very bad news this week.  The lovely and hugely talented Marcia Ball has retired from performing due to an ALS diagnosis.  We have enjoyed her so much over the years and she is so important to New Orleans piano music.  Here she is performing with the Preservation Hall Allstars during Jazzfest last year:

You can see the joy and admiration on the faces of the other band members.  And one of my treasured pics:

That was at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas and I believe was during the “Home for the Holidays” Christmas concert.

And now with three of my favourite New Orleans piano players – Oscar (from last night at NOMA), Jon Cleary and John Papa Gros:

I can still hear my Dad snorting with laughter to the Pink Panther cartoon.  I heard on the radio this week that a New Orleans resident, Plas Johnson, played that saxophone solo:

Plas performed all of that in just two takes and received a standing ovation from the other orchestra members and Henry Mancini.  The list of his other well known contributions is vast.

Karl Denson can always be counted on for some creativity – I love the sound of the instrument with the rhythm at the start of this one:
Charles Lloyd continues to churn out wonderful music in his mid eighties:
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all.

 

Week in Review – October 26th, 2025

“Please answer the phone and let me inside.”

We visited Sunnie’s on Monday with Kenny.  This is a new place on Freret Street that we found out about from a partial owner that we met at the Batture farmer’s market.  They have some pleasant tables outside by the pool (one can buy a daily or longer term pass to use the pool.)

They were having a special “Still Austin” night and we sampled the unique cocktails created for the event, and several of their snacks.

I don’t think Sunnie’s will be on the regular rotation, but is a pleasant stop on a good pool day.

I remember one thing that I learned at trivia on Tuesday evening.  “What is the only state that is unicameral?”  The answer is Nebraska, and it means having just a single legislative body.  Who knew?  Most certainly not me.

After trivia, we went across the street to the open mic comedy show.  The comics are always happy to see us – gives them an opportunity to roll out all their old guy jokes.  I sent Diana a text that I was on my way home, and by the time I got home (6 minutes later), she was fast asleep.  That would have been fine, had the front door lock not been acting up.  It wouldn’t open at all and I didn’t have a physical key.  Thankfully, I did have a key to the side gate in a lock box and so was able to “sleep” on a lounger in the backyard.  It got chilly!  I did call Diana every hour or so, several times in a row, and rang the front doorbell many times.  She ultimately answered at 5am.  It’s a funny story now, but was not when I was shivering outside.

Kenny and Kara joined us at Merry Lee’s pool on Wednesday.  I asked Diana to drive since I was pretty sleepy from my time outside.  We had a pleasant time chatting, napping and reading books until the sun dipped behind the building at 2pm.

Then it was time for a stop at Juan’s Flying Burrito for a late lunch – always delicious.  A good, relaxing day.

 

 

Stanley Jordan played the newly reopened Jazz Market on Thursday and Friday evenings.  He was interviewed on WWOZ and it was perhaps the best interview of a musician that I have ever heard.  Cerebral, genuinely kind, and monstrously good at talking about music – just a great listen.  I’ve spent some time and have not been able to find a link to the interview.  Here’s what he sounds like if you’re not familiar:

Open in Spotify

The New Orleans Film Festival opened on Thursday night with a showing of “Michalolopoulis – The Art of Celebration,” and we were fortunate enough to attend.  We are lucky to have one of his paintings and were interested to learn more about his background.  That’s him on the right of the picture.

This is a typical example of his work, and similar to the one that hangs in our dining room:

Here’s what the brochure for the Film Festival said:

“No artist has captured the spirit of New Orleans like James Michalopoulos. “Michalopoulos – The Art of Celebration” traces the evolution of his work—from iconic architectural paintings and celebrated portraiture to luminous French landscapes. The son of a Greek immigrant and architect, Michalopoulos’ wanderlust brought him to New Orleans four decades ago. Drawn to its beauty and decay, he forged a lifelong love affair with the city. From street artist to New Orleans’ icon, his rise in the ’90s led to international acclaim, yet he chose to root himself in America’s last bastion of Bohemia. Here he champions its culture, artists, architecture, and communities – making the preservation of New Orleans’ spirit as much his legacy as his art.”

The Ardbeg whisky “Masters of Smoke” airstream trailer posted up at Martin Wine Cellar on Friday afternoon.  Ardbeg is distilled on Islay, off the west coast of Scotland and is famous for its smokiness, where most of the other whisky from Islay is dominated by a distinctly peaty taste.

You smell five different scents in the airstream, give them each a rating, and are told which of the Ardbeg lines is best for your palette.  Then head inside Martin and have a sample to confirm before purchasing.  What a deal!

I think I enjoyed the “Wee Beastie” the most.

After wetting our whistles with Ardbeg, we met the extended (various kids included) krewe (and a surprise of Aidan Gill out front with a Guinness) at St. Joe’s pub.  We couldn’t stay too long as we had to head over to our final event of the afternoon – the “Walrus” at the Broadside theater outside stage.

This is an excellent Beatles cover band that were doing all Paul songs from either the Beatles, Wings, or his solo career.  They were calling it Paulapalooza ahead of his upcoming concert in New Orleans.

I enjoy most shows at the wonderful Broadside, and this was no exception.  Here are some highlights.  I loved that the band were willing, and even seemed to relish taking on some of the more musically and technically challenging songs.

We joined Denny, Fred, Jack and Brennen to watch the Alabama game at the Rusty Nail on Saturday afternoon.  We bailed out at half time and went around the corner to Plates for tapas and one of those yummy Spanish G&Ts.

Diana was fortunate that they had soft shell crab still on the menu (getting late in the season) and we supplemented that with some perfectly cooked shrimp.

Diana made friends with the lady next to her who seemed to be very knowledgeable about the local hotel and dining scene because of her job.

We left Plates just in time to see Chris Peet heading off the Krewe de Boo Halloween parade:

We didn’t stay for the full parade, but caught all the usual attractions – marching krewes, bands, and the rolling Elvi:

After very busy Friday and Saturday afternoons, it was time for a lower key Sunday.  I wasted some time watching both Cowboys and Saints lose horribly.

I started “Buckeye” by Patrick Ryan this week.  I’m making steady and slow progress.  Here are a lot of rave reviews and an exciting overview, but it just hasn’t hooked me yet:

“A glorious sweep of a novel.”—Ann Patchett
“Captivating.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A once-in-a-decade novel . . . I fell in love with these characters.”—Jenna Bush Hager

One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything.

In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship, out of harm’s way—until a telegram suggests that the unthinkable might have happened.

Later, as the country reconstructs in the postwar boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie—but nothing stays buried forever in a small town. Against the backdrop of some of the most transformative decades in modern America, the consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.

Sweeping yet intimate, rich with piercing observation and the warmth that comes from profound understanding of the human spirit, Buckeye captures the universal longing for love and for goodness.”

My favourite Jazzfest performance so far:

I love the “Live from Daryl’s House series, and this one with Robert Fripp is very good:

Fripp played on the original David Bowie version and raved about how quickly Daryl’s band could jump from song to song and genre to genre.

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all.

 

Week in Review – October 19th, 2025

“True Companion”

Monday started with a walk in the park.  We both talked to our financial advisor during our walk – Diana being sure to let him know she was ahead of me.  He was calling to commiserate on our legal bill for estate planning and the like – the price remains the same.

I got a few interesting pictures on Tuesday.  Will and Christine’s professional pictures from the Eiffel tower:

And these three rock stars that are making my retirement savings blossom:

$4/share when I joined to $19 shortly after I left – I’m sure that’s all my hard work…

Those guys are in Roatan, Honduras at the annual recognition event that Diana and I loved the last two years – some things you miss out on in retirement – particularly spending time with those three daily.

While we’re on non-weekly activity based content, I learned that a “Nickelodeon” was originally a jukebox that took a nickel to play a song – that’s where the TV channel came from.  I did not know that.

Continuing in that vein -a funny that Diana got from Ken – “if a con is the opposite of a pro, does that mean that congress is the opposite of progress” – most definitely!

We, and particularly I, had a pretty poor showing at trivia on Tuesday.  Even worse given that it was Thom’s birthday.  The only highlight was the cannoli’s that Thom brought form Brocato’s – perfect little nibbles.  We had a table based trivia question – what movie has the line, “Leave the gun, take the cannoli”?  I guessed Pulp Fiction, everyone else got it right – Godfather part I.

“Leave the gun, take the cannoli” is a famous line from the movie The Godfather.  It was delivered by the character Peter Clemenza after his associate Rocco kills a traitor and it was an improvised line by actor Richard Castellano, who added it after his wife suggested it to him.”

Here was the final question.  We bet the maximum and got it wrong by a long shot.  I think we bet 49 as the answer, you get 5 points either way from the correct answer of 25 and we somehow arrived at 49.

The “Number of seasons in the original Star Trek” did get a funny story out of McD.  After she guessed the answer correctly, she told me her favourite episode was “Trouble with Tribbles.”  And went on to describe how cute the “tribbles” really were:

We flew to Kansas City on Wednesday, ahead of the Marc Cohn and Shawn Colvin concert on Thursday night.  Marc has Parkinson’s disease and we wanted to see him one final time.

Wednesday night diner was at the Antler Room.  My search for “best restaurants in downtown Kansas City” had this one on it – and I almost skipped by, envisioning a trophy animal head type of establishment.  Thankfully I gave it a second look.  The shared plate menu was amazing, located in a house in a historical neighborhood.

Diana looked at the small menu and said, “I’ll eat anything on this list.”  That lets me know it’s an amazing selection.  And it was.  We started with cauliflower, then carrots, then radiatori pasta with crab, and finally amazing mushroom things.  Everything was so good.  When I got to the concert on Thursday night, the guy next to me, the lead architect on the renovation of the Folly theater, said it was his favourite KC restaurant.  The cauliflower  (reminds me of the amazing place in Bend, Oregon when Finn was there):

Carrots can be so wonderful:

And finally the crab pasta (I didn’t capture the wonderful mushroom pockets):

If you find yourself in KC, skip the steak houses and BBQ joints and go here.

After all that, we had made a reservation at 1587 Prime for 10pm.  This is Patrick Mahomes (KC Chiefs quarterback #15) and Travis Kelce (KC Chiefs tight end and Taylor Swift fiancée #87) new place.  It opened a few months ago and folks in town told us it takes months to get reservations.

There was a party going on in this place.  I couldn’t believe it was full at 10pm – and it was.  They were playing great music at a good volume, but it was still easy to have a conversation at the table – some amazing acoustic planning.  We were going to have a drink and the steak tartare.  Our server talked us into the carpaccio instead – good call – the steak, truffles and mushrooms were amazing.  The tuna tartare, served with some fancy foam, was also delicious.

1587 was way over the top, and the service was perfect – casual, relaxed, kind and knowledgeable – very hard to teach.  I was impressed by the environment and the wait staff.

I started Thursday with a swim in the 22nd floor lap pool (nice feature that clearly pre-dated the Marriott acquisition – they wouldn’t spend the money for a lap pool.)  After that we walked to Homegrown for brunch.  It’s weird how quiet downtown KC is during the day – no cars on the streets, parking lots empty, restaurants quiet – where is everybody?  Brunch was good but nothing exceptional.

The concert arrived on Thursday night – a solid hundred yards from our hotel.

The Folly theater was gorgeous.  I was asking the usher about the new seats.  He told me they widened them, taking out one per row, about 20 years ago.  The guy sitting next to me turned out to be the lead architect for the renovation – he had to negotiate the acoustic damping discs versus the group who wanted to retain the details of the ceiling.  I don’t know how it sounded before, but after it’s excellent.  The discs are similar, but much smaller than those in the Royal Albert Hall.

j

And then there was the concert.  I think I said before that Marc Cohn has Parkinson’s disease and this may be his last tour.  We knew this, but were not prepared for the vision of him walking out so frailly and relying on Shawn Colvin for his balance.  The first song just floored us:

He may be “tougher than the rest” indeed.  That’s a setlist from a couple of days before and pretty close to what we heard.

Marc started his solo set with 29 Ways, a Willie Dixon cover, and a great example of his wonderful backup pianist:

Shawn Colvin took over for a bit to give Marc a break:

Marc came back for his two famous songs, first “True Companion”, our wedding song (I smile every time I hear “my arms are open wide” and remember our choreography):

And then, “Walking in Memphis” – “Ma’am I am Tonight”:

The concert finished with a cover of Van’s “Into the Mystic”, morphing into all his other well known songs.  What a poignant event – a great musician sidelined by a horrible disease – particularly for someone who relies on the steadiness of his fingers for his livelihood..

How about this song leading up to the encore.  Geez:

We walked to the “River District” on Friday morning for brunch at the Farmhouse.  This was a yummy farm to table spot that had some interesting mushrooms for their omelets.  Diana chose to explore the river area while I walked back to the hotel.  She accidentally found a large homeless encampment and then explored the rest of the river area.  We had commented earlier in the week that there were so few people living on the streets, and Diana found out where they congregated.

Here’s some quick research on the history of Kansas City, which appears to be modern and booming city:

History of Kansas City

Other than some traffic leaving the airport for our drive home, this was a smooth trip for a last concert from Cohn.

We watched the “Diplomat’ TV series on Friday night – so well written and acted.

We enjoyed the show with a “Smoky Blue Rogue Creamery” cheese – wonderful!  The best cheese that I’ve tasted in a long time.

I watched LSU lose on Saturday morning in college football – such an underperforming team.  Alabama did win for the Ogan contingent visiting for homecoming weekend.  UT did eke out a win over Kentucky – a late birthday present for Thom, albeit barely a win.

My main book this week was “Blood, Bones and Butter” by Gabrielle Hamilton.  Anthony Bourdain advertised this as his favourite chef book – I loved it all around.
Speaking of a friend’s kitchen:
“Her kitchen, over thirty years ago, long before it was common, had a two-bin stainless steel restaurant sink and a six-burner Garland stove. Her burnt orange Le Creuset pots and casseroles, scuffed and blackened, were constantly at work on the back three burners cooking things with tails, claws, and marrow-filled bones—whatever was budgeted from our dad’s sporadic and mercurial artist’s income—that she was stewing and braising and simmering to feed our family of seven. Our kitchen table was a big round piece of butcher block where we both ate and prepared casual meals.”
Orange Le Creuset pots always make me remember the taste of my Mum’s wonderful Boeuf a la Bourguignon.
I enjoyed this “speaking on the inhale” passage:
“but Hilda’s jowls jiggled with every “oui, oui, oui,” that she offered—in that way that the French have of speaking on inhaling rather than on the exhale, “whey, whey whey”—in apparent commiseration with everything Jean or my mother uttered.”
The New Yorker cartoon entertained me – I find those very funny sometimes too, other times I just shrug:
“while inside our mother would whistle along with the classical music station, stir pots of fragrant stews, and repose in her chair, howling out loud, a New Yorker open on her lap and a particular cartoon cutting her in half.”
How better to describe this brunch than a fallen Victorian woman with her skirts:
“I made stacks and stacks of those chimichanga bowls by dropping the flour tortilla into the deep fryer, where it would float and sizzle on the surface for a moment like a lily pad on a pond. Then, with a deep ten-ounce ladle, I pushed down in the center, and the tortilla came up around the bowl like the long dress and underskirts of a Victorian woman who had fallen, fully clothed, into a lake, her skirts billowing up around her heavy sinking body.”
On cooking for kids as an accomplished chef:
“This was the last meal I could prepare that still had adult appeal to it, because the next morning, the four-foot-tall “nothing green, nothing spicy, nothing healthy, nothing dark, nothing but nuggets” crumb snatchers arrived and for the rest of the summer we cooked little more than plain spaghetti and plain chicken.
It’s hard to cook for kids, and when something doesn’t appeal to them, instead of saying a polite no thank you, they instead break into a giant yuk face and shriek “eewww” right in front of you, as if you had no feelings at all. There were moments that summer when I felt more distressed by a nine-year-old’s disgust with a fleck of basil in his tomato sauce than I had in the entire previous decade when ostensibly more serious failures had occurred.”
Of being identified as a member of the cooking class:
“Every single time that I sit at a restaurant’s bar, order the txacoli or grüner veltliner rather than the sauvignon blanc, ask for the razor clams and not the calamari, I am sniffed out immediately by the server as an industry peer. Having said nothing. “Who are you?” I finally asked, having picked up every single one of his gang signs. “I’m Mark. Mark Bittman.” The father of Emma turned out to be Mark Bittman, the cookbook writer and New York Times columnist. Of course she loved balsamic vinegar and Parmesan cheese and fresh ground black pepper.”
Going to college in later years, knowing how to cook:
“In the world I had occupied before coming to this campus, I was the one with the words. In those kitchens filled with transient part-timers, it was an obvious testament to my potential for high intelligence that I completed the crossword puzzle each day of the week, including Sunday, in pen. That I could remember and recite a few stanzas of Chaucer. In this new world, where twenty-three-year-olds discussed Barthesian tropes and post-Hegelian moments with the same ease with which I boiled water for pasta, I smarted with the realization of my own amateurism.”
This made me think of the delight of Commander’s Palace and all the waiters for a table lifting the domes at the same time:
“and Russian Imperial Service, in which the entire dining room is surrounded suddenly by two hundred fifty waiters—exactly one waiter per guest, each bearing one silver-domed plate—and at the signal of the captain, all two hundred fifty waiters step forward, in stunning synchronicity lift the domes”
On starting her first restaurant:
“My resolve to start a new kitchen-free life was further weakening in the direct warmth of Misty’s home style of cooking, her bumpy, misshapen tomatoes ripening on the back steps, her cabbages shredded and broken down with salt and vinegar, her hunks of pork swimming in smoky, deep, earthy juices. Unwittingly, she was untethering me from my ten-pound knife kit, propane torches, and ring molds and showing me that what I had been doing these past twenty years—and what I had come to think of as cooking—was just the impressive fourteen-ring string of a twelve-year-old exhaling her first lungfuls of a Marlboro. Nothing more than the tricks of the trade. She was waking me, in her nearly monosyllabic way, out of a dark and decades-long amnesia. But then, without telling me and worse, without taking me, Misty worked her last day at the catering company and went across town to pursue an opportunity to open a restaurant. Misty, without letting on in the slightest, was in the early stages of opening a restaurant across town, with her brother as co-chef, and because she would never behave in such poor form as to poach cooks from the catering company, she did not offer jobs to anyone there. She just left. Her spot across from me at the prep island remained empty as we continued to cook the old familiar menus on autopilot.”
More about starting that place:
“I WAS NOT LOOKING TO OPEN A RESTAURANT. THAT WAS NEVER ON MY mind. I was just dashing out to park the car one spring morning, when I ran into my neighbor Eric, a guy I knew only peripherally from years of living on the same block. I didn’t even know his last name, but we often saw each other during that hectic morning ritual of alternate side parking that New Yorkers, or at least East Villagers, seem to barely accomplish in time to beat the meter maid. It’s a twice a week early morning ritual, Mondays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and Fridays, depending on which side of the street you’re on, in which everyone on the block with a car comes rushing out of their building to move their machines, still wearing their pajamas and with pillow creases still marking their faces. Eric was sitting on the stoop in front of a long-shuttered restaurant space mid-block, and as I zoomed by in my sweatpants and hastily”
On the regular annual trips to the house of the in-laws:
“There before us sat a Pompeiian villa, with a large room smack in the center of the house that has no ceiling. It’s called an impluvium, meaning where the rain is gathered, and I have often noticed that my son Marco.
A woman arrived on her motorino, a bicycle with a small motor the size of a hairdryer you have to pedal to ignite, and pulled from the handlebar’s basket giuncata and mozzarella cheese, still 
warm, that she had made herself using seawater, though no one could explain if this was from a parsimony—too poor to buy salt—or an aesthetic impulse to create the perfect balance of salination in the cheese using water”
On an annoying husband who doesn’t get it:
When he said he was thinking about the new iPhone, in spite of having a rather new iPhone right now this very moment already in his pocket, I dissolved irrevocably. I lost the first fifteen days of my vacation with that iPhone comment. I lost my vacation to a seething, hot black rage that crawled up the back of my neck and covered my head and nose and mouth until I was suffocated by it and could barely breathe and certainly could not speak or make eye contact. It’s true; I tend to run a little hot.”

D’Angelo passed away this week in his fifties.  I don’t know his music well, but one of my local heroes, Jon Cleary, appears to:

Remembering D’Angelo

From a bus in Florianopolis to an audience with the King from Indianola

It’s 1995 and I’m riding 12 hours on a bus in Brazil, an uncomfortable, bouncy, long, overnight journey on bad roads from Sao Paolo to a coastal town called Florianópolis, many miles distant. Buried somewhere in my bag is a tape that had arrived the week before in my New Orleans mailbox. It was from a friend in the UK. ‘Listen to this’ said the handwritten scrawl on the cover. So, as the long night stretched ahead and the ceaseless panorama of dreary Brazilian jungle paraded past the bus window, I dug out the cassette, glanced at the picture on the cover of someone I’d never heard of, put the headphones on and pressed play.

I knew nothing about D’Angelo, had never heard of him. I was prepared to be underwhelmed; the name seemed pretentious – something a major label exec. would have come up with. Over the next ten or eleven hours, I listened and nodded off and woke, the music still playing, and listened and glanced at the blackness through the window and listened some more and flipped the tape over again and fell back asleep. My curiosity grew as my discomfort and fatigue deepened. And while I dozed, woke and slept, the music filled my head and my imagination, and I think it’s true to say that the contents of my skull have not been quite the same since.

It was a game changer and an epiphany. The more I heard, the more it seemed to me that the music I was hearing on this cassette tape was the missing link: the connection between music of the future, as yet unborn, and the rhythm and blues and soul of two decades past, the world of Curtis Mayfield, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and Donny Hathaway; that linear evolution that had been side-lined into oblivion by ‘crossover’, major label distribution and the ‘four on the floor’ Disco of the mid ‘70s.

In the mid nineties there was no internet yet, no googling, well at least there wasn’t for me, not in my neck of New Orleans in South Louisiana. No information, no way of finding out who was actually hands on, playing the musical instruments on this record. What was D’Angelo? Who was D’Angelo? I didn’t know but it seemed obvious that that voice was connected to those fingers on the keys, one mind at work, one brain and that there was genius there.

It’s 1996 and I’ve just arrived at John Porter’s house in Los Angeles from the airport. John, stirring a freshly brewed cup of tea, says excitedly, “I’ve been asked to produce a B.B. King record for MCA, an album of duets. Help me make up a list, the record company’s sent me the names of who they want and it’s the same people they always suggest: Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton…”

So we put their list on one side and came up with another hipper list on the other and I asked him, ’Have you heard of this guy D’Angelo? No-one really knows him, but he’s amazing. We should definitely get this guy, he’d be perfect’. He hadn’t, and really at that point, neither had anyone else. ’No’, he said, “sadly, the problem is the label won’t go for it’. It’s typical, they only want big famous names that’ll guarantee record sales”.

It’s 1997 and I’m in New York, at the recording studio for the first day of tracking. I’d arrived with John before everyone else showed up and I was at the piano, checking it out, getting the morning’s cobwebs pout of my fingers. John Porter came from the control room, stuck his head round the door with a slightly mischievous smile on his face and said,”Oh, By the way, I forgot to tell you, guess who’s coming in today? D’Angelo”. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been listening to nothing but Johnny Watson and D’Angelo for the last six months.

Minutes later D’Angelo walked in to the room, empty but for me and the mics and the instruments. He walked over to the piano, I stood and we shook hands, he said hello, smiled a shy smile, seemingly a little embarrassed to have interrupted my piano noodling. He sat behind the B3 organ and we played, grooving for about ten minutes, just the two of us in the room. Hearing those first few notes, I knew that I’d been right, that it was indeed him playing keys on the Brown Sugar record, it was one person’s brain behind all that music, music that had been spinning around and bouncing off the walls of my brain since that long bus ride in Brazil – confirmation that he was everything I suspected and more – and we hit it off.

We fooled around on the instruments and chatted and he asked me if I dug Thelonious Monk, I said I did, I really did. He said he’d only recently got hip to him and then proceeded to casually trot out some ridiculously cool Monk licks that blew my mind. That’s when I knew that not only could this guy really, really play, but that that he had something different. He was possessed of genius, the real thing. In a world where that word has been bandied about and whose currency has been so devalued, he was a genius, the real deal. And I knew even then that this was one of the few times in my life I was likely to be in the same room as that much talent.

The session got underway. The musicians filed in introducing themselves, taking their places, twiddling controls and getting sounds, drinking coffee, telling jokes. John Porter and Joe the engineer came in to make some mic adjustments. ‘What are we doing?’ I asked. John said, “Dunno yet. The song B.B. wants to to cut is ‘Ain’t Nobody Home’ by Jerry Ragavoy. But first we should just play something for everyone to warm up and get some sounds. D. just said he wants to play some Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson”.

B.B. was a delight to play music with, an absolute monster gentleman. And the rhythm section was killing too: Hugh McCracken, Steve Jordan, Leon Pendarvis and bassist Pino Palladino who had flown in from London, an old acquaintance of mine through a mutual friend, alto player, Mike Paice.

D’Angelo started singing ’Superman Lover’. The musicians fell in, one by one, and the combined instruments locked into a natural groove, everyone gracefully re-calibrating to D.’s unique sense of time as the unit, playing together for the first time, morphed into a well-oiled machine. His unique vocal phrasing, his timing and the way he approached the keyboard smothered extra layers of grease on the gears. For about twenty minutes we jammed, the band fine-tuned now like a cross between a Rolls-Royce and a ‘73 Cadillac Eldorado while the engineers made all the adjustments. We got to the end and I said fuck, that was incredible, let’s cut it. ‘Oh no,’ D. said, ‘I didn’t want to record it, I just felt like playing it!’

We got back to work, and If I remember correctly we cut ‘Ain’t Nobody Home’ in one take. We filed into the control room to listen back and everyone was pleased with what we’d got, ready to move on to the next guest artist and the next tune. I think it’s fair to say that at that time I was perhaps the only one in the room that had really familiar with D’Angelo’s music and knew that one of the things that made him so special was the way he sang his own background vocals. I suggested to D. who was sitting next to me, talking on the phone, that before he left he should stack up some falsetto harmonies on the chorus hook. He seemed pleased that someone had suggested it, almost too shy to have suggested it himself. I had a quick word in John’s ear and D. went back to the vocal mic and laid one part on top of another, quickly, effortlessly, flawlessly and brilliantly. And the song was complete. All that was left to do was to record Wardell Quezergue’s horn arrangement, a separate session that happened a few months later in New Orleans when John was in town working making a record with me at the Boiler Room studio.

D’Angelo was happy and had obviously enjoyed the morning’s work. I don’t think he’d ever done a session quite like this before, a little overawed to be in a New York studio recording with this calibre of session players, and for a legend like B.B. King, no less. He took a few selfies with B.B, introduced me to his friend, Amir, who had a great afro and his girlfriend, Angie, who was holding their new baby.

He was unhappy though with the phone conversation. It had been from his bass player, who had called to cancel – stranding D. at short notice without a bass player for an important gig. An idea had occurred to him though – a long shot. He’d been impressed by Pino’s masterful bass playing and before leaving asked him if there was any chance he might be able to change his plans and fill in.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Here’s the song:

I know – not that exciting after all of that.

Here are some more exciting things, the songs that Mark Cohn and Shawn Colvin covered:

Coexist peacefully, with patience and kindness for all.

Kansas City – Historical Overview

We visited Kansas City from 10/15/25 to 10/17/25 to see Marc Cohn in concert at the Folly theater.  Here’s some history on the city:

The history of Kansas City began with French fur traders in the early 1800s and was later shaped by westward expansion, the Civil War, the railroad industry, and the rise of jazz music.

Early settlement and naming:
  • French trade: In 1821, French trader François Chouteau set up a permanent fur-trading post near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers.
  • Founding: In 1838, a group of investors purchased land near the trading post and established the “Town of Kansas,” named after the Kansa (Kaw) Native American tribe. The nearby settlement of Westport, established by John McCoy, served as a vital stopping point for pioneers heading west on the Oregon, Santa Fe, and California trails.
  • Incorporation and renaming: The town was incorporated as the “City of Kansas” in 1853 and later officially renamed “Kansas City” in 1889 to avoid confusion with the Kansas Territory.
Civil War and westward expansion:
  • “Bleeding Kansas”: Kansas City’s location on the border between the slave state of Missouri and the free Kansas Territory made it a focal point of conflict over slavery in the 1850s.
  • Battle of Westport: In 1864, the Battle of Westport became the last major Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River, with a decisive Union victory.
  • Railroad hub: The city’s growth exploded after the Civil War. The opening of the Hannibal Bridge in 1869, the first bridge to span the Missouri River, solidified Kansas City as a major transportation hub.
Industrial growth and jazz culture:
  • Livestock industry: In 1870, the 
    Kansas City Stockyards were established, making the city a leading center for the cattle trade and meatpacking.
  • Political machine: The city’s development in the early 20th century was largely influenced by the political machine of Tom Pendergast, who supported public works and influenced the career of Harry S. Truman.
  • Jazz era: During the 1920s and 30s, Kansas City gained a reputation for its vibrant jazz scene, with musicians like Count Basie and Lester Young shaping the city’s unique musical style. Pendergast’s influence during Prohibition allowed speakeasies and clubs to flourish, fueling the lively nightlife.
Modern era:
  • Urban development: Downtown Kansas City has undergone significant redevelopment in the 21st century, with major projects including the 
    Power & Light District, the T-Mobile Center, and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
  • Transportation: Modern transportation includes the Metro Area Express (MAX) bus rapid transit and the downtown KC Streetcar, which began service in 2016.
  • Landmarks and culture: The city is known for its many fountains, its world-famous barbecue, and its professional sports teams, the Chiefs and the Royals.
I had heard that Kansas City had a huge jazz scene in the 1920s – here’s more on that:

Kansas City’s jazz history is defined by its “hard-swinging” and blues-based style that emerged in the 1920s and ’30s, largely because of a “wide-open” nightlife fostered by political boss Tom Pendergast. This environment attracted displaced musicians, and the city became a hub for developing artists like Count Basie and Charlie Parker.The music evolved in the 18th and Vine district, characterized by improvisation and strong blues roots, and eventually influenced the development of bebop.

  • “Wide-open” city:

    During Prohibition, political boss Tom Pendergast allowed speakeasies and nightclubs to operate freely, creating a vibrant and 24-hour music scene.

    Musical hub:

    This thriving atmosphere attracted musicians from across the country, making Kansas City a center for jazz innovation.

    18th and Vine district:

    The 18th and Vine area became the heart of the city’s African-American community and its jazz scene, a place where musicians developed their skills and styles.

    Musical style:

    Kansas City jazz was known for its blues-heavy, riff-based, and hard-swinging sound, with a strong emphasis on improvisation.

    Transition to bebop:

    This style served as a bridge between the structured big band era and the more improvisational and complex bebop style, with Kansas City native Charlie Parker being a key figure in the latter.

    Key musicians:

    Many legendary musicians got their start or had significant careers in Kansas City, including Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Andy Kirk, and Mary Lou Williams.

    I loved the look of the Kauffman Center from our hotel room, seemed like something that Frank Gehry would have created (kinda like the Disney concert hall in downtown Los Angeles) and reminded me of the “Armadillo” in Glasgow:
In addition to Charlie Parker, Kansas City can also count Ernest Hemingway as a resident and visitor:
Ernest Hemingway lived and worked in Kansas City for six months in 1917-1918 as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star, an experience that heavily influenced his minimalist writing style through the paper’s concise Star Copy Style.He also visited Kansas City in 1928 to be present for the birth of his son, Patrick, and his time in the city is referenced in some of his well-known literary works.
KC Demographics:
Kansas City’s demographics show a large and diverse population, with the largest ethnic group in the city being White (Non-Hispanic) at about 54.5%, followed by Black or African American (Non-Hispanic) at 25.5%. The metro area has a population of over 2 million, while the city of Kansas City, Missouri has about 508,000 residents. Key economic factors include a median age of 36.5, a median household income of around $65,225, and about 13% of the population living below the poverty line. 
Population and ethnicity
  • City of Kansas City, MO: 508,233 residents
    • White (Non-Hispanic): 54.5%
    • Black or African American (Non-Hispanic): 25.5%
    • Other (Hispanic): 4.05%
    • Two or More Races (Hispanic): 3.78%
    • Two or More Races (Non-Hispanic): 3.64%
  • Kansas City Metropolitan Area: 2.19 million residents
    • White (Non-Hispanic): 1.55 million
    • Black or African American (Non-Hispanic): 261,000
    • Hispanic: 211,000
  • Foreign-born population: 8.44% in the city and 6.79% in the metro area 
Age and gender
    • Median age: 36.5
    • Age range distribution:
      • 0-9: 12%
      • 10-19: 15%
      • 20-29: 15%
  • Gender:
    • Female: 51% 

 

Economic data
  • Per capita income: $41,887
  • Median household income: $65,225
  • Poverty rate: 13% of the population
  • Poverty among children (under 18): 16%
  • Poverty among seniors (65 and over): 15%