Tuba Man, Ronell Johnson, Joins the Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Ben Jaffe will be stepping down from his bandstand tuba position to stick around New Orleans in anticipation of his first child, due this summer. Jaffe will continue to be part of the team, continuing his role as Creative Director of Preservation Hall.

Raised by a musical family in New Orleans, Johnson started playing trumpet and piano around the age of 6.  Four years later, Johnson increased his musicianship and taught himself how to play the trombone, tuba, organ, saxophone, drums, and more.  He began performing professionally at the age of 12.  To deepen his musical education, he attended New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA)  and majored in music at Southern University at New Orleans.  Johnson became Jaffe's protege, studying under him at NOCCA.

 
The Johnson family are no strangers to Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as his great uncle is Joseph “Kid Twat” Butler who played string bass with the legendary Kid Thomas Valentine and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  He is additionally a member of his family's brass band Coolbone (comprised of his 3 brothers, 2 uncles, and 4 cousins) and has toured with David Byrne, Ben Harper, Spearhead, Busta Rhymes, Counting Crows, De La Soul and other.  

Learn more about Ronell HERE

Preservation Hall Jazz Band featured in Downbeat

Check out July's issue of Downbeat. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band has a lovely feature, including interviews with Ben Jaffe, Clint Maedgen, and Charlie Gabriel.

Get your hands on a copy HERE!

A special thanks goes out to Jennifer Odell for featuring the band and sharing Preservation Hall's history with the jazz community.

Downbeat.com

TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY! Free Track: Eh La Bas

The Pres Hall family is introducing a new giveaway series titled, TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY! We will be giving away Rare and Unique Hall Memorabilia every Tuesday. The giveaways include:

-A monthly FREE DOWNLOAD

-Giveaway contests through Preservation Hall's social networks (FACEBOOK and TWITTER)

-As well as contests through Pres Hall's MAILING LIST 

-Win vintage photos, posters, apparel, music and MUCH MORE!

If you haven't already, START FOLLOWING US! Keep your eyes open on Tuesday. You could very well be a winner!

TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY: FREE TRACK

Eh La Bas from Shake That Thing (Rec. 2001)

Shake That Thing is Available on iTUNES ($7.92)

or

Purchase SHAKE THAT THING from Pres Hall's ONLINE STORE

Featured Musicians on Eh La Bas:

Don Vappie-Vocal/Banjo

John Brunious-Trumpet

Frank Demond-Trombone

Joe Lastie-Drums

Ben Jaffe-Bass

Rickie Monie-Piano

About Shake That Thing:

This is what New Orleans music is all about – sacred, profane, jubilant, solemn, loose, funky and fun. Drawing talent from the full cast of players featured in Preservation Hall’s nightly performances, this CD faithfully recreates the verve an energy for which the venue has become so well known.  

Featuring an expanded lineup of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Shake That Thing is a joyous celebration of over 40 years of New Orleans jazz tradition. Adding such New Orleans jazz luminaries as trumpeter Leroy Jones, clarinetist Dr. Michael White, and drummer Shannon Powell, the band powers through several standards and traditional tunes that easily rate as some of the most raucous, funky, and happy tracks to come out of Preservation Hall. From Don Vappie's patois vocals on "Eh la Bas" to the gospel-meets-street beat of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," most of the various New Orleans musical styles are covered here. This is relevant, rootsy jazz that deserves to be heard well beyond the confines of the institution it sprang from. 

DOWNLOAD EH LA BAS HERE

  PURCHASE SHAKE THAT THING ON iTUNES

or

@ PRESERVATION HALL'S ONLINE STORE 

TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY! Free Track: Milenberg Joys

The Pres Hall family is introducing a new giveaway series titled, TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY! We will be giving away Rare and Unique Hall Memorabilia every Tuesday. The giveaways include:

-A monthly FREE DOWNLOAD

-Giveaway contests through Preservation Hall's social networks (FACEBOOK and TWITTER)

-As well as contests through Pres Hall's MAILING LIST 

-Win vintage photos, posters, apparel, music and MUCH MORE! 

If you haven't already, START FOLLOWING US! Keep your eyes open on Tuesday. You could very well be a winner!

TUBA TUESDAY GIVEAWAY: FREE TRACK!

MILENBERG JOYS from American Legacies

Today's free track is entitled, Milenberg Joys, featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Ronnie McCoury (Mandolin) from The Del McCoury Band. The instrumental recording is from the 2011 release, AMERICAN LEGACIES: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and The Del McCoury Band

Download Milenberg Joys

AMERICAN LEGACIES is AVAILABLE on iTUNES ($9.99) 

or

PURCHASE from Preservation Hall's Online Store

Featured Musicians on Milenberg Joys:

Ronnie McCoury-Mandolin

Mark Braud-Trumpet

Charlie Gabriel-Clarinet

Clint Maedgen-Saxophone

Freddie Lonzo-Trombone

Carl Leblanc-Banjo

Rickie Monie-Piano

Joe Lastie Jr.-Drums

Ben Jaffe-Tuba

 

American Legacies track listing:

1. The Band’s In Town
2. One Has My Name
3. Shoeshine Blues
4. Banjo Frisco
5. A Good Gal
6. Jambalaya
7. I’ll Fly Away
8. You Don’t Have To Be A Baby To Cry
9. The Sugar Blues
10. Milenberg Joys
11. 50/50 Chance
12. One More Fore I Die

About AMERICAN LEGACIES

  

Blending jazz from the streets and music halls and clubs of New Orleans and beyond with bluegrass from rural festivals, school auditoriums and more restrained settings, American Legacies presents two giants of traditional American music—the Del McCoury Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band—in one spirited stream of deliciously inviting, boldly innovative and yet profoundly familiar music. 

Read more about AMERICAN LEGACIES HERE 

PURCHASE AMERICAN LEGACIES DIGITALLY @ iTUNES 
or
@ PRESERVATION HALL'S ONLINE STORE 

Danny Clinch Pres Hall Photos Featured on CNN.com

Capturing the spirit of a New Orleans jazz hall

– Robert Johnson, CNN

“I could feel the spirit of all the music that passed through there,” photographer and musician Danny Clinch said of the first time he entered the Preservation Hall in New Orleans. "I immediately started taking photographs." And he hasn't stopped since 2005.

“Everywhere I pointed the camera, there was a photograph waiting there,“ said Clinch of the celebrated jazz performance hall.

The Preservation Hall is a worn-in music venue on St. Peter Street in the heart of the New Orleans’ French Quarter. Allan and Sandra Jaffe started the Hall, a former art gallery, in 1961 simply as a place for musicians to gather.

Decades later, people spend hours in a line that snakes out onto the street for a seat or a spot on the floor in the 600-square-foot venue that holds about 65 people.

“There’s not really a bad seat. There’s definitely good seats where you’re sitting in the lap of these people,” Clinch said of the intimate venue. There is no alcohol or food; patrons come just to hear the music.

Dozens of musicians have rotated in and out of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band over the years.
“The band has traveled worldwide spreading their mission to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz. Whether performing at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, for British Royalty or the King of Thailand, this music embodies a joyful, timeless spirit,” according to its website.

Clinch met Allan and Sandra’s son Ben Jaffe in 2005 at a Radio City Music Hall benefit for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Clinch and Jaffe, the band’s creative director and tuba player, became close friends. Jaffe invited Clinch to show his work at the hall during the 2012 New Orleans Jazz Festival.

Much like the improvisations of the jazz that fills the Hall, Clinch captured the spirit of the hall using a variety of formats and film, ranging from Leica, Hasselblad and Polaroid to 8×10, Tintype and digital.

“I’m not sure there is another place in the world that you can see this music in such an amazing setting,” Clinch remembers telling a patron who was visiting from England.

“The whole thing is about the spirit of Preservation Hall. If you go there, the place has so much history and character. The vibe is so thick, even as an empty space, you can feel so much spirit.”
The Silver and Brass exhibit opens there at midnight May 4 and runs through May 11. Clinch’s group, The Tangiers Blues Band, will play at the opening.

The Silver and Brass pieces are for sale. A portion of the proceeds will go to The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program

Read ORIGINAL Post HERE

Ben Jaffe Interview with AM New York

Check it out: More lovely press from NYC in support of our 50th Anniversary and tomorrow's huge show at Carnegie Hall...

Preservation Hall Celebrates 50 Years

• For five decades, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band has served as a keeper of and ambassador for the New Orleans jazz tradition.
• 
  Named after the French Quarter music venue Preservation Hall, the group has performed alongside artists ranging from Louis Armstrong to Robert Plant.
• 
  This week, fans and collaborators including rockers My Morning Jacket, folk singer Steve Earle, rapper Mos Def and bluegrass legend Del McCoury will join the band at a 50th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall.
• 
  amNewYork spoke with creative director and tuba player Ben Jaffee, whose parents founded Preservation Hall.
• 
  Is it challenging to carry on the legacy of Preservation Hall? It is. You spend a lot of time thinking about your decisions and the way they impact the musicians who play here and your audience. Then you have bigger responsibilities, because Preservation Hall has become a symbol of New Orleans' rich cultural history.
• 
  What do you wish more people knew about New Orleans jazz? One big misconception is that New Orleans jazz is old-time music or about re-creating something from the past. I liken our music tradition to our cuisine: The recipes for red beans and rice or gumbo haven't really changed, but you have people who bring new influences to them. To me, that's the ultimate statement, when you can take a tradition and breathe new life into it.
• 
  Why do you think the music of New Orleans has gotten so much attention the past few years? I believe it's almost singlehandedly a result of Katrina and what we went through. They saw people fighting for our lives and things that mattered to us and realized exactly how important New Orleans is. Also, our music kicks ass - none of this would survive if it wasn't great music.
• 
  Do you think Preservation Hall will be around in another 50 years? This is not only a celebration of the past 50 years, but about our future and where we are today. I can attest from playing all over the world that Preservation Hall makes people smile and have a good time. I feel like we could get everything figured out real quick if we could get everyone to a Preservation Hall concert.
  
  If you go: Preservation Hall Jazz Band is performing on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Ave., 212-247-7800, $30-$95.

Preservation Hall in the New York Times Magazine

As the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and friends get ready for their big show at Carnegie Hall tomorrow night, check out this great profile of their home venue in New Orleans in this week's New York Times Magazine...

The Saints Go Marching On

(click to visit original site)

When Preservation Hall opened in 1961, its purpose was to save traditional jazz. It was probably a decade late. Dixieland was on its second or third revival, while the rest of jazz was evolving frantically. From then until now, the music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band stood perfectly still. The instruments and the repertory have barely altered in decades: tuba, trombone, banjo, clarinet; “Mood Indigo,” “St. Louis Blues,” “When the Saints Go Marching In.” It was considered backward music for tourists; it was Dixie Beatlemania. And yet. Fifty years later, there is no other place like Preservation Hall. It’s hot and uncomfortable, and no alcohol is served. The musicians change nightly — the original players are long gone — but the sound is the same. The band has been playing its own funeral for the past 50 years, and it shows no signs of dying.

Wm. Ferguson

VIDEO: Preservation Hall's Legacy

The 50 New Orleans Newsmakers of 2011 by Kevin Allman and Alex Woodward

              The 50 New Orleans Newsmakers of 2011 

Kevin Allman and Alex Woodward on the people who made a name for themselves this year ... for better or for worse

by Kevin Allman and Alex Woodward

 

The famous, the infamous, the people of substance and the flashes in the pan: this year brought them all. These are 2011's persistent headline-makers in New Orleans and south Louisiana, the people who at times seemed as ubiquitous as honey badgers, pop-up restaurants and pumped-up kicks.

  

47. Preservation Hall Jazz Band
The Standard-Bearers
Band director Ben Jaffe, the son of Preservation Hall founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe, has demonstrated how the band can grow while still staying rooted in the hall's famed jazz tradition, one Louis Armstrong once triumphed. With seemingly endless tours, music festival gigs, a starring role in Danny Clinch's documentary Louisiana Fairytale and performances alongside Pres Hall superfans My Morning Jacket, last year also saw the release of the album Preservation, the band's best-seller, showcasing its inimitable chops alongside the likes of Tom Waits and Pete Seeger. But 2011 wasn't the band's biggest year: the group enters 2012 celebrating its 50th anniversary at an all-star gig at Carnegie Hall with another roster of music stars — performers bowing to Pres Hall's evolving legend. In June, Jaffe told Gambit, "The only moment you get to go into this creative cocoon is when you perform, and I want to amplify that. I want to make it bigger."

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Interview with Ben in Greensboro's YES! Weekly

Pres. Hall Leader on Big Easy Christmas
by Ryan Snyder
YES! Weekly

For all that hurricanes and oil spills can take away, tradition isn’t among them. At least not while institutions like Preservation Hall exists. After a series of commemorative shows at home, the famed jazz club’s house band is preparing to celebrate 50 years as the standard bearers for New Orleans jazz by doing what they do best: hitting the road for a special performance at Carnegie Hall in January. Until then, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is evangelizing other Big Easy musical traditions with their Creole Holiday tour, coming to SECCA in Winston-Salem this Friday. Below, Preservation Hall Cre- ative Director and tuba player extraordinaire Ben Jaffe, son of hall founder Allan Jaffe, waxes on NOLA holiday traditions influenc- ing seasonal music and how relationships formed during the recording of the band’s 2010 benefit album have shaped the institutions future.


Ben Jaffe: It’s a chance for us to share this very unique New Orleans experience with the audience, to celebrate the way we do there, which is with music and of course food. We can’t cook for everyone though unfortunately. What’s considered a tradi- tional Christmas celebration in other cities is a lot different than how we celebrate here. I mean, we still have all of our leaves on our trees. I’m eating a grapefruit right now that I picked from my backyard this morning. Eating gumbo, that’s always a tradition for us and my family always went swimming on Christmas Day. A lot of those little nuances are reflected in the music we play during the holidays.

Y!W: It seems it’s slowly getting easier to enjoy some of those traditions again.


BJ: You would think it’s not even the same city in many ways that it was six years ago. The city’s doing great. We’re experienc- ing what I like to think of as a renaissance of sorts. One of the things the hurricane did for New Orleans is that is brought so much awareness to our city that it created a huge influx of youth and artistic minds that bring a lot of new perspectives.

Y!W: Does that make your mission of preserving the city’s musical heritage a little muddier?

BJ: I don’t think so. The tradition that Preservation Hall is a part of is so intertwined into the fabric of our city that it can’t die. New Orleans without red beans and rice ain’t New Orleans anymore. We have certain things that make us who we are and one of those things and our con nection to the earliest days of American mu- sic. Whether it’s Fats Domino, the Meters or Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Preservation Hall, we all share a common language that only people from New Orleans understand. I think that’s one of the beautiful things about New Orleans and that it evolves. I definitely see people who come to the city absorbing the musical culture and also bringing their own influences. That’s one of the responsibilities of the torchbearers to understand that nobody’s a creative island.

Y!W: Preservation Hall has been really visible in other musical spheres since the benefit album. Is that because of opportunity or are you taking a more aggressive approach to putting the band out there?


BJ: After the hurricane there was a heightened awareness of exactly what it was that made New Orleans such an important cultural center. That’s something as a nation that we all feel connected to. I really think that every human being yearns for things that are special about our history. I think that New Orleans exemplifies a lot of things that we’ve lost in our country; this idea of family and community, this idea of children following in the footsteps of their parents, and of family businesses and businesses that have been around for hundreds of years I always look for the bigger message in what we do because you can just break it down and say that we’re just seven guys who play music, but at the end of the day, that’s not what we are.

Everyone in our band comes from a multi- generational musical family and actually there are guys in our band who are seventh- generation New Orleans musicians. Seven generations. Their families have been playing music in New Orleans since the 1850s. You can’t find that anywhere else.

Y!W: It seemed that the most fruitful partnership to come of the benefit album was with My Morning Jacket. What was it about working with Jim James that works so well?


BJ: The best thing to do is tell you about the first time I met Jim after he came to New Orleans to record on that benefit album. Maybe I have a different sensibility, but when I meet people I immediately know that there’s a connection. Jim and I immediately had a very, very deep connection when we met at Pres Hall. I knew that we listened to the same music and walked the same walk. We live in different worlds but we share an appreciation and respect for good people and elders and tradition. Jim is carrying on a great American tradition which is the rock tradition. And what a brave statement that is: to be afforded the opportunity by a band who could ask any group in the world to open for them, but say, “We want to bring the Preser- vation Hall Jazz Band into stadiums.”
Preservation Hall HJAzz Band comes to SECCA on Friday.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

LA Times interview with Ben Jaffe

 Influences: Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times

November 16th, 2011

Ben Jaffe leads the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which makes its home in a storied New Orleans venue when it isn’t touring the world. Jaffe, son of the group’s founders, marched in carnival parades while still in grammar school. Now a tuba player and bassist, he extends the group’s original mission: to keep the music of 1920s New Orleans alive and accessible to audiences, and to maintain the rawness sometimes rubbed off by the “Dixieland” movement and its genteel followers. The band appears at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday for a collaboration with dance group the Trey McIntyre Project.  Besides his expected roots in musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Jaffe, 40, says he’s also inspired by Muhammad Ali’s resistance to the Vietnam War draft, Pete Seeger’s involvement with the Civil Rights movement and Andy Warhol’s redrawing of art’s map. “Where do you go,” Jaffe asks, “when there are no limits or boundaries?”

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

"Preservation Hall at 50." A glimpse inside these historic exhibitions, celebrating the 50th year anniversary of Preservation Hall

Preservation Hall, the venerable performance space for traditional New Orleans Jazz on St. Peter Street in the heart of the French Quarter, marks a half-century in operation in 2011.  Two museums in the city are paying homage with commemorative exhibitions.  The Ogden Museum of Art recently closed Preservation Hall at 50, and the Louisiana State Museum will open a separate exhibition under the same title on November 4th (see pages 54-57 for more information).  Louisiana Cultural Vistas presents here a selection of paintings, photographs, and artifacts from these exhibitions.  -Editors Note (Louisiana Cultural Vistas)

 "Preservation Hall inspires.  The building.  The music.  The musicians.  For years, it has been a gathering place for writers, poets, actors, painters, singers, dancers, photographers, chefs, composers....insiders and outsiders."

- Ben Jaffe

READ FULL JAFFE COMMENTS HERE

Cityview article by Michael Swanger "Jaffe and Preservation Hall Jazz Band perpetuate spirit of New Orleans Jazz"

Fifty years ago, Allan and Sandra Jaffe founded Preservation Hall in the heart of New Orleans' French Quarter in an attempt to preserve and celebrate New Orleans jazz music and its musicians. They intended to stay in the Big Easy during the civil rights movement of the 1960s before moving on, but fell in love with the city and never left.
     Fifty years later, their 40-year-old son and tuba player, Ben Jaffe, serves as director of the venerable musical institution and its touring Preservation Hall Jazz Band (PHJB), which marches into town Friday for a concert at Drake University. Jaffe, a second generation New Orleanian, is a prime example of how fully integrated music is in the culture, communities and families of New Orleans. In short, it's in his blood.
      "Music in New Orleans isn't something separated; it's part of our church services, funeral processions and carnival celebrations. It's something you either are or you are not," said Jaffe over the telephone from his office at Preservation Hall, which first opened its doors in 1961.

Jaffe, who joined the touring PHJB the day after he graduated from Oberlin College in 1993, said that, regardless of his parents' affiliation with the New Orleans music scene, he would have become a musician. Yet it is apparent that his deep reverence and consciousness of PHJB's greatest attributes is the result of his upbringing and environment.


READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Jazz People: New Orleans Portraits by Lee Friedlander, opening at the Newcomb Art Gallery August 24.

Sweet Emma Barrett at Luthjen’s, 1958

*All are gelatin silver prints

*Photography by Lee Friedlander.  Courtesy of the William Ransom Hogan Archive of New Orleans Jazz

(New Orleans, LA) From August 24 to October 9, 2011, the Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University presents Jazz People: New Orleans Portraits by Lee Friedlander, curated by Newcomb Art Department faculty member Stephen Hilger.  The works in Jazz People, thirty-nine black and white photographs from New Orleans in the 1950s and
1960s, are drawn primarily from Tulane's William Ransom Hogan Archive of New Orleans Jazz with additional images on loan from the collection of Allan and Sandra Jaffe, the founders of Preservation Hall.  "Lee's photographs embody a visual encyclopedia of
early New Orleans jazz that is unprecedented," stated Preservation Hall Creative Director Ben Jaffe. As Allan and Sandra's son, the young Jaffe grew up witnessing performances by many of the legendary musicians depicted in Friedlander's work.

Kid Thomas Valentine, 1957

*All are gelatin silver prints

*Photography by Lee Friedlander.  Courtesy of the William Ransom Hogan Archive of New Orleans Jazz

                         
            

                          

Preservation Hall Jazz Band & Del McCoury Band at Soundcheck in The Greene Space

Here is the video of our performance with the Del McCoury Band from Soundcheck in The Green Space (NewYork, NY) on July 20th.  This video also features informative Q & A with Ben Jaffe and Del McCoury for an added glimpse into this magical musical collaboration.  The performance features  the classic song "Jambalaya", and a Ben Jaffe composition, "The Band is in Town."

Full version here...

Enjoy!

 

Loc Trancos Hills Marching Band parade in Palo Alto

This is a link to pictures of the Los Trancos Hills Marching Band parade in Palo Alto on July 4th, 2011.  Throughout the 70's and into the 80's, the Los Trancos would march into Frost Amphitheater on July 4th to open the annual Preservation Hall show.  Earlier that day, I would go with my dad to the July 4th parade in Palo Alto and march with the Los Trancos Band.  They were great times.  It was amazing to go back with my pal David Silverman and march with the Los Trancos Band again.  I got to reunite with some of the old timers who knew my dad and remembered me when I was little. - Ben Jaffe

http://ltwcmb.com/html/fourth-2011.html

Preservation Hall Announces Midnight Preserves 2011!

NEW ORLEANS’ PRESERVATION HALL

CELEBRATES JAZZ FEST 2011 WITH

SEVENTH ANNUAL MIDNIGHT PRESERVES SERIES

Featuring intimate performances by

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Charlie Musselwhite,

Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin, Tao Seeger, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, Tangiers Blues Band, Shannon McNally, Paul Sanchez & The Rolling Road Show, Treme Brass Band

and one more special guest to be announced next week

New Orleans, LA: Preservation Hall is proud to once again celebrate The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Jazzfest) with the return of Midnight Preserves, the popular music series hosted by the world-renowned home of Traditional New Orleans Jazz.  Now in its seventh year, Midnight Preserves offers Jazzfest-goers the opportunity to experience some of their favorite artists in the famously intimate setting of Preservation Hall.  This year’s lineup includes Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin (of Band of Joy), Charlie Musselwhite, Tao Seeger, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, Paul Sanchez & The Rolling Road Show, Treme Brass Band, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and more.  An additional special guest will be announced next week.   Tickets are limited and available now at www.preservationhall.com/tickets.   Proceeds from the series will benefit The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program.

Friday, April 29

8:00pm / The Preservation Hall Jazz Masters featuring Leroy Jones
PURCHASE TICKETS

10:00pm / The Preservation Hall Jazz Band with special guests Buddy Miller & Patty Griffin (of Band of Joy)

 PURCHASE TICKETS

Saturday, April 30

8:00pm / The Preservation Hall Jazz Band

PURCHASE TICKETS

10:00pm / The Preservation Hall Jazz Band with special guest Tao Seeger

PURCHASE TICKETS

MIDNIGHT / Paul Sanchez & The Rolling Road Show

PURCHASE TICKETS

Sunday, May 1

8:00-11:00pm / “Song For My Fathers” Preview Show, featuring Tommy Sancton’s New Orleans Legacy Band

PURCHASE TICKETS

Monday, May 2 – Thursday, May 5

New Orleans Jazz Concerts from 8pm-11pm

PURCHASE TICKETS

Friday, May 6

7:30pm / Charlie Musselwhite + Tangiers Blues Band + Shannon McNally

PURCHASE TICKETS

MIDNIGHT / The Preservation Hall Jazz Band with special guest (To Be Announced)

Saturday, May 7

8:00pm / The Preservation Hall Jazz Band

PURCHASE TICKETS

10:00pm / Beausoleil Avec Michael Doucet

PURCHASE TICKETS

MIDNIGHT / Treme Brass Band

PURCHASE TICKETS

Sunday, May 8

8:00-11:00pm / Bob Greene with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band

PURCHASE TICKETS

More "American Legacies" reviews in Paste, East Bay Express, and Audiophile Audition

Here's some more great reviews on the new "American Legacies" Album:

 Del McCoury and Preservation Hall Jazz Band:
American Legacies
[McCoury Music and Preservation Hall Recordings]
Album Review by Andy Whitman


When the saints go marching in the holler

The intersection of bluegrass and jazz isn’t exactly a bustling one, but the successful fusions of the past – Bela Fleck’s genre-defying albums, David Grisman’s Dawg music – have placed a heavy emphasis on improvisational interplay and breakneck solos. So the meeting of Dixieland revivalists The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and bluegrass traditionalists The Del McCoury Band is more than a little perplexing and intriguing. Both have had their forays into adventurous musical waters, but both are primarily known for their excellence in strict, formal, and relatively hidebound genres. Foggy mountain breakdown on Basin Street, anyone? Just how does that work again?

As American Legacies amply illustrates, the answer is that it works just fine. McCoury, who started his five-decade career playing with the original bluegrass iconoclast Bill Monroe, has shown an increasing elasticity and flexibility of late, touring with Phish and recording with Steve Earle, and here he seamlessly blends his bluegrass band with the brass and rhythm section of PHJB...

Full Article Here

 

Preservation Hall Jazz Band & Del McCoury Band – American Legacies – McCoury Music and Preservation Hall Recordings
On American Legacies, bluegrass and jazz come together with stellar results.

By Doug Simpson

Published on April 12, 2011

The 47-minute American Legacies album – starring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band & the Del McCoury Band – is collaboration in the truest essence of the word and a confluence of two of America’s greatest musical inventions, bluegrass and jazz. Some might believe bluegrass and jazz are miles apart but they share numerous similarities and the two genres have come together in quite a few ways over many decades. First, both styles require dazzling virtuosity, respect for the past and devotion to well-defined creative forms. Secondly, jazz and bluegrass (and thus country) have had extensive, continuing connections. Certain songs have become standards in both musical circles, while several artists have combined country/bluegrass shadings with jazzy swing, from Bob Wills to Louis Armstrong and from Chet Atkins to Herb Ellis.

American Legacies mines tradition and listeners could not ask for better interpreters than the Preservation Hall Jazz Band & the Del McCoury Band. McCoury apprenticed with Bill Monroe before starting his own band more than four decades ago and has sustained a time-honored bent ever since. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was founded a few years after McCoury began his group and has carried forward a New Orleans-inclined heritage...   

Full Article Here

Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury Band
American Legacies
By Lee Hildebrand

The thin line between jazz and country music has too seldom been crossed over the years, notable exceptions being Louis Armstrong's 1930 trumpet contribution to Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel #9"; the hot soloists and swinging rhythm sections in Bob Willis' and Spade Cooley's bands; Merle Haggard's 1973 LP I Love Dixie Blues; and Wynton Marsalis' recent hookups with Willie Nelson. For the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, today's most prominent purveyor of traditional New Orleans jazz, to team up with the Del McCoury Band, one of the most popular bluegrass groups on the planet, may seem odd, but both genres have firm grounding in blues and place high value on improvised instrumental virtuosity. They go together like gin and vermouth, and the combined ensembles shake it up with aplomb...

Full Article Here

Recording Reviews: 'American Legacies' (Available Now!)

Well, the new album's been available for less than 24 hours, and already folks have some great things to say about our wonderful crossover recording.  Check out some of the great reviews!


 Preservation Jazz Hall Band & Del McCoury Band
American Legacies
(McCoury Music)
Rating:
By Jon Stone April 12th, 2011 at 7:00 am
 
“The band’s in town; they come to play.”

Last year Del McCoury appeared on The Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s star-studded benefit record Preservation singing “After You’ve Gone.” Despite the spirited contributions on that release from both old and new-guard artists (Merle Haggard, Steve Earl, Jim James, Andrew Bird, etc.), McCoury’s weathered “high-and-lonesome” bluegrass voice finds immediate and arresting chemistry with the now 50-year-old Preservation Hall jazz tradition. There must have been a lightning-rod moment sometime during that session where both parties knew that an additional album project was an inevitable necessity. American Legacies is the happy result. The record elaborates on the formula that worked so well on the initial team-up, but this time brings Del McCoury’s band to the party completing the crossover circuit and proving once and for all that ideological and traditional borders between bluegrass and jazz are not only mutable but are largely imaginary.

American music is funny that way. One doesn’t have to go back very far before the faded musical familial lines between estranged cousins become undeniably distinct. In this way, when Del McCoury and his band start playing with the musicians in the Preservation Hall at New Orleans, there is an easiness to the collaboration – one due, surely, to the talent of both bands, but also with a sense of ease that sounds and feels like musical reunion...

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Good Times And Great Spirits Await With The Preservation Hall Jazz Band & The Del McCoury Band!

Grab a cold one, some great food and wonderful friends because a plethora of musical fun awaits with the American Legacies and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band & The Del McCoury Band! Separately, these musical geniuses have made it their life long objective to preserve traditional American music with tremendous skill, faith and drive within their respective genres. Now, lords of New Orleans jazz meet legends of bluegrass in one of the most compelling collaborations of 2011.

 With McCoury’s smooth and signature tenor, fresh and clean clarinets, fun and diverse fiddles and bangin’ banjos, one can clearly hear the musical magic that was created within the release.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band & The Del McCoury Band explore common and diverse ground to bring a credible and fresh balance of bluegrass and jazz in this project. Multiple artists combine their creativity and luster into a rich musical mix of distinctive American musical forms.

Known as ambassadors of bluegrass, the Del McCoury Band is fronted by veteran Del McCoury, a legendary front man of bluegrass who has been enthralling audiences since the 1980s.

With such songs as ‘A Good Gal,’ ‘Jambalaya,’ ‘The Band’s In Town,’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ one clearly hears the merging of greatness and songs that respectfully exude joy and vibrance...

FULL ARTICLE HERE

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ALBUM REVIEW: 'American Legacies' in Offbeat Magazine

PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND AND DEL McCOURY BAND
AMERICAN LEGACIES
(McCoury Music)
01 April 2011 — by Brian Boyles

The evolution of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band into a conveyer of hip is one of the musical successes of post-K culture. We can no longer point to the band (or the hall) as simply a bastion of tradition; we must recognize it as an innovator of tradition. As invaluable as his father’s contributions were to our culture, Ben Jaffe is quite important to the now.

On their new collaboration with the Del McCoury Band, we find the band swinging with and around McCoury’s silky tenor. Though it’s doubtful anyone in the world was losing sleep over the dangers of mixing bluegrass with trad, this isn’t a simple suture job. Wicked mandolin runs, clarinets in skyward races with fiddles, percussive banjoes and snares—this is one mean band. Check out “Banjo Frisco” for some very new/old music.

McCoury and family have shared the stage with Phish and recorded with Steve Earle, making them as accustomed to crossover as the current Pres Hall. More importantly, we’re listening to two types of traditional music that blossomed alongside each other in the first half of the 20th Century, nurtured by two different sets of poor folks—urban African Americans and rural whites—who shared a talent to swing and a fondness for celebration and mourning. Everything comes down to blues and banjoes, after all.

The wise move here was to allow Mark Braud and Clint Maedgen to sing lead almost as often as McCoury, and thus really test out the conflagration. “The Sugar Blues” hands you a what-if question involving Bob Wills and Fats Waller, Grand Ole Opry and Preservation Hall, 1931 and 2011. Good answers abound.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Performance Review: 'American Legacies,' PHJB and the Del McCoury Band in Boston

photo by Matthew J. Lee / Globe Staff

Celebrating jazz, country, gospel in a collaborative spirit
By Bill Beuttler
Boston Globe Correspondent / March 22, 2011  
Bluegrass and New Orleans jazz came together at Symphony Hall Saturday as the Celebrity Series of Boston brought the Del McCoury Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to town for a joyous and virtuosic celebration of their joint album due out next month, the aptly titled “American Legacies.’’

Ben Jaffe, whose parents founded Preservation Hall 50 years ago, came onstage with pianist Rickie Monie, who played some gentle stride as Jaffe introduced the other five members of the band, the horn players each blowing a short, personable solo en route to their chairs. Del McCoury (who was playing in Baltimore honky-tonks the year Preservation Hall opened, joining bluegrass titan Bill Monroe’s band in 1963) brought his group out to join them, and everyone finished off “Basin Street Blues.’’ A Jaffe original, “The Band’s in Town,’’ followed, featuring McCoury trading vocal lines with saxophonist Clint Maedgen and solos from Mark Braud on trumpet and McCoury’s son Ronnie on mandolin, and the table was set for an evening of mostly collaborative music.

There were brief separate sets as well. The McCoury band revisited “Rain and Snow,’’ tore through the instrumental “Rawhide,’’ and then slowed down for four-part vocal harmonizing on “Get Down on Your Knees and Pray.’’ The Preservation Hall bunch went it alone on “That’s a Plenty’’ and “Shake It and Break It,’’ with Braud explaining that the latter would feature “my mother’s favorite vocalist’’ filling in for Andrew Bird.

But the show primarily featured the two distinct dialects of indigenous American instrumental music genially feeling each other out on jazz, country, and gospel chestnuts. Some highlights: Maedgen adding his tenor to the McCoury band’s version of Ernest Tubb’s “You Don’t Have to Be a Baby to Cry,’’ Braud’s muted trumpet and vocals on “The Sugar Blues,’’ Charlie Gabriel’s clarinet and gravely vocals on “A Good Gal,’’ and Joe Lastie’s crowd-pleasing drum solo on the ostensible closer, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.’’ And “Mullensburg Joys’’ effectively displayed its shared pedigree (Bill Monroe himself recorded the Jelly Roll Morton jazz standard as “Milenberg Joy’’) in a series of solos building to Gabriel trading licks with fiddler Jason Carter.

Maedgen sang a spirited “I’ll Fly Away’’ with Del McCoury as a first encore, then everyone trooped out one last time, the audience dancing along to a rousing “When the Saints Go Marching In.’’ American legacies, indeed.

Bill Beuttler can be reached at bill@billbeuttler.com.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE!