Artists spanning a vast range of styles from Ray Charles to Ornette Coleman to Duane Allman have all acknowledged the city as the place that let them discover how deep their own music could go.

Here’s a band made up of folks born elsewhere who’ve found the city to be a sweet home indeed. The Panorama Brass Band playing Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” at the annual French Quarter Fest, the biggest free music festival in the South. Enjoy!

Everyone has their own favorite bands and musicians.

I happen to like the Panorama Brass Band both for their exuberance and their wide open ears. They play music from everywhere.

If I had to name my personal favorite New Orleans-based musician, it would be Half Moon, California-born Aurora Nealand here on alto sax. How can you help loving someone who obviously loves the music so much?

Panorama is led by clarinetist Ben Schenck and made up of Aurora Nealand (alto saxophone); Charlie Halloran (trombone); Walt McClements (accordion); Patrick Mackey (banjo); Jon Gross (sousaphone); and Sean Clark (drums)

Another great band in a city of great bands.

Don’t you think the absolutely unique New Orleans culture is worth saving?

Damn right it is! And no one does more for the city and its musicians than the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.

Now they need our help. Click here to learn what you can do: Save the Clinic

“New Orleans musicians, tradition bearers, and their families.”

What are “tradition bearers?”

If you know New Orleans, you know that in addition to the city’s unique musical culture, the city also has social traditions – Mardi Gras Indian tribes, social aid and pleasure clubs, and other groups – that are not found anywhere else in America.

In this video, Chuck Perkins, the New Orleans-born poet whose work is featured at the end of the video on the SavetheClinic.org home page, pays a visit on one of the city’s key tradition bearers: Mr. Ronald Lewis.

Are these traditions, worth supporting?

Of course they are.

Support the Clinic, support the traditions.

You can help New Orleans greatly by helping the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.

Every year, the Clinic provides free and low cost occupation-specific medical care to over 2,000 New Orleans musicians, tradition bearers, and their families.

Please share this page with your friends – and if you’re able, give.

http:/www.SavetheClinic.org

Thanks.

Ken McCarthy
Save the Clinic.org

A lot of people have inquired about the music at the very beginning of the Save the Clinic promo video.

Who is it? What CD is that from? Where can I get a copy?

There’s no CD and what you heard wasn’t recorded in a studio either.

It came from an informal backyard jam, or in this case a parking lot jam, led by Treme born singer and trombonist Glenn David Andrews.

No prep. No rehearsal. No score. Just a reverent jam on a Mardi Gras Indian chant.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the rest of the musicians, but I do recognize drummer Kevin O’Day who is playing a bass drum with mallets in the back. His young son joins him early in the shot.

It was an open jam. If you’d been there and had a drum, you would have been invited to join in too.

That’s New Orleans baby, a creative oasis like no other where live community music lives and thrives.

The New Orleans Musicians Clinic is one of the foundation stones of the city’s unique musical community. Hundreds of musicians and their families rely on the Clinic for their medical care from check ups to serious surgery and cancer care.

Drastic government cuts in funding – and the government’s controversial and unpopular decision to not re-open Charity Hospital – have put the continuation of this New Orleans institution and its important work at risk.

You can help. It’s easy.

Tell your friends who love music and believe in justice about SaveTheClinic.org

If you’re able, donations are welcome of course, but simply helping spread the word is a huge help.

Visit SaveTheClinic.org and help spread the word.

Ken McCarthy
Director, SaveTheClinic.Org

P.S. If you like this video, please share it with your friends.

P.P.S. To support the New Orleans Musicans Clinic, go to Donate the the New Orleans Musicians Clinic now

Kip McDonough 15 School for the Creative Arts celebrates Mardi Gras with its own parade

Today’s video illustrates an aspect of New Orleans’ musical culture that’s little known to people outside the city.

It’s this: New Orleans is one of the great centers of music education in the world.

In fact, the case can be made that the entire city is an open air Conservatory.

From generation to generation

One of the features that makes New Orleans so unique is how its music is passed down from generation to generation. Deacon John referred to this in the SaveTheClinic.org promo video when he pointed out the essential role elder musicians play in bringing up the new generation.

I know of no other place in America where children receive such encouragement and are given so many
opportunities to listen to, learn and perform music.

Maybe that’s why New Orleans has more professional level musicians per capita than any other city in the US. Maybe that’s why on any given night there are world class performances all over the city.

Deacon John is absolutely right…

For this priceless tradition to continue, the musicians of New Orleans, young and old, need access to affordable health care and that’s what the New Orleans Musicians Clinic provides and why the Clinic deserves our support.

Ken McCarthy
Director, SaveTheClinic.Org

P.S. If you like this video, please share it with your friends.

P.P.S. To support the New Orleans Musicans Clinic, go to

http://www.SaveTheClinic.org/donate.html

The Treme Brass Band says good bye to a much-loved club

Treme Brass Band captured in this home video is featured in the new HBO series “Treme.”

Good call by the producers because it would be hard to pick a group that better embodies the city’s musical spirit.

The Treme Brass Band is a people’s band. You can find them providing music for funerals, parades, social and pleasure club second lines, and other community events all over the city. And every Wednesday night you can catch them and their friends at the Candlelight Lounge in the Treme.

Real world

The scene caught by this video was not staged or put on for tourists.  It’s a living, breathing example of the role musicians and their fans play in the daily life of the city.

In this case, a club, The Spotted Cat, was closing its doors. (It’s since reopened under a new owner with a slightly different name.)  To mark the occasion, the Treme Brass Band came out to give it a proper send off.

Along with many other clubs on New Orleans’ Frenchmen Street, The Spotted Cat played an essential role in bringing the levee-failure devastated city back to its feet.

Long before many essential services like electricity, water, and food distribution were back to normal, intrepid club owners opened their doors to the pioneering musicians who came back in the days and weeks right after the flood.

It may be the first time in history that MUSIC rebuilt a city.

The secret

A little known part of the story is the role that the New Orleans Musicians Clinic played in the return of music to the city.

In addition to providing medical services to musicians and their families before and after the catastrophe, the Clinic also subsidized several of the city’s music spots so they could afford to pay musicians for their services in the chaotic, cash-starved months after the storm.

Sadly, this Clinic program, known at the Gig Fund, which pays local musicians to perform at schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and other community events, has been cut drastically due to recent financial pressures.

You can do something about this.

You can tell your friends and colleagues about the important work the New Orleans Musicians Clinic does and how, due to draconian government cuts, it needs our help to continue helping New Orleans’ musicians and their families.

To learn more and make a donation, visit this page:

http://www.savetheclinic.org/donate.html