Gotta love New Orleans

I’ve been very fortunate to have travelled quite a bit touring with many different artists, in particular, as musical director for The Drifters, that iconic doo-wop vocal group that began their storied career in the mid-50’s with fifty-plus top ten hits over four decades. Our dates have included the U.K., Canada, Singapore, Japan, the Caribbean and of course, the U.S.

But of all destinations, it was eventually New Orleans that captured my heart.

Our first visit.

Typical New Orleans weather. Even at 5:00 pm, suffocating heat and humidity. I hopped into a cab and headed to a suburb where the rehearsal was scheduled for 6 pm. Thankfully our show was not until the next day - a one hour headliner show in a park in front of about 7k spectators to kick off Mardi Gras.

Yes, there was a bit of pressure.

I arrived at the house and swung open the screen door only to discover the entire band on the living room floor, glued to the TV watching an NFL game.

“Um… Hi”.

Someone yelled back,

“Hey hi man. Grab a beer. Just waiting for the game to end..”

I looked at my watch and frowned inwardly. I could have pointed out that this was a two hour rehearsal for a sixty minute show so, well time was of the essence. Instead, I drank a cold beer on the sofa, fingers thrumming impatiently on the faux leather arm rest. Twenty excruciating minutes later, I finally cleared my throat loudly in an attempt to rally the troops.

“Yah, okay, okay man. Let’s go guys. He’s right. We’d better start. Game’s out of reach anyway…”

So we trooped on over to the kitchen (!) where the band instruments were set up.

My heart sank when I saw an old Simmons electronic drum kit from the 70’s by the refrigerator. “What the heck.” I muttered to myself. Handing out the music charts, I noticed there was a keyboard set up, but no one there. I hesitantly asked, “Who’s on..?”

“No worries man. Dan’s running late. We can start without him.” I looked at my watch. Almost thirty minutes in and we hadn’t played a note. Then the drummer nonchalantly played a quick motif on his synth drum pads.

My jaw dropped. Huh? What was that? As my brain wrestled with the haiku beauty of what he had just played (okay, so the drummer’s happening), I suggested we play an instrumental to warm up. “One, two, three.. four…”

Within seconds, the Formica laminated kitchen with its fake pine wall panelling slowly morphed itself into the sonic landscape of Harlem’s Apollo Theatre on a sweaty Friday night. I looked around, a bit stunned. Well, well, I thought to myself. This is going to be way better than I expected.

It was four tunes in before I belatedly realized the keyboard player hadn’t shown up yet! But just as I was about to complain, he burst in, all frazzled and apologetic. Laughs and high fives all around. “Ah sorry guys, traffic was a bitch..”

I handed him his book of charts. “Oh… sorry dude, I don’t read music.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“What? Well they’re not difficult piano notation charts. Just chord charts..”

“Nah. Man, I don’t read AT ALL..”

“So,” I (asking the ceiling), “How the heck is this going to work?”

“Oh don’t worry man. I heard your cassette in the car on the way over. I memorized everything. Just yell out the keys..”

“You’re kidding … right?”

Everybody chimed in, “No, it’s Dan… just yell out the keys..”

“Okay then.” I said, challengingly, “Up On The Roof’ in Ab…. One, two, three…four ..”

And then of course, he played without a single mistake, smiling cheerfully at me all the while, which I first actually resented but eventually I had to surrender to his skill and to his down-home charm.

The next day found us in front of thousands in the afternoon sun. My tardy keyboard player now had a gorgeous vintage Hammond B3 gospel organ with not one, but TWO Leslie speaker cabinets, one at either end of the huge stage. Just before we went onstage, I insisted that their bandleader, a guitarist sit in with us. At first he was reluctant because I was not only the MD but the guitarist. The opening number was the well worn blues instrumental ‘Chicken Shack’. I counted it in. Same thing. My hands went limp as the band exploded into the most monstrous blues shuffle groove I’d ever heard.

I remember saying to myself, okay, okay figure this out. So I wandered back and forth across the stage, right up to each musician trying to discretely analyze what they were doing to be able to spin this ineffable magic. In every instance, there was nothing miraculous going on. Nothing virtuosic. Nothing really new. It was just WAY deeper than simple technique. It was a Soul vibe imbued by decades, no, centuries of music from so many diverse cultures all blended into waves of musical energy, effortless in their authenticity.

Needless to say the gig went amazingly well complete with two encores.

And everywhere we went afterwards, that incessant groove!

Gotta love New Orleans.