Sunday night’s All Star Jam-Balaya at the Fillmore — with Leo Nocentelli and Allen Toussaint, left — featured the finest musicians from Louisiana and benefited the Friends of New Orleans charity.
Allen Toussaint grabbed his ear, shook his head. Like he couldn’t believe the fire raging behind him. He was one song in — a ferocious “People Say” — as the guest key tickler for , a rare reunion of , and on Sunday at the Fillmore.
Toussaint is a crooner, a cool-as-ice dapper balladeer never seen sans suit and sandals. The Meters are thunder makers, a seminal New Orleans band from which all funk flows. It was a cocktail of fire and ice and it went down perfectly with the feast of Creole cookin’ and free . I’m not sure the Democrat delegates in attendance fully comprehended what was happening on stage. They were chattering in the back of the house, admiring each other’s swollen IV bags laden with Obama Kool-Aid.
No matter. More room for stomping by the people who were guzzling the Meters’ fiery Kool-Aid.
The Meters anchored a nightlong event that was designed to float Louisiana and its variety of ills to a heavy-hitting audience of politicos. They called it the New Orleans All-Star Jam-Balaya. called it gumbo.
A gumbo, you see, is a meaty seafood stew, thickened with either okra or file and the “holy trinity”: peppers, celery and onion. Itap cooked slowly, into a mesmerizing culinary mix of everything that is Louisiana: smoky andouille, crawfish and Creole spice.
The music Sunday was indeed a gumbo, a little bit of blues and swampy roots from guitar troubadour , some brass tooting from the Soul Rebels Brass Band, some hammering keys from the blind but busy , lots of second lining with and the Wild Tchoupitoulas, swinging rhythms from the one-and-only on drums, crazy riffs from on guitar and vicious fiddle from . bobbed her leg with the Soul Queen of New Orleans , who offered an absolutely riveting hymnal “Yield Not To Temptation.” bellowing “Change is Gonna Come” could easily become the Obama maniacs new theme song.
Every single one of those musicians alone could sell out the Fillmore. Packing them all onto one stage rivals any end-of-Jazz Fest jam. Keeping them up there for a couple hours is enough to blow minds.
Sadly, the minds in attendance at the $500-a-head gig benefiting the , weren’t necessary tuned to mind-blowing music. A few boogied, but it was the hangers-on who crowded the dance floor: the perpetually amped crew from Dales Pale Ale, the writers and photographers there to scout for bold-face names and the assorted PR types who finagled their way in the door.
But once the Meters took over, it was hard to do anything but ogle the spectacle that is Nocentelli and Porter, working in syncopated, funkified cahoots. Composer and New Orleanian went first, offering his moving “Louisiana” with lyrics that strike at the heart of anyone who loves the Crescent City: “Some people got lost in the flood. Some people got away alright.”
Toussaint, tickling a Steinway grand, got his spin in the spotlight early with his bubbly “Yes We Can Can,” featuring a foursome of beauties singing back-up. (Marcia Ball, a master piano player and songwriter, looked a tad lost with her arms raised playing the sing-along starlet, but she looked to be as happy as possible sharing the stage with such giants.)
The venerable got a turn with the Meters on his hollow-body electric, delivering his bone-shaking blues with a New Orleans hue and picking a perfect jam with his incisors.
String Cheese Incidentap Kyle Hollingworth was tucked into the back of the stage on his Hammond B, quietly and respectfully tinkling in the background. The expected “Hey Pocky Way” hosted a mighty-lunged five-top on horns: booty shaking trombonist Big Sam Williams, Trombone Shorty, Miles D-influenced Terence Blanchard on trumpet, the ever-swinging sax king Donald Harrison and sousafunkster Kirk Joseph carrying the deep end on the big brass.
For the spicy finale, The Meters swept the stage for a bare-bones “Just Kissed My Baby,” flexing their funkiest chops and showing the remaining sweat-soaked fans they are still the captains of the funk world.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux in his feathery finest
Reverb contributor Jason Blevins is a reporter for The Denver Post.
