Hanging in NOLA – Making Friends – Part Trois

 One of the best things about traveling to New Orleans is that you don’t really need a plan to have fun in the city. Mrs. S and I had a vague clue to eat good, enjoy staying at a first class hotel right in the French Quarter, and catch some music if nothing else was going on. In between all that, we visited a voodoo shop, bought me a hat, bought her some clothes, bought some French artisan utensils at a French artisan utensil shop, got lost in the casino, and took pictures of the entire city. Still, just letting those things happen to us resulted in some unusual experiences.

About to get down.

Like on the way to the voodoo shop. There was a line down the block of about 150 people to get into Preservation Hall. Not really known for its big name performers, and it being our first night and us still unsure of what music we were going to hear while we were there, I decided to find out what was going on. I walked to the front of the line, smiled at the scared looking ticket seller organizer guy and said, “Quite a crowd. Who’s playing tonight?” The guy got a look of consternation on his face (for some reason) and tried to brighten up and be enthusiastic, though he obviously was hoping we’d go away. Then he forced a smile and answered me, and I don’t remember what he said, exactly, but if I paraphrase what he said, it would go like this, “Well, we've got Eddie Whatsisname, who’s a famous  some-kind-of-musician locally, and he’ll be joined by Johnny Notspecial, and A Bunch of Nobodies.” I frowned, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Never heard of any of ‘em,” and me and Mrs. S walked off. Of course, Mrs. S goes, “What did he say?” And I had to answer, well I’m not sure, but it sounded like Eddie Whatsisname, joined by Johnny Notspecial, and the A Bunch of Nobodies. Anyway, I’m not paying what they’re charging to stand in a crowded hall with a bunch of tourists to hear unfamous musicians slug out some tunes. We can do that anywhere. Mrs. S laughed at my assessment and we continued waltzing away from P. Hall.

Getting down.

On our last night, we were wandering around St. Louis Cathedral and out of nowhere, these three kids come up, lay down on the sidewalk and commence to stare up at the cathedral. I walked over and pretended to be looking at what they were looking at and the girl says, “No. You've got to lay down and look up from the ground.” So, I laid down next to her. She goes, “There, doesn't it feel like your feet are part of the church?” which, I had not thought about before she said that, but yes, they did. The tower made me feel vaguely dizzy. Also, I somehow ended up in the exact middle, directly below the clock in the clock tower, and I pointed this out. “Isn't it cool?” I said, yes, and so is my back on the cold stone, which make me wonder about what was spilled and who spit on this particular ground I’m lying on. She said, “Ah, don’t worry about that. Just look.” I pointed out this was not exactly my plan for how to spend the evening of my birthday, and since I was getting cold, I told them thanks and got up. The guy wished me happy birthday, and I wished them luck with their steeple viewing.

The view from down under the St. Louis Cathedral

It was a different sort of trip for us. I expect we shall do more trips like this in the future. This one was more fun than most.

Hanging in NOLA – Travel Log – Part Deux

There’s never a shortage of live music in New Orleans, however, finding the kind of live music or the artist that inspires you is not always easy. Thankfully, Mrs. S’s forte is figuring out what’s going on, finding what we are interested in, and then telling me so we can work on the logistics together. One of our favorite places to go is Snug Harbor, but the lineup for the three night we were there was not that attractive. Making things more difficult was the fact that we had reservations at three swanky places over the three nights, so logistics was going to be more of a challenge in any event. But Mrs. S found that Jason and Ellis Marsalis were performing at Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse, just a stone’s throw from our hotel, and starting at 8PM on a night when we had a 5:30 dinner reservation just ten minutes or so down the road. She even put our name on the guest list and told them to keep something down front available for us.

Piano mediocrity meets piano greatness (again): Me and Ellis Marsalis

After a fantastic dinner at August, we made our way to the club, where to our dismay and trepidation, they were turning people away at the door. No worries. As two couples did their about face, I told the woman at the door that we were on the list, gave her our name, and she smiled brightly and said, “Right this way.” She showed us a cushy table with padded seats and generous area, but right in front of that was a tiny table barely large enough for two drinks and two chairs on either side. I asked if we could sit there and she said sure. And there we were again, in the best seats in the house: front row.

The view from behind our table: That's our table right in front of the piano there.

Turns out our table was also right next to the Messrs. Marsalis’ table, so I went ahead and shook the elder Marsalis’ hand and had our picture taken prior to the show. The show was a captivating program of Christmas music, with Jason on vibes and his father playing piano (obviously), though Jason of course got behind his trap set for their rousing version of Little Drummer Boy. I don’t know if it was part of the act or what, but every tune, Jason announced as if nobody in the place had heard Christmas music before. It was really kind of laughable to hear somebody , in a deadpan serious voice, go, “That was a tune called ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’. Now, here’s ‘Away in a Manger’.” Thanks, Jason. What was amazing was Jason would grab their CD, look at the back, call out a tune and a key signature, and Ellis would kick it off and away they went. Again, not sure it was part of the act, or what. The show was somewhat disrupted by a table of four in the front on the other side of the stage, who were yelling, laughing, and carrying on, and who had no idea who the Marsalis’s were. I wanted to tell them to shut up, but I figured if Jason wasn't bothered by them, neither would I be.

Drummer vibraphonist meets pianist vibraphonist (someday): Jason Marsalis and me.

The night ended paying $20 for a $10 CD so we could get it signed and have some more photos taken with the Marsalises, so it ended up being a night worth remembering in a lot of different ways. Hopefully Mrs. S can keep her concert going radar up and running during future trips to the Big Easy.

Stories from New Orleans – Parts 1 and 4: Making Friends

The drive from Madison Alabama to New Orleans Louisiana takes anywhere from six to eight hours, depending on how many stops and how long they are. Although the trip is almost 100% highway, portions of it are on decidedly neglected highways. In addition to beat up, old, poorly maintained roads where you take your life in your hands if you go over 60 miles per hour, the state of Mississippi pretty much figures you’re a hillbilly and will pee in the woods anyway, so there are not many rest stops once you enter the state and until you leave the state. That is to say, if you travel to New Orleans from Madison, you will almost certainly end up stopping at the first rest stop in Louisiana, which is the very comfy, cozy, coffee serving New Orleans Welcome Center on I-10.

After Mrs S and I had taken care of business, she started thumbing through the racks of brochures, which, again, is a given. We've done it on every previous trip to New Orleans. I was wandering around, seeing what would catch my eye and I heard one of the greeters say, “Can I help you find something?” I was about 20 feet from the desk, so I didn't think she was talking to me. Then I heard, “Would you sign our guest book?” So, I looked over and sure enough, she was talking to me and the other greeter was watching. “Um, no, and yes,” I said, counting the answers to two questions on my fingers. As I signed the book, the greeter and I were chatting and I happened to mention we were staying at The Monteleone. “Oh, my son is manager of the Carousel Bar there.” I said I’d be happy to say hello to him, as I knew I was going to be spending some time in the bar, and she said, his name is Michael D__. (You can probably Google his name, but I’ll redact it here for privacy.) I repeated his name and she said, “Oh you’re pronunciation is perfect.” (It’s not a hard name, but lazy, non-French people would tend to pronounce this French family name differently.)

Me and one of my drinks. The photo bomber is the bar manager, Michael (keep reading).

On the last day of the trip, following dinner in the hotel, we finally made our way to the bar. I was looking forward to meeting Michael and using the two free drink coupons I got when we checked into the hotel and I told them I was celebrating my birthday with them. Of course, on Christmas Eve, the Carousel Bar was packed and people were jumping on seats as soon as anybody stood up, so Mrs. S and I found two seats in the equally packed lounge adjacent.

Our waitress came over and when she brought our two free drinks, I asked if I Michael was working that night. She said, oh yes, and I said, well, I’m sure he’s quite busy and he doesn't know me, but if he could spare a moment, I’d like to talk to him for a minute. And she said, no problem, and he did come over and I did talk to him. Very nice guy. I told him the story about promising his mom to say hello. We talked about his mom and about the action in the bar, and how many times I’d been to New Orleans, and then I apologized and told him thanks for talking with me and allowing me to make good on my promise to his mom to say hello to him. He said it was his pleasure. So I sit back down and order another drink, and our waitress informs me it’s on the house and so is Mrs. S’s next one. I said, wow, great, and what’s your name and she says, “Tuna.” I look at her and raise an eyebrow, “Tuna?” She smiles and says, yes, just like the fish. Okay, well then let me get a picture with you. And we did.

Me and Tuna.

As it was getting close to midnight, Santa Claus showed up. I’m not sure if it was before his rounds or after his rounds, but I hadn't been all that naughty this year, so he let me take a picture with him. I should have bought him a drink. When we went to sit back down, Tuna was serving guests across from our seats, putting her right between me and Mrs. S. I told Mrs. S to wait a minute or we’d trap our waitress, and then Tuna says, “You’re making a Tuna sandwich!” Funny.

I drew the line on lap sitting, but I was okay with having a picture with Santa, even though it was the first time in years.

And I’m not sure why I didn't take a commemorative photo with Michael, but he photo bombed one of Mrs. S’s other photos anyway, so it all worked out. That’s not all the friends I made while in New Orleans, but those are the ones I made at the start and the finish of the trip.

Don’t worry, there’s more stories (and surprise friends) to come.

The way things turn out

Thanks (?) to March Madness, our latest trip to New Orleans turned out a bit different than most. First of all, we couldn’t get a hotel room at a reasonable price, so we ended up at a B&B called Lanaux Mansion. Turned out some scenes of the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” were shot there, and this would not be our first encounter curiously tied to that movie. We got to stay in the enchanted cottage, which was originally the laundry room for the main house, but now is converted into a comfy suite. We also had our own private entrance through the back gate and garden. The place is run by a nice southern gentlewoman named Ruth. We got along with her great, as her son lives in Japan and is also married to a Japanese woman.

A random shot of the outside of Snug Harbor. Yeah, man! Frenchmen  Street!

We ate at Stella the first night. I ate so much I got sick. We still went to Snug Harbor after dinner, mainly to make reservations to see Ellis Marsalis on Friday night, but we ended up staying for that night’s show and saw The Peter Harris Quartet, which was fronted by an exciting young saxophonist, Derek Douget. It was all I could do, however, to not pass out and throw up. I didn't look in such bad shape before the concert:

Not feeling the Mac effects...yet.

As the night wore on, I was not in good shape, and I think it was the Big Mac and fries at lunch time that gummed up the works (I eat McDonald’s about twice a year). A good night’s rest turned out to be all I needed, and all was well from then on.

The next day looked like rain, so we basically just wandered around the city, spending money with all the basketball fans in town. I got my usual voodoo accoutrements, hematite rings, Old New Orleans Rum, and Mrs. S got her shrimp spice and a couple of knick-knacks and doo-dads. We ate at Acme, where we actually had to line up at two in the afternoon.

That night we saw Joshua Bell at the First Baptist Church. The parking lot attendant told us that if we took our car out of the lot, we were pretty much giving up all hope of parking in the French Quarter again for the day, so we took a cab instead. That turned out to lead to another interesting encounter (next paragraph). The concert was not very exciting. It was an average concert. JB was great, as usual.

We didn’t hurry to leave the concert after it was over, because Mrs. S wanted to take as many pictures of JB as possible. This turned out to work in our favor, as she took a picture of a nice woman and her husband hounded Mrs. S to be sure and send the photo to him. When he learned that we didn’t have a ride back to town, he generously offered to drive us. We accepted, and so me and Mrs. S ended up in Robert and Nell’s Buick (I think) heading back to the French Quarter. Well, when we mentioned the Benjamin Button connection with our B&B, Nell told us about how her mother’s house was used for about half the movie. The studio appropriated their house for 50% of the time over two years of filming. They met Brad Pitt and a bunch of other famous people. It was quite a story. Our ride was too short, and we bid them adieux.

From there we made our way back to Snug Harbor and were able to catch the last half of Ellis Marsalis’s show, again with Derek up front. They played a really cool version of a song I like, and I managed to keep it in my head for a day, but it got shoved out after we listened to music during dinner on Saturday after we got home. Anyway, I bought Mr. Marsalis’s latest CD and he signed it for me. Unfortunately, Mrs. S had her phone off and I’d forgotten mine, so we didn’t get a picture of that, but here’s the signature on the CD booklet:

Why do these older gentlemen always write so neatly?!?!

 The next morning, we nearly got run off the road twice before we finally got on the highway and headed home, uneventfully.

The trip turned out okay. 

The End of March, The End of Madness: My latest trip to New Orleans

This week I’ll be writing about my latest trip to New Orleans, which had me in the Crescent City for the front end of March Madness, making a lot of things difficult, but in the end turning out well. Mrs. S and I met virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell (again!) and we got lucky and met Ellis Marsalis, too. I even got an autograph.

Speaking of which, one month less one day to the date, here’s the photo of me and Mrs. S meeting Wynton Marsalis early last month:

Two jazz musicians and a fan

You can see he’s an impeccable dresser and he’s friendly. I actually had the opportunity to listen to his program on Sirius XM radio on the drive home from New Orleans yesterday. Very informed and very informative, it was one of the most educational radio programs I’d ever heard. I’ll probably have to go sit out in my car on Saturday morning from now on, unless I spring an extra $3 a month for computer access to the radio channels.

Finally, I’m starting my Post-Bop piano book experiment today. Wish me luck.

Recent New Orleans trip schedule = Beginner's guide to the "Big Easy"

Oddly enough, it took me five trips to New Orleans before I finally got around to doing all the things that tourists are supposed to do when they visit there. So my most recent NOLA travelogue is really a list of stuff that you should do if you’re visiting “the Big Easy” for the first time:

See the inside of St. Louis Cathedral – It is the oldest continually operating Catholic church in the United States, and the inside is far nicer and just as photo-worthy as the often depicted outside. Mrs. S and I went inside to hear Ellis Marsalis play a free Christmas concert, accompanied by the rest of his quartet including his drummer son, Jason. The chords that Mr. Marsalis played when he tackled “Oh Tannenbaum” were spine tingling. During the concert, filming and photography were not allowed, so we came back the next day to take photos. Don’t miss it. (Keep your distance from the guys on the bench outside with the 16-ounce malt liquor cans in paper bags.)

Have beignets and coffee at Café Du Monde – This is probably the staple of the New Orleans tourist experience, and again, we had never done it. The beignets were tasty and a plate of three with two large coffees was just the right amount of food and drink for Mrs. S and I to go away satisfied, yet craving more. We went back on our second morning of the trip as well. Bring cash. It helps if you speak Thai (but since you can only order one thing to eat and maybe five to drink, communication is not an issue).

Eat a meal at the Acme Oyster House – This we had actually done before, but not in a while. We went on our first full day for lunch. We had some char-grilled Gulf oysters that were phenomenal, along with two different Po-boys and a glass of local beer. We enjoyed it so much, we decided to do it again the next day, doubled up on the oyster order, and got two different Po-boys and another local beer to wash everything down. Highly likely that in future trips to NOLA, we will eat all our lunches here.

Tour a rum distillery – Yes, there is a rum distillery in New Orleans. It’s not much of one, but it is a rum distillery. (Okay, it’s a shabby warehouse with some tanks that can be used to make booze.) They do three tours daily (call ahead) and they are a little out of the way in a seedy neighborhood by a cement factory, but the rum is tasty, they serve samples, and although the tour is pricy at $10, you get $5 off a bottle of rum if you buy one (and you will). Definitely something different to  do, especially if you are newly devoted to spirits, as I am. Which leads to our next tourist “must-do”:

Have a cocktail at the carousel bar at The Monteleone – If you are not up on your cocktails, you can order the signature drink, The Monteleone, which is a variation on a martini (I think). That’s what Mrs. S had. Made her drunk enough to lose her scarf. I had a Sazerac, another New Orleans cocktail. It takes about 15 minutes for the bar to go around once, so drink slowly or have two.

Me and my Sazerac (photo © Mrs. S)

Listen to jazz at Snug Harbor – There’s nothing like real live jazz, and all I can say is, you may want to do Preservation Hall for the tourist’s touristy jazz, but I would recommend Snug for the “in-the-know” tourist’s jazz. We heard Delfeayo Marsalis lead the Uptown Jazz Ensemble, a 17-piece band that played on a stage that wasn’t more than 15 by 20 feet in a room that couldn’t have been more than 50 x 20 total. An awesome experience and only an $8 cab ride to and from just about anywhere in the French Quarter. You can keep your costs down by not ordering too many $8 drinks.

Dinner at Stella – I’m pretty sure this is the best restaurant in New Orleans. If you buy the cheapest wine on the list, two appetizers, two entrees and two desserts, you won’t get away for much less than $250 – 300. The tasting menu is something like $125, plus another $95 for the flight of paired wines. If you’ve hit the lottery, you can try one of their $150 vodkas or the $3000/ounce caviar.  With the Acme Oyster House, this is the only other thing on the list we did not do for the first time (and hopefully not for the last, either).

That’s it. Two and a half days, three nights. Really, the perfect trip. Geaux, geaux, geaux to New Orleans! (Author is not provided with compensation by any party affiliated with the city of New Orleans.)

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 5: One place to skip

The original title for this part of my travelogue was going to be: "Mardi gras museum and three-piece jazz band top stuffy servers and mediocre (and expensive) food at tourist trap Arnaud's," but that would have been too long and cumbersome. In a nutshell, however, that is really all you need to know.

Here are some details anyway:

We decided to eat at Arnaud's on our last night for a lot of the usual reasons. It's a famous, reputedly great restaurant. It's part of the New Orleans culinary scene. It was close to our hotel. And we'd never been there before. When I called for reservations, we found out there was the added bonus of sitting in the "less classy" room, where you could order off the same haute menu while listening to live jazz music (for only $4 per person more) and not have to dress to the nines. That was for us, so we signed on.

I won't detail all the things that went wrong at Arnaud's. Suffice to say when the guy gave me a wine list then asked if I was ready to order the wine before he'd so much as showed me a menu, I knew we were in trouble. When I ordered a wine off the "special" prix fixe menu and was told I could only order it if I ordered off that menu, regardless of price and regardless of the fact that our a la carte meal totalled about twice what the prix fixe menu did, I was flabbergasted. "This is, um, some kind of rule," the goofball said. "Just give me the wine I asked for, asshole, I'm the customer!" I wanted to say, but I didn't want to create any enmity right at the start of our last meal in New Orleans, so I ordered something else and bit my tongue.

And it was good I bit my tongue, because the meal was completely unimpressive and not something I wanted to taste too closely anyway. Baked oysters: spongy, lifeless and ordinary. Fish: bland and uninspired. Steak with crabmeat: Salted to death, cooked poorly, unoriginal, and freaking expensive. The wine was good, but that was because I picked it. Then came, "You want us to remove the wine label? We don't know how to do that. Here's a duffel bag to carry it home with."

Truly disappointing. I was glad when it came time to refuse dessert and I felt good giving them a tip that was even more mediocre than their service and food.


What was not disappointing was the live music. The trumpet, banjo, bass trio was nothing all that special, but they were professional and played quite well. They took requests and went table to table, and for lack of a better idea, I requested "C Jam Blues". The bass player was a cut-up. He immediately goes, "Yeah, C Jam Blues. Okay, what key?" But that request tipped them off that they were talking to one of their own, another jazz musician, and the bass player even invited me to sit in on his other band's rehearsal the next morning at 10:30. (I declined, as we would be well on our way home by then.) So, I enjoyed chatting with them, hearing some good music, and forgetting about the awfully average meal.

Mrs. S then informed me that the guide book we had told us not to miss the Mardi Gras exhibit, so that got us ushered through the hoity toity section of the restaurant (where I saw at least one bow tie and two white jackets, so yeah, keep them away from us riff-raff) and upstairs to the display. It was impressive enough to keep Mrs. S's camera continuously firing for the next twenty minutes.And I would say, if you do do Arnaud's, that yeah, don't miss the costume display. It's one of a kind, unlike the food.

I guess we can conclude the restaurant summary by simply saying, two out of three wasn't bad, and we had memorable experiences at all of them, so I would count that as a successful trip. I think Mrs. S agrees.

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 4: Did I mention there's music?

If you've ever wandered down Bourbon Street after dark, or even during the day, you know there is no shortage of music to be heard. You also know there is no shortage of touts trying to push you into their joint, or sometimes half-naked girls trying to pull you into theirs. Curiously, though, I actually found jazz pretty hard to come by.

When I say jazz, I mean jazz. On my first afternoon in New Orleans, Mrs. S and I went straight to the Music Factory music store. There, they have jazz broken out into several sub-categories such as: blues, traditional, vocal, modern, ... and such. They also have zydeco, New Orleans jazz (?), and a couple of categories that didn't make sense (to me). I relay this as a point of reference in that, in the city that may or may not have invented jazz, you can't really walk up to someone and say, hey, where can I go to hear some good jazz music, one - because there are so many places where one could go, and two - because they won't know what kind of jazz you are talking about (and you might not know, either).

So on our first night in the Big Easy, we cut to the chase and went to Preservation Hall. We weren't too keen on paying $10 to stand in a non air conditioned barn, but we figured we owed ourselves the experience. Plus since the band only does 45-minute sets, we figured that would be good enough.


Well, it was touristy, but I have to say, the band was very good and the experience was worth it. It was a sextet, with alto sax, drums, trombone, tuba, piano and lead trumpet. They sang a few songs, but mostly just played. You couldn't really hear the piano unless she (a Japanese woman no less) was soloing. But the sound was good and very, I'll say "traditional". Of course, they try to make money selling you nondescript CD's and by taking requests. I paid $5 to hear St. Louis Blues, mainly because I think I was the only native English speaker in the audience and it was the only song name I could think of that I thought the band could play. They seemed to appreciate it, though, and I was accommodated also with a piano solo. But it was hot and muggy, so when that set ended, we called it a night.

Here's me in front of the hall the next day.


We stumbled into some more live jazz the third night of our stay, but I'll leave that for my next post.

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 3: The tenuous connection

When we stopped at the Louisiana welcome center on our way to New Orleans, we took a few minutes to browse through the many tour and destination brochures they had displayed there. I came across one that said Cemetery/Voodoo/Jazz across the top.



Cemetery voodoo jazz.

Although I consider myself relatively more knowledgeable about voodoo than the average American (I sleep on two different kinds of gris-gris - how about you?), other than the fact that several noted voodoo practitioners called New Orleans home, I'm not sure what the connection is. And while the above-ground, mausoleum style cemeteries are well known, when you think about it, there is really nothing so different between a New Orleans cemetery and a "regular" cemetery in Anywhere USA. You still are six feet from the bodies, there just isn't all that dirt between you and them. So I consider the connection between cemetery, voodoo and jazz to be tenuous at best, and I don't think the best way to appeal to tourists is to throw everything you've got all at them at once. Besides, I imagine the following conversation.

So, are you a swing era musician, or do you like be-bop?

No, man.

Okay, post-bop then, maybe fusion?

No.

Free jazz?

No, man.

What then?

Cemetery voodoo jazz.

If this is the new standard, other tourism promotional possibilities that come to mind are:
San Francisco: Gay Alcatraz Sea Lions
Los Angeles: Hollywood Tar Pits Jack Nicholson's House
New York: Empire State Building Broadway Mugging
Phildelphia: Liberty Bell Cheesesteak Rocky Balboa
Orlando: Mickey Mickey Mickey
Las Vegas: Magic Gambling Neon
Cleveland: Rock 'n Roll LeBron Rust
Seattle: Rainy Boeing Salmon
Alabama: Cottonfield Plantation Whatchou lookin' at boy?

But I digress.
So, part three of my travelogue is finished and I still haven't written about any music. But it is coming, probably with the next post. Y'all come back now, y'hear?

New Orleans Travelogue – Part 1: Food and Edible Insects

Obviously, this blog is about music, but on my recent trip to New Orleans (July 6-9), I ate REAL good, so I’m going to write about that first.

Here’s a brief rundown:

Dinner first night: The Pelican Club. The place was practically empty, so we got first rate service and attention, which always makes the food taste better. I had steak, Mrs. S had fish. I picked out a nice Marlborough white that went with both. Excellent.



Lunch second day: Po-boys in the Riverwalk food court, shrimp for him, oyster for her. Cheap, fast, and good. I was able to eat everything despite having snacked on crickets (“chocolate chirp cookies”), wax worms (in cinnamon and brown sugar – see photo), and meal worms (in olive oil and hot pepper) at the Audubon Insectarium. (Highly recommend that destination. It’s fascinating.) All the edible insects were very tasty and even though Mrs. S almost threw up just watching me, I’ve seen enough of Andrew Zimmern that it really didn’t bother me. They allowed you to eat as much as you wanted, so I had three or four of everything. No reactions or anything, just good eating. I even bought a scorpion sucker to munch on at a later date.



Dinner second night: Stella. Got the full seven course meal with wine pairings to celebrate Mrs. S’s birthday. Place was packed but service was good and the meal was absolutely unsurpassed. We’ll never miss revisiting here whenever we come back.

Lunch third day: Muriel’s at Jackson Square. I thought it pretty average, but Mrs. S loved it. I had a middling, muddling crawfish etoufee, and Mrs. S had goat cheese crepes. She definitely out-ordered me.

Dinner third day: Arnaud’s. Average-to-below food, terrible service. Menu was funky and they wouldn’t sell you some stuff on it, at ANY price, if you didn’t order it the way they wanted to serve it. (Yeah, stupid.) They had a banjo trio playing jazz music, which was alright, but you really pay for the atmosphere. I would say unless you are dying to feel and be treated like a backwater tourist, this place is a definite pass.

I ordered Samuel Adams at EVERY single restaurant. Not one carried it. I drank Abita as a rule, which is better than your run of the mill Bud’s and Coor’s, but really not all that great. I’m writing a letter to Jim Koch (Chairman of Boston Brewery) to let him know about this wide open market with no penetration yet.

Critical listening project update

Well, in the face of a two week furlough from my regular job, things are looking up for my various jazz related projects, in more ways than one.

Regular readers of this blog will recall my critical listening project. Knowing that I am going to be off for two weeks, I've spent the better part of the last three weeks acquiring some new recordings, so I was only a little surprised when I revisited my CLP notebook and found I hadn't listened critically to a recording in over two weeks. I was happy that I chose to revisit the CLP with The Amazing Bud Powell Volume Two. It's a wonderful record that suffers a little from technological limitations, but not as many as Volume One, and not enough to detract from the enjoyment of the music. I also think the song selection is better on this recording. Bud seems to have more fun with the songs. Anyway, this was a good one to kick start the project again.

It will be important that I fire on all cylinders in the project during the first week of the furlough, because the second week of the furlough I'm going to be in New Orleans with Mrs. S., soaking up the live jazz scene. I might even do some remote blogging and if I win enough money at the poker tables when I'm not in the jazz clubs or out picking up some fresh gris-gris at the voodoo shop, I might stay even longer. Hell, my company doesn't care if I take time off (saves them money), so maybe I just need to oblige.

Folks, jazz is where it's at, and I'm there!