30 DAYS OF FREE – NEW ORLEANS: Day Eighteen

Activity: Free Jazz (literally!)

Difficulty rating: Easier here that any other town.

By now you’ll know, from avid reading of my blog (hi mum!!), that Bourbon street isn’t always my favourite place to hang out. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I want to hear Don’t Stop Believin and Livin On A Prayer played by twelve different cover bands in two hours. Not always though. If Bourbon is the street of loud 80’s pop/rock, then Frenchmen is the street of intense jazz, and it was thence that I went in search of free music. I arrived at Joey Van Leeuwen’s free jazz album launch at the Dragon’s Den.

By “free jazz” I don’t mean unpaid, even though it was. I mean the musical style characterised by complete freedom from the conventions of key, rhythm, time signature or being pleasant to listen to. This is jazz that went past dance halls in the 1920’s, past the “we don’t want you to dance to this so we’ll do it in 7/4” music of the 1950’s and settled deep in the heads of inventive musicians. Basically, they take a song you know and love, replace all the harmonics with dozens of variants and passing chords and take turns making up a tune that only hints at the melody.

I won’t lie, free jazz can be difficult to sit through, but my American Husband is a player and lover of it so its in my life now. Better for me to try and understand it than stick my head under a pillow every time it comes on the iTunes. He hates when I say that free jazz is intellectual, but it really is. In order to appreciate what’s going on you must have heard the original song, plus every major cover and modified version, plus a whole lot of other songs in the genre because someone might start playing Giant Steps in the middle of Bye Bye Blackbird and then you need to applaud and say “very witty reference, old bean!” It’s like musical Inception. A song riffing off a song based on a song hinting at a song.

The music at the album launch was very lofty and cacaphonic, as expected, but the bar was packed and the audience was listening intently. One guy even shushed a loud-talking hipster halfway through an anti-Trump rant so he could hear better. Sometimes I listen to this music and feel like I’m watching the emperor strut naked, but everyone else gets it so I must be the minority. Still, Frenchmen is the place to go to continue my free free jazz education. I had a solid night of live music and heard Naima in 11/4.

 

Here’s a picture of the band.

“We will now play Camptown Races and see if anyone notices.”