Dynargh dhe'n Blogofrob

Wednesday 27th April 2011

Inevitably New Orleans satisfied the live music needs that weren't quite met in that Austin bar. We stayed in the Faubourg Marigny area, and having spotted Frenchman's Street during one of those protracted drives necessitated by American cities' extensive one-way systems, we visited it that night. "No Cover" said the sign above the door of the Spotted Cat, while swing music assaulted us through the windows. So we went in, and listened to the Smokin' Time Jazz Club, an ensemble of around ten musicians crammed into the corner, singing, blowing, sawing, thumping away, to great effect. Subequently, we heard a lot of music in New Orleans, but I enjoyed this the most. When the hat came around for tips, George and I both produced enough that combined would have got us one of the band's CDs, so we did that instead.

Over in the French Quarter there are even more musicians, and kids bumble along the street carrying trumpets and French Horns. I don't think you'd see that anywhere else. There are also a number of young tramps pretending to be musicians, making dreadful sounds at street corners with banjos or guitars. At least, I think they're tramps. It is possible that my transition to grumpy old man is complete, and this is how the musical youth of today choose to dress. And smell.

Talking of smell, flowers spill between the buildings and over balconies. Consequently, over the traffic and air conditioning and cigarettes, you catch their scent in the air, especially around the Marigny area, particularly the heavily treed Esplanade Avenue that forms the border with the French Quarter. This is a pleasant antedote to the stink of Bourbon Street, which is a garish bastardisation of drink, sex and voodoo. At night it is smelly and seedy, and not in a good way. Of course this meant that, after dark, we trawled the whole length of it, watching dozens of trumpeters parp up a storm at one end before sampling several bars, plastic cup of beer in hand as we watched band after band. One bar had karaoke - an utterly cliched nerd took to the stage, pudding bowl hair, thick thick specs, too small green t-shirt, dreadful skin, to the announcement that he was a karaoke virgin. His look was so like that of a sterotyped Hollywood loser, that I expected it to be revealed that we were unwitting extras in a movie, and he would sing with the voice of an angel. Alas, no. His tone-deaf drone not only murdered the song, it also dismembered it and made a lamp shade out of the skin.

We didn't spend much time in New Orleans, but in the small area we visited, you see the same individuals wandering around all the time. Aforementioned tramps, for example, or the extremely aged British gentleman, stooping, dragging three unhealthy looking dogs behind him, and complaining every time I saw him about the number of people around, in a melancholy estuary drawl. I suppose he's an incredibly famous old jazz musician of whom I'm meant to be in awe.

Outside New Orleans, we took a Louisiana swamp tour, cruising up and down the bayous and channels that I excitedly hoped were the same ones on which Roger Moore had caused such havoc in Live and Let Die. I was too shy to ask Nolan, our boat's captain, the question. So George did it for me. No, they weren't - but the location was nearby. George actually spent much of the swamp tour a bit glum because it looked increasingly likely that we weren't going to see any alligators. As we floated through under the willows and cypresses, garlanded with Spanish moss, hearing Cap'n Nolan's stories of smuggling moonshine from and ridiculing another tourist on the boat who exclaimed that she had seen a monkey (it was a squirrel) we all peered desperately into the undergrowth, only slightly placated with some snakes. Finally the alligators came, a couple of them swimming up to the boat, and leaping from the water to take the marshmallows and frankfurters on sticks proffered by Nolan (in fact, the swamps are blighted by floasting marshmallows). George brightened up, only for a bit of a dampener to be put on proceedings when we saw 'gator roadkill on the way back to New Orleans.

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156 - posted at 22:57:22
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Comments

Before I get labelled miss sulky, it was more because Nolan, bless his cotton socks kept talking about such thinks as Brad Pitt having been on "this very boat!" while other boats whizzed by, probably off to see huge gators! I have to admit he turned out to be a lovely guy though, and we were in particularly good seats for when the gators jumped for the marsallows!

1: Gg - 14:50:42 on Thursday 28th April 2011 (permalink)

Great photo there Robert. Particularly like the double bass player...

Enjoying reading about your adventures, but are you guys just on holiday forever now?

2: Matt - 04:23:26 on Friday 29th April 2011 (permalink)
www.mattarmstrong.co.uk

Actually, for a moment I thought it was a bass karaoke, and the player was Rob.

3: Christopher (UK) - 07:29:12 on Friday 29th April 2011 (permalink)

.....and that he'd got himself caught in the strings

4: Christopher (UK) - 05:29:25 on Thursday 5th May 2011 (permalink)

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