Review Mon Apr 14 2008

From Lake Ponchatrain to Lake Michigan

It's like playing your stereo loudly with the door closed after a funeral. The sense of loss, but the need to keep going, if only to be thankful for still being here, but also a renewed vigor to leave something tangible behind when it is time to go.

That's the general mood of New Orleans-based artists since Hurricane Katrina, and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra brought a little flavor of what remains of Sin City South with them in their performance Friday night.

An almost capacity crowd were treated to a two hour show that took on a somber, yet celebratory tone as second line, for the hard and brash solos, and maybe a surprise or two, and the musicians delivered.

We were treated to a video introduction and were once again treated to a video accompaniment for what was the emotional culmination of the night, a work dedicated to the city and to Mayfield's father entitled "May His Soul Rest in Peace." To start, we were treated to a video montage of footage many have probably forgotten, of the utter destruction of an American city. Before the trumpet took the first note, though, the video's images changed to those more hopeful, but no less stark. For this, Mayfield got out the Elysian Trumpet, an outstanding example of trumpet workmanship built to honor those who perished.

The concert moved people, and made people move, and that was cathartic enough for an evening. "I know you wanna dance," Mayfield said near the end of the show. And dance in our seats we did, if only to to reassure ourselves that things would get better and that tragedy can't kill art, but has undoubtedly affected it. We all hear the stereo through that closed door, after all.

- Troy Hunter