Mardi Gras, 09

D gras di mar,

One of the unforeseen benefits of the D Note is that we get to experience every holiday to the max. For instance, here is what we have in mind for Mardi Gras this year:

Henry Butler is coming this Friday. Here's the scoop if you don't already know. Henry Butler was a New Orleans star before Katrina. A blind boogie woogie piano player who not only lived in New Orleans, but studied the culture and then rolled it all up into his own transcendent art. There is no better musician we know of to listen to during Mardi Gras, and the fact that Henry chose to spend it at the D Note (he called us), makes us the luckiest people outside of New Orleans that we know. By the way we were in S.F. last week and noticed that the week after Henry plays D Note he is playing Yoshi's in Oakland, one of the most prestigious jazz clubs in the world, so we're in good company. After Henry at 10:30 we'll have our friend Chris Aaron with his band, one of the best blues guitarists we know, with a beautiful gruff voice and plenty of voo doo. We always like to mention that Chris took guitar lessons from Elizabeth Cotton when he was a kid because that blows our minds. There is a high probability Henry will sit in with Chris for awhile, and we'll all listen to sparks fly while history gets made. 8pm $15.

Saturday at 4pm we have our next installment of the Music Train Family Concerts, carnival style with Aden Harrell and friends. Aden Harrell is a musician deeply immersed in New Orleans, super good and there is nobody better at entertaining the kid in all us. $7 adults/$3 kids.

Saturday night we have yet ANOTHER great musician from New Orlean's, the prince of the royal Carrier zydeco family, Dwight Carrier and the Ro' Dogs. Seriously! Opening for Dwight will be local Tom Waits like gypsy blues band Felonious Smith at 7:30pm. There will be a zydeco dance lesson at 9pm and then Dwight and his band will rip it up.

Then, next Tuesday, which is FAT TUESDAY, we have The D Note Mardi Gras players at 7:30pm, which features Moses from the Clamdaddys, Joseph Barton and Aden Harrell among others. FUN. FREE.

I do believe we are giving the New Orleans jazz fest a run for its money this year.

Tonight, Thursday Feb 19, we have Geeks Who Drink trivia. Check out the great D Note blog from Geeks Who Drink here for a little taste of what we have been experiencing. Ephesus plays after Geeks Who Drink tonight, a cool local band.

Bright beads for all of our friends,

; D ::::)

Extra Credit: Our friend Micah Ballard has a new book of poetry about his hometown of New Orleans called "Parish Krewes". The book can be read in many ways, and one is as a kind of reconciliation, full of a quiet solemn mystery, as words try to find their way, bravely, tenderly, through the devastation left by Katrina, finding the truth askance.

Liturgy

Far from hotel, city street & travel
we return not unharmed
but rather come back to scenes
already dreamed.
Given our final votive offering
she is it, Black Amber with Pole Star.
Inverted & hung upon the chest
let there be no regret
For without it dying does not forgive
nor relation rank pure to those
already gone. Without revenge
might they be carried across
& faces from the street turn back
to those passed in a crowded barroom.
Oh it all gets lost, "that's how
their reflection & retaliation becomes
not bound." Hidden from within,
may we serve to interpret the signs
& as a shore to our wanderings
become one with the vast silence
which moves manifold
to their design.