Tag: Cajun

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Medicine Show returns for 16th event; DeWitt, set to retire from Tommy Comeaux Chair, takes a look back at program

by DOMINICK CROSS

LAFAYETTE, LA — When Tommy Comeaux died tragically in November 1997, the music community rallied around the fallen musician and pathologist and sought a way to honor his life.

While it resulted in the Dr. Tommy Comeaux Endowed Chair in Traditional Music at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, funds were needed to make it so.

And, as tradition has it here, the effort to raise funds was centered around music, which was done with annual Medicine Shows. It was the right thing to do for many reasons, but especially because Comeaux, a renowned multi-instrumentalist, had played with BeauSoleil, Basin Brothers, Coteau, the Clickin’ Chickens and others.

Come Friday, April 22, 2022, 7 p.m., the 16th in a series of these evenings is set for Angelle Hall, St. Mary Boulevard and McKinley Street, on the UL campus.

Opening the show will student bands, the Angelle Aces (Cajun), Ragin’ Steppers (zydeco), Saint Street Songsters (string band), Ragin’ & Blues Band (R&B), and Vermilion Express (bluegrass).

Instructors, including Chad Huval, Blake Miller, Megan Constantin, Chas Justus, Gina Forsyth, and Lee Allen Zeno, with special guest Jimmy Breaux on drums, will also be on hand.

General admission to Medicine Show 2022 is $10.00 (free with UL I.D.); and $25.00, which includes admission to a post-show reception honoring the performers, as well as Mark DeWitt, Professor of Music, who was chosen for the inaugural position a dozen years ago and who is retiring this year. Advance tickets available here.

“I did the best I could to move slowly, at first, to get the lay of the land and to see where the demand was and where the low hanging fruit were in terms of what students wanted and what resources we had in the community which turns out we had a lot,” said DeWitt, who relocated from California to Louisiana for the position.

“We were going to do more than Cajun and Creole music all along. Although I feel strongly that that needs to be the core of the program.”

Mark DeWitt, Professor of Music,
Dr. Tommy Comeaux Endowed Chair in Traditional Music

The community resources were abundant and skilled and anxious to get to work and they all figured out the course together.

“The amount of musicians in the community who are so good at what they do and also interested in working in a university environment even if they had never done so before,” he said. “Some of them who hadn’t even gone to college themselves. It was cool.

“We kind of learned as we went. We learned things like teaching fiddle and accordion at one of those summer camps, which is like a one-week camp — as opposed to doing it for 15 weeks — it’s a whole different thing.

“There’s just more time to teach things. You can do it in a different order and do it in a different way,” he said. “So we learned some of that stuff together.”

The first course was Cajun music, something DeWitt was familiar with.

“So I started with Cajun music because that was my interest when I came here, and it also seemed like an obvious thing to start with,” said DeWitt. “And then we also found out there’s also student interest in other types of music too.”

“So we we added bluegrass and that was real popular for a while,” he said. “One of the things I also learned was that the students like something that’s new. So they go for the new thing and then it’s not so new anymore and then you have to do a little more persuading.

After Cajun music came bluegrass “and then we added zydeco band and then some blues and it just kind of grew over time. And now it’s all I can keep up with, it’s about as much a one person can do,” said DeWitt. “So I feel like it’s a good time to hand it over to the next person, whoever that turns out to be. I’ll do my best to share with them tips or secrets or things to remember.”

“We were going to do more than Cajun and Creole music all along,” he said. “Although I feel strongly that that needs to be the core of the program.”

While it was a new program at UL, DeWitt knew it was no secret how the area’s traditional music had kept going all these years and he responded accordingly.

“I knew pretty well we weren’t going to lead with music theory,” he said. “People learn music by ear, right? They learn by hanging out with other people and jam sessions are a relatively recent thing in Cajun music, but it’s still a way for folks to get some reps and get the music in their ear which is really important.

“I knew that going in that music theory was something to teach second, not first,” he said, adding, “or second or third.”

“We have a few traditional music majors, but it hasn’t been as popular a major as I would’ve liked. But then there’s always hope for the future on that,” said DeWitt. “Nonetheless, we’ve had a few and I had taught them a music theory class that was kind of tailored toward traditional music as part of their major.

“And they also got to learn how to read music a little bit in the same classes that the music business majors take, keyboard musicianship classes and so they get exposed to it, but it’s not like a prerequisite coming in. It’s not like they’re getting a sight reading test and they’re auditioning.”

DeWitt returns to California in June and he’s grateful for the opportunity the Comeaux Chair afforded him and all that came with living in South Louisiana.

“I certainly got to meet a lot of great musicians and work with them. Some of those were students, too,” DeWitt said. “But, certainly, the faculty we had and just the chance to actually live here in the middle of all this great music and kind of experience how it all fits together.”

DeWitt, an ethnomusicologist, paused, then continued.

“I’m not sure I can put it into words, even, how the cultural environment that nurtures the whole musical scene here is really interesting to be a part of and try to understand,” he said. “I’m still not sure I could really explain it, but I’m a lot closer than if I never lived here.”

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OPINION Festivals Acadiens et Creoles: Take this break we’re given and revel in it

By DOMINICK CROSS

After two years, Festivals Acadiens et Creoles returns to the familiar surrounds of Girard Park for a weekend celebration of Cajun and Creole cultures in music, food and arts and crafts.

Yee-the-hell-haw!

And yet, the pandemic that dropped in on the world in March 2020 and which appears to be ebbing in the U.S., is, sad to say, on the rise in Europe and China.

And if all goes the way it has the past two years, the U.S. will probably again get the COVID en masse.

So the never-ending roller coaster ride continues.

This is way past exhausting. It’s been way too long and it’s way past on my last nerve which may be found in the crumpled mask I last wore in public nine days ago. It’s on the floorboard, passenger side.

Goodness gracious, I’m so tired of the pandemic. I’m tired and saddened by the unnecessary sickness and death of friends and countless strangers.

I’m especially over the obtuse chunk of citizenry who’ve been misled about the virus (and the election and the insurrection) by cynical politicians and their ilk whose platform of misinformation is peddled by certain media outlets.

You may know of these people. The ones who couldn’t be bothered with the simple task of wearing a mask, or getting the vax for not only themselves, but also their fellow Americans. Medical exemptions duly noted.

And now these same people are riding around the country in a convoy protesting any and everything designed to help put this pandemic to bed.

If I may, WTF?!

And there’s also the fresh pain of the War on Ukraine and where it may lead. I’m not a masochist, so I’ll not go there.

I’m so sick of it all. I’m worn down and nearly out.

I, we, all of us need a break from the insanity and inanity of the past two years before all meaning is lost and tossed, not unlike a book pulled from our public library shelves by the self-righteous.

So just in time, a hero emerges in the form of this upcoming festival weekend and it’s right here and it’s right now and it’s knocking on our door.

With tears of joy, I swear I can hear Monte Hall exclaim as only he could: “Festivals Acadiens et Creoles! C’mon down!”

Ah, yes. A reprieve. A respite. A revival, even. A weekend where we’re all sure to see, converse, hug and dance with friends we haven’t seen in two years.

We can still be cautious without being paranoid; Festivals Acadiens et Creoles is held outdoors. And our hearts can still go out to Ukrainians without being on our sleeves.

Take this break we’re given and revel in it.

Monday and the woes of the world will be here soon enough.

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At long last, Festivals Acadiens et Creoles returns live and in-person under the great oaks of Girard Park

The late Courtney Granger will be honored Saturday, March 19, 2022, 1 p.m. on Scène Ma Louisiane.
DCross photo

By DOMINICK CROSS

LAFAYETTE — In this much needed pause between calamities — a waning pandemic and the possibility of WWIII — make the best of the opportunity to indulge in Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, this weekend (March 18-20, 2022) in Girard Park.

The springtime version of the festival that’s usually held in the fall marks the 48th running of the music, food, arts and crafts extravaganza celebrating the Cajun and Creole cultures. One doesn’t have to go back in history to recall that COVID-19 put a halt to life as we knew it this time of year in 2020, and the virus kept most of us off-balance through 2022.

Virtual festivals became the rule of thumb everywhere and got us by, like decaf coffee, until the real deal that’s about to go down in two days and upcoming months. So, bring on the caffeine, the great outdoors, dancing shoes and an appetite for food, fun and frolic in all of the usual ways. Almost.

“We’re celebrating finally getting back together again, live in the park,” said Barry Ancelet, president of the board of Festivals Acadiens et Creoles. “We want people to please be responsible. Let’s not get carried away, careless at this point to undo the good things that are happening.

“Hopefully, as many people as possible will be vaccinated and just be responsible in how we gather. If anybody feels sick or symptomatic of anything, really, not just COVID, but anything, you know, they’ll stay home.

“Let’s just be safe. Let’s be smart,” he said. “If you’re coughing or running a fever, stay home.”

Festivals Acadiens et Creoles will again return to its normal time in October — yep, we’re getting a two-for-one this year — sans hurricane, pandemic or another world war.

Ancelet said that the original event that became this festival was held in the spring in Blackham Coliseum. But there are no plans to return to this time of year on a regular basis.

“We’re going to have the festival in October,” Ancelet said. “This spring festival is to make up for the one we didn’t have last October. In October, we’re still dealing with hurricane season, but I think it’s become our home, become our time.”

While bad weather may be an issue, it should take place when we’re all tucked away for the night. As of Wednesday, there’s “the chance for some severe weather as the front moves through, which is expected to be in the early morning hours of Friday,” according to KATC Weather, noting that the weekend outlook is good.

Music to your ears

The festivals’ line-up includes the usual Grammy-noms and Grammy winners, standard bearers of years past, envelope pushers of the present, and new bands with familiar names.

There is a tribute to the late Courtney Granger, Saturday, March 19, 2022, 1 p.m., on Scène Ma Louisiane. Granger, who left us way too soon at 39 in September 2021 , played Cajun fiddle and Cajun sang with The Pine Leaf Boys and Balfa Toujours. He sat in with everybody and would make the hair on your neck stand up knocking off a country crooner classic. Granger released Beneath Still Waters in 2016 and if you order it now, you should have it in your collection by next week.

Over the weekend, there’s the golden opportunity to listen and dance to Sheryl Cormier & Cajun Sound, Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Wayne Singleton & Same Ol’ 2 Step, Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars, Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie, Bonsoir, Catin, Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble, Balfa Toujours, Joe Hall and the Louisiana Cane Cutters, Feufollet, Savoy Family Band, Cedrick Watson & Bijou Creole, Riley Family Band, The Potluck Band, Jesse Lege, Lil’ Nathan & the Zydeco Big Timers, Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rodailleurs, Wayne Toups & ZydeCajun.

MUSIC SCHEDULE HERE

Chris Ardoin and NuStep Zydeco, opening night, Friday, March 18. DCross photo

The Bayou Food Festival will give you a taste of the Cajun and Creole cultures, and the Louisiana Crafts Fair artists and craftspeople will have their wares to marvel over and purchase.

Looking ahead

Ancelet said the board will meet in early April to plan the fall festival, in which the week of will coincide with an ethnomusicology conference in Lafayette.

“We’ve got some interesting plans for the next one,” he said. “None of this is in stone, but what we’re discussing right now is celebrating Louisiana as an international Francophone crossroads, examining the connections Louisiana has to the rest of the French speaking world.

“Part of that is going along with the likelihood that we’re going to have a major, international Francophone Ethnomusicology Conference in Lafayette the week of the festival in October,” Ancelet said, adding, “all of this is in the planning stages, but this is what we’re shooting for.”

Look for scholars and performers from the Francophone areas “that we’re examining to see the connections,” said Ancelet. “Not only to ponder them, but hear them.”

Joshua Clegg Caffery, director of the Center for Louisiana Studies at University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and Ancelet have been is discussion with Roger Mason, musician/ethnomusicologist who worked with Claudie Marcel-Dubois, the French ethnomusicologist about the conference.

A similar ethnomusicology conference was held over Zoom last year.

Who knew?

As it happened, Mason had a major impact on Ancelet’s life during his collegiate years, and, as it so happens, anyone who has ever enjoyed Festival Acadiens et Creoles.

Mason came to Louisiana in the early 1970s “and met with and learned from and recorded with the Balfa Brothers, Nathan Abshire, the Ardoins — a lot of the founding members of that generation — so he’s very well connected and a long-time, not only fan of, but very knowledgable of Cajun music and zydeco.”

While in Nice, France, when Ancelet was on his academic year abroad in 1972-73, Mason was playing “Crowley Two-Step” in a coffee shop, “And it changed my life,” said Ancelet.

Ancelet introduced himself and said he was from Louisiana and that the song eased his homesickness.

“And he said, ‘You must know all of the people I learned from, Dewey Balfa, Nathan Abshire…,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know any of those people, but I need to know who they are.’”

Roddie Romero & the Hub City All Stars, Saturday, 3:45 pm, Scène Ma Louisiane. DCross photo

Mason told Ancelet that when he gets back home, go to Basile, get directions to Dewey Balfa’s house and introduce himself. So, in the summer of 1973, he knocked on Balfa’s door.

“I said, ‘Are you Dewey Balfa?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ I said, ‘I’m Barry Ancelet and I’m from here and I was in France and I met Roger Mason,” recalled Ancelet, who said in his nervousness, his response got faster and faster before Balfa urged him to slow down and invited him inside.

“I went in and that’s how I got involved in all of this,” Ancelet said. “And it was in part due to Roger Mason.”

And nearly 50 years later, here we all are.

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Castille takes look at centuries old affliction in new documentary, The Quiet Cajuns

by Dominick Cross

LAFAYETTE — Conni Castille’s insightful documentaries are all about the culture where she was born and lives.
For years now, Castille, Senior Instructor Moving Image Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has trained her insider eye on what most people may take for granted about the Cajun and Creole cultures in South Louisiana and put it out for all to watch, enjoy and, yes, get a better understanding of these peoples.
From the ordinary task of ironing, there’s I Always Do My Collars First (2007), to tasty local staples and what it takes to put them on the table with Raised on Rice and Gravy (2009) and King Crawfish (2010); to a deep dive on the South Louisiana envie for its other favorite four-legged friends in T-Galop: A Louisiana Horse Story (2012).
And now with The Quiet Cajuns: One Heritage. Two Generations. One Disease, comes the story of two generations of Acadian Usher Syndrome, which has sprinkled many family trees with deafblind aunts, uncles and cousins.

The Quiet Cajuns, Saturday, March 12, 2022, 5 p.m., Acadiana Center for the Arts, 101 West Vermilion, Downtown Lafayette, LA Free and Open to the Public


The subject of the documentary, Acadian Usher Syndrome (AUS), may seem a departure from previous documentaries of daily life, food and horses/horse racing in South Louisiana, but not so for Castille.
“I don’t find it a departure at all. The DeafBlind Cajuns are merely a sub-culture of the Cajuns, a group I’ve always documented,” said Castille, who had not heard of AUS until then ULL biology professor, Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, brought it to her attention. “I learned there was a subculture of Cajuns who have never heard a fiddle waltz and who lose their vision because of a genetic quirk that came here with the Acadians.
“It made me think there may be others like me who didn’t know that the largest population of DeafBlind Americans lives right here in Acadiana,” she said.
Griffard, who has the Usher Syndrome gene variant in her family, launched OurBio, a curriculum/oral history project that explores how the biology of our region shapes the story of its people.
“I initially contacted Conni because of her film, King Crawfish, a wonderful example of how I envisioned an OurBio project could work, teaching biology through local examples,” said Griffard. “Like our bayous and prairies, the genetics of Usher Syndrome presented an opportunity to tell a good story about ourselves.”
Castille hopes the documentary can help the afflicted by making more people aware of AUS and what’s available to them.  
“First, I think the film may help in identifying more DeafBlind in our community, making them more aware of the services available to them, as well as offering an opportunity to connect to the larger DeafBlind community,” Castille said. “Second, the general Cajun population can learn about the disease through the film. Understanding more about one’s genetic history can always be beneficial.
“Third, we will hand out greeting etiquette guiding anyone who may see or meet a Deaf or DeafBlind person,” she said. “This can encourage contact, making the seeing population more willing to visit with the Deaf or DeafBlind.”
 The usual suspects came together to make the documentary on a shoestring budget.
“With little to no funding, I was fortunate to have the creative team I’ve worked with in my previous documentaries agree to help me with this passion project,” said Castille, with a nod to cinematographers Allison Bohl Dehart and Brian C. Miller Richard and others.
“The cinematography is beautiful. Students in our UL Moving Image Arts film program helped produce the film by working as second camera units and in some post-production,” she said. “I had the pleasure of meeting and working with local editor, Trevor Navarre, for the first time. His total creative immersion in the project, and his attention to detail, added deep emotion to the script.”

The film is closed-captioned. Following the screening there will be Q&A session. Platform interpretation in American Sign Language will be provided.

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Festivals Acadiens et Creoles looking for a date

Dominick Cross

LAFAYETTE — If Festivals Acadiens et Creoles 2021 is to be held this year, it probably won’t be when it usually is.

The cultural celebration was scheduled for October 8-10 in Girard Park.

“October increasingly seems to be problematic,” said Barry Ancelet, board president of Festivals Acadiens et Creoles. “So we’re still exploring if there are any other options or what’s what.”

For that, thank a virus near you. And that would be the Delta variant of COVID-19.

“We are concerned and we’re looking at options to try to figure out what we can do,” Ancelet said, noting that the Scott Boudin Festival, set for late September, is cancelled. “Everybody who’s putting on any kind of live performance realizes the problem, the danger of doing something like that in this moment, in this surge.

“We’re all trying to figure out what the hell to do,” he said. “We have a tentative plan, but we’re still trying to figure out how the ducks line up.”

Ancelet added, “things are being examined and confirmed right now.”

The festival board met a week earlier than usual because of the virus issue.

On the festival’s website, visitors are greeted with ‘JOIN US IN-PERSON OCTOBER 8 THRU OCTOBER 10’ under a photo of Cedric Watson performing at the festival.

Ancelet said the website hasn’t been changed “in quite a while.”

The fourth wave of the coronavirus made up of the Delta variant has yet to crest and filling local hospitals with a vast majority of non-vaccinated people.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival cancelled its anticipated October 8-17 run earlier this week. The 2022 Jazz Fest plans to return to its spring dates, April 29-May 8.

More to come.

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Off the Record

LBR earn Grammy

If Herman says it, it’s so.

Herman Fuselier reports that the Lost Bayou Ramblers are bringing home the Grammy for “Kalenda” in the Best Regional Roots Album category.

 

 

 

PUBLISHED Jan. 11

Sincere condolences to zydeco musician, C.J. Chenier, who announced the death of his mother, Mildred Bell, Tuesday, January 9. Services are Tuesday, January 16, at Hannah Funeral Home, 3727 Lewis Dr. Port Arthur, Texas. Services start at 11 a.m.

C.J. Chenier
“Thanks to all of you for the love that you have shown myself and my family. God Bless,” C.J. wrote on Facebook.

She came, she saw, she embraced. And now, Andrea Rubinstein, has left Lafayette for Princeton, N.J.

Andrea, a retired museum curator, artist and musician (not retired) spent 15 years in South Louisiana taking in, appreciating and living the Cajun and Creole cultures many take for granted.

Andrea Rubinstein

That said, there’ll be an estate sale Thursday, January 19 & 20; but go to website below for address Jan. 18 (Clarification). Included are: 19th century maps, LP records, 1960’s 45 records, a 1960 Rolling Stone Scrap book, 19th century Victorian wicker sofa, LG washer and gas dryer, small kitchen appliances, including an Air Fryer, hand knotted rugs, lawn equipment, 3 store display racks, custom made furniture lamps, Hand made moulas… you get the idea.
More info: https://www.EstateSales.NET/LA/Lafayette/70503/1761918

As it’s done in these parts, a benefit for Josh Baca, accordionist for Los Texmaniacs, is set for Thursday, January 18, 7 p.m., Atmosphere Bistro, 902 Johnston St.

Baca lost his home to a fire on New Year’s Day. His family made it out of the house in time, but that was about it. On tap will will be the Savoy Family Band & Friends, some Revelers, T’Monde, Sabra & the Get Rights.

Sabra & (some of) the Get Rights

Los Texmaniacs connected with local band, Revelers – among others – a few years back.

“We’re (Revelers) sort of a mash-up of American, Cajun, zydeco, and southwest Louisiana,” said Reveler Chas Justus, a couple of years ago. “And they’re sort of a mash-up of Texas music; San Antonio, Doug Sahm sort of rock and roll meets Chicano and Freddie Fender and stuff like that.

Chas Justus
“So I’ve always thought of that as sort of cousins,” Justus said.

All door money goes to the Baca family. There’ll be a silent auction to raise additional funds. If you’d like to contribute from afar, follow this link: https://www.gofundme.com/kphbf-fire

The South Louisiana Kings of Classic Country showcase, “O Country, Where Art Thou?” is coming to Cowboys, Saturday, January 27.

Courtney Granger
Ken Holloway, Jeff Dugan, Sabra Guzman, Courtney Granger and Dustin Sonnier, all backed by The Wanted, are scheduled to perform.
Advanced tickets are available 337.789.1538.
$15 Général Admission
$25 Vip Seats
$35 Front Row (limited)
$100 VIP Tables (seats 4)

Cowboys, 207 N Ambassador Caffery Pkwy, Scott, is now NON-SMOKING. Clean air for all. Doors open 7 p.m. Show starts 9 p.m.

The Cowsills are recording at Dockside Studio in Maurice.

Cafe Des Amis is gone. Long live Cafe Des Amis. In its place at 140 E. Bridge St., in Breaux Bridge will be Cafe Sydnie Mae, expected to open in a few weeks. With award-winning chef, Bonnie Breaux, at the helm good things are expected in the new restaurant. Read about it here:
http://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/entertainment_life/article_0f8603e4-dfaf-11e7-803e-1f1d119ed04c.html

A Grammy nom – and more – for Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers. Check it out: http://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/entertainment_life/article_520a556c-e36a-11e7-9eee-673db55df586.html