Powerhouse!
We went to Snug Harbor last night to see Bryan Lynch and he and the other musicians (Donald Harrison) were fabulous!! We kept calling him a Cuban trumpeter but he’s from Illinois, but he plays a lot of Latin jazz. The tempo was so upbeat that I got up and danced (rare in a jazz club).
While we were listening, I was reminded of Eudora Welty’s short story, Powerhouse, where Welty was so inspired by a jazz musician, she came home and wrote this story. It is truly one of the greatest accounts of “listening” – “hearing” – music that I have ever come across in my reading. And that is how good Bryan Lynch was last night along with the musicians who played with him – Donald Harrison joined him on stage and was fabulous as well.
Both Lynch and Harrison were magical. When we left Snug, we walked down Frenchman Street to hear an Afro-Cuban band, and on the corner playing in the street was an 8-man brass band that T and I had seen practicing in City Park a few mornings ago. Young boys with big sound.
Oh, New Orleans – you are the fabric that draws these Powerhouses together – and how lucky are we to live here?