One perfect night in New Orleans
We rushed to get ready with Michael Jackson blaring on the stereo – PYT, pretty young thing – and we got all dolled up to go out on a date. T had bought us tickets to see Henry Butler at Snug Harbor, and she made us delicious Wodka Tonics. Not twenty minutes later, we were in T’s Toyota Matrix (which I highly recommend, $15K off the lot for a 2005 and it is a little dream zip-around town car). The summertime evening air was glorious – a nice sultry breeze keeping the heat at bay.
When we turned onto Frenchman Street, I had to stop for a blind man with a long staff crossing the street – it was yours truly, Henry Butler, making his way down to Snug.
We Kojaked and looked across at the Spotted Cat and noticed the name over the door now said Jimbeaux’s – which is unfortunate – but hey, we heard some great music spilling out of the door and people hanging around the doorway and so we slipped in to see the Panorama Jazz Band – free – okay, it’s not free – you should tip the musicians heavily in New Orleans, they deserve it – but it’s free. And they were cooking.
After one song, we walked across to Snug and went inside after consulting July’s calendar where we found that Tom McDermott plays free every Saturday and Sunday at 3PM – FREE – okay, ya with me? We went upstairs and another couple joined us as we listened to Butler get warmed up and then really bring it home ending his set with some new tunes from his PiaNOLA Live CD. Awesome. He does a cover of Dock of the Bay.
Then when we came downstairs, we bought the new CD and Butler was standing there with the other musicians and I went over to him to get him to autograph the liner and he was pretty charming. He had that cool, sort of nice way, and I said, “When are you going to leave Colorado and come home?” He said he was never there and just used it as a base. I said, “Then New Orleans could be your base.” And he said, the airport was better in Colorado. I said, “Well you got me there.”
Okay, but wait, there’s more, we met up with yet another couple who had just arrived for the summer and the six of us walked over to the bar in back of Cafe Brasil and had a beer and chatted. Then we left everyone and headed on our own, driving over to Port O Call where we walked in and were hungry for burgers but not grooving on the ambience, so we headed instead to Buffa’s and sat down with the television playing back to back Michael Jackson videos – Thriller to Beat It to Rock with You to Billie Jean – and we struck up a conversation with a nice man at the bar who was describing the horrors of his 14 year old nephew to the very cute bartender.
We chowed down on some big thick juicy burgers and drank a Corona, and grooved to the ambience and to Michael, and let me tell you, I have just described to you a perfect summer evening in New Orleans.