Photo: Allen Toussaint rolled out the blues at Saturday's jazz fest. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
Blues pianist Allen Toussaint was a long way from his native New Orleans Saturday night, as an autumn chill rattled everyone in the Lee parking lot off Georgia Avenue. But the 71-year-old managed to bring his own heat.
Toussaint wrapped a long evening of music at the Silver Spring jazz festival with some of his biggest hits, including the slinky “Mother-in-Law” and the huffing and puffing of “Working in the Coal Mine”. He penned both songs, which were recorded by Ernie K-Doe and Lee Dorsey (and later Devo), respectively.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer gets major props for overseeing the transition of ragtime jazz and Delta blues into contemporary R&B, according to the hall’s website. His contribution to the 2005 benefit album “Our New Orleans” inspired him to drop his latest album, “The Bright Mississippi” (2009), a throwback to his ragtime roots.
While Toussaint and his five-piece band threw out a couple of ragtime instrumentals during their 90-minute set, the blues and pre-Parliament funk composed most of their playlist.
Late in the set, they dropped the R&B classic “Lady Marmalade” (aka the song to end all songs), which Toussaint produced for the trio LaBelle back in the day. His tenor saxman filled in for Patti LaBelle’s fierce vocals, but the sparse crowd barely got out the joint’s famous French refrain.
Photo: Where the hell was everybody? Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
Attendance for Toussaint’s performance was thin (a guesstimated 1,500 people max), compared with jazz fests of years past. (There were at least twice as many people at the 2007 festival to see trumpeter Arturo Sandoval on the Fenton Street turf.) It’s unclear whether the cool weather, tailgate venue or all the other shit going on that day kept the crowd thin.
Toussaint was preceded on stage by Anacostia’s Madison Sweet Heaven Kings, a 22-member brass ensemble that tore shit up with a rousing rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In”. Band members were no strangers to Silver Spring — they were the opening night act at the 2007 SilverDocs film festival, Susan Hoffmann, the hood’s marketing manager, said.
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I came in at the beginning of Touissant’s set, and didn’t hang around for the whole thing, but he certainly was impressive, as was his backing band. Almost every piece seemed to be an opportunity for one person to break out into a sweet solo. There was one slower, mellower piece that I caught but don’t know the name of (was probably two songs after ‘Working in the Coal Mine’) that was really rather haunting and beautiful and unlike the rest of the set (or at least the rest of what I heard of the set…)
I just want to know who was responsible for misspelling Touissaint’s name on the video they showed between acts. :-)
(It was spelled Trussaint.)
His name is actually spelled Toussaint. – The haunting song is “City of New Orleans.” – The attendance during this last portion of the Festival was disappointing (and all VIPs had left): an insult to Allen Toussaint. – As far as culture is concerned in Silver Spring, the term “boobs” comes to mind.
Although there were alot of events going on this past weekend in Silver Spring, all these events highlighted one of the big negatives of Silver Spring-it caters to a more senior type of crowd. People in their 50s and 60s. One of the reasons that the crowd may have been sparse for the jazz fest is because it hast lost its allure. All summer we had either blues music or jazz on ellsworth. There was nothing special about the jazz fest. Having Aretha Franklin perform in Silver Spring 20 years ago would have been special. Now she attracts an older crowd and does little in her performance to energize a crowd. Nothing proves my point more regarding the aged population of SS than seeing all the SS blogs getting excited about the Fenton street flea market. A flea market? I’m sorry but I just can’t get excited about a flea market. Maybe if I were in my 60s I might get excited about it. I hope that the Fillmore deal goes through without a hitch. SS really needs the Fillmore to energize the downtown area.