Carl
LeBlanc - New Orleans' 7th Ward Griot
In
the West African tradition, the griot is a magic man:
a combination of shaman and historian, through storytelling,
he is the guardian of a people’s heritage, their
values and their culture. On the genre-bending album
7TH WARD GRIOT, Preservation Hall Jazz Band banjoist Carl
LeBlanc reveals himself to be a true griot
for American music – on this musically minimalist
mix of jazz, funk, blues, and storytelling, LeBlanc
takes the listener on a journey where history, poetry
and music simmer together in a soulful gumbo that could
only come from New Orleans.
The multi-instrumentalist LeBlanc
(on the stripped-down 7TH WARD GRIOT he
plays banjo, guitar, keyboards and percussion) is an
accomplished jazz educator as well as a musician. His
historically conscious, and deeply personal, spoken-word
interludes on the recording infuse the songs with deeper
meaning. A memory-poem recounting his childhood in
New Orleans’ 7th Ward makes his acoustic reading
of Jackie Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops” pulse
with beauty; the aching love in the song is entwined
with the loving wonder the child had upon hearing the
song for the first time. Plucking his banjo, LeBlanc
tells the story of Narvin Kimball, the banjo’s
original owner and the PHJB’s first banjo player.
He conflates that tale with a story about the jazz
visionary Sun Ra, whose band LeBlanc played in for
a time – then, he rips into a fierce cover of
Elton John’s “Madman Across The Water.” And
with his deft hand and wry wit, all makes sense.
The songs on 7TH WARD GRIOT vary widely
between styles – from soft and sweet traditional
picking to Mardi Gras Indian rhythms to Hendrix-fried
electric soul - showcasing LeBlanc’s easy versatility
as a player. More than that, though, it is his gift
as a storyteller that makes the music resonate; 7TH
WARD GRIOT is hard, audible evidence that all music
is a living vessel, to hold our history, our spirituality
and our joy.
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