THE NEW YORK TIMES
- JUNE 21, 2007 -

Serving Some Gumbo From Old New Orleans
By: BEN RATLIFF

John Brunious on trumpet and the band at the JVC Jazz Festival. (Photo:Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos)

Even before Hurricane Katrina the Preservation Hall Jazz Band had been reviving. Now, touring heavily, making new records and collaborations, and perhaps carrying a sharper mandate of cultural preservation — because the New Orleans we knew really is gone — the band has become worth another hearing.

The band was still playing old New Orleans repertory from the first half of the 20th century at its Town Hall concert on Tuesday night, the first big concert of the JVC Jazz Festival. It had drive, and funk, and, believe it or not, youth.

Before the band came on, a young quartet called the New Orleans Bingo Show warmed up the audience, setting up in the front rows and playing like a theatrical street band: whiteface makeup, vintage suits, a ukulele, kazoos, fake tap dancing. It was a good starting place, drawing a link between the old music to come and the mysterious-funhouse atmosphere that continues in New Orleans.

John Brunious is the Preservation Hall band’s leader, singer, trumpeter. He kept the band on the up-and-up, playing a kind of solemnized Armstrong style, an orderly presence in the contrapuntal scrimmage of horns at the end of “Bourbon Street Parade.”

But much of the action was in the rhythm section. The drummer Joe Lastie played like a dream, with a heavy bass-drum foot and a tiny cymbal; he could put funk in the slowest songs. (One of the things this band preserves is slow tempos: In “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” it found a crawl that you don’t really find in jazz anymore.) And one of the band’s post-Katrina changes is the addition of the bassist Walter Payton, a beloved player and teacher in New Orleans. He played calmly with a big tone, bumping the music along, while Ben Jaffe, the son of the group’s founder, Allan Jaffe, played tuba for most of the night, doubling the music’s low end.

Some guests fed the band’s machine, making it play harder. The violinist Jenny Scheinman — who plays in a much more flowing, finely wrought style than the abrupt staccato of old New Orleans phrasing — joined it for “St. James Infirmary,” with Mr. Brunious singing the lyrics and the Cab Calloway “hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho” refrain. Ms. Scheinman dug into her melody and variations, playing long notes and repeated phrases. And Steve Wilson played soprano saxophone with a strong, broad tone on “Shake That Thing.” A product of the competitive, studious New York jazz scene of the last few decades, he was practically supersonic compared with the earthy, chuckling sound of the band’s regular saxophonist, Darryl Adams. But the band loved both musicians and enveloped them in the songs.

Allen Toussaint, a New Orleanian now living in New York, lent his light, pretty voice to the show, playing a song in praise of the band. “Put pep in your step and pride in your slide,” he purred, playing piano hard and rhythmically, increasing the funk. And in two final numbers — “Last Chance to Dance” and “When the Saints Go Marching In” — the band paraded around the room with the audience, the Bingo Show guys mugging and miming, the friskier audience members joining the dance and opening their umbrellas, in second-lining style.