Music Notes From New Orleans

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New Orleans was my first solo trip. I had booked a room thru airbnb at a house located in the picturesque neighborhood of Bywater, which is about 2 miles from the French Quarter. When I arrived, Felina, my landlady, a 30 something year old woman with tattoos all over her body, welcomed me to her Gothic haunted house in a block where some of the houses still showed signs of devastation or of an economy that hadn't been very generous with it.

I was planning on getting in as much jazz as I could. My first stop that night was the Spotted Cat. The singer captivated me with her Billy Holliday voice. I couldn't believe I had found such a talent just in the first place I happened to stop. From there I went to the Apple Barrel, where a very good band called Hot and Spicy was playing. I strolled Frenchmen Street immersed in the magic of music, in the notes of the brass band playing on the street, which made everyone, including me, dance like if no one was watching. Back to the house by 1 am I felt happy that I decided to make this trip alone and I could do whatever I pleased. This was a true feeling of freedom.

Traveling alone I met a lot of people, among them Ariane and Bianca, two friends that had met in China and came to NOLA for a wedding. Ari was from Chicago and Bianca from Germany. We clicked immediately and decided to join a a cemetery tour. We walked the French Quarter checking out shops and bars already open and busy at noon! We met Daphne, our cemetery tour guide, a gapped tooth woman, dressed in black, wearing a black man's hat. Daphne was a very knowledgeable guide and her whole look was just the right fit to walk us through the valley of death. That night I went out with the girls, we dined at Suki, a Japanese tapas place that was also playing great live jazz.

As an intermittent Saturday rain washed away the excess of the previous night at the Big Easy, I was sightseeing the French Quarter under a winter blue light. Umbrella in hand I walked to the Mississippi River where I sat a restaurant and waited for the rain to come and go. Sitting by myself, looking at the river, the steamboats passing by, the rain striking the water, I was again romanced with NOLA's live music. I ate a trio of red beans and rice, gumbo, and jambalaya, some of the gastronomic staples of the region. When the rain stopped and the band finished, I took the streetcar to the Garden District, visited the Lafayette Cemetery on the way, and strolled thru the Garden District shops.

That night was particularly special, not just because Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse had the finest musicians I listened to in NOLA during my trip, but because they were playing my favorite ones Ella and Louis. The music was exquisite and the ambience couldn't be more appropriate to my magical date with myself. I enjoyed unobstructed views of the musicians and the undivided attention to the chords of old good jazz that being alone allowed me. After the jazz playhouse I danced the night away at a couple of bars in Bourbon street, met more people, laughed, and even forgot the reason that motivated me to check NOLA off my bucket list at this point.

I drove to Plantation country on Sunday. An hour from the city, right by the levee, the first plantation houses of the region are still standing. I went to Laura's Plantation, walked thru the rooms that so many people already dead had inhabited in the 1800s, and visited the little shacks where the slaves lived. After a nice scenic drive back I walked the neighborhood I was staying in, seduced by its character, its architecture, its bright colors, and spent a good chunk of that afternoon taking pictures. That night I went to Fritzell's, an English pub with a great brass band which made the perfect conclusion to my nightly music hunt in NOLA. By then I was in love with New Orleans, this old, colorful, and magical madame with a skin full of deep wrinkles that told a thousand stories.

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Comments

[Jen]

Love the colors and detail!

[Jen]

Love how this came out!

[Jen]

Beatiful
You look so pretty! Love your photos!