The Blind Boys of Alabama with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band

DC -- grandiose headquarters of our nation that it is -- often alienates me with its too-wide sidewalks and homogeneous, politically-themed, business-casual dinner crowd...

...But I think the Kennedy Center is one of the most beautiful venues in the world to enjoy live music.

And putting some down-home-and-dirty gospel dixieland jazz on that stage will drag me in from Baltimore on an over-priced Amtrak train just to see what happens.

Sunday, August 29th marked the DC leg of the "Down By The Riverside" tour, featuring The Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, from New Orleans, Louisiana.

It was a musical jaunt, to say the least. PHJB played the first set, then the Blind Boys, then a soul-lifting encore of, what else, "Down By the Riverside". The show started promptly at 7:00 pm, and was over by 9:30, as promised... another reason I appreciate the Kennedy Center--punctuality.

The Kennedy Center Playbill calls the music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band music "timeless", but I disagree. I think it transports us back to a New Orleans that was still more synonymous with Mardi Gras than Katrina. The tapes to their most recent album were partially lost in the storm, moving the group to name it "The Hurricane Sessions".

Joe Lastie, Jr. on drums, reminded me of an octopus. Frank Demond on T-bone has played for 40 years with the PHJB (I liked his red socks). Big man Walter Payton, on bass, sat back all casual-like until he came up to the mic to sing a song about shimmying... and shimmy he did.
Clint Maedgen on alto sax had the most delicious voice of the lot--he sang like a sax. And Ben Jaffee, director, on the sousaphone, the son of the original owners of Preservation Hall (one of whom was the original tuba player), who won my "best hair" award of the evening -- a giant, bouncy, white man's afro. He also had the best bounce.

"How many of y'all been to Mardi Gras in N'Awlins?" trumpeter/vocalist Joe Braud asked before their final number. A bunch of people clapped and "Woo"'ed. "Well for those of you who haven't, I'm gonna take you there right now." And so proceeded an "As the Saints Go Marching In" parade around the concert hall. Yep, they got the mostly-geriatric and rhythm-impaired audience up and dancin'.

The Blind Boys (whose Baltimore connection I'm sure we're all familiar with) give me goosebumps. I became a fan after their joint album with Ben Harper, "There Will Be a Light," which remains one of my favorite albums, and features one of my favorite songs.

Once five and now only three, they've been together since 1939, when they met at the age of 10 in a school for the blind. On Sunday they came out in those fantastic red suits (suits you'd wear to gospel church on Sunday in the deep South), sunglasses on and smiling, hands on each others' shoulders, being led onstage by their bodyguard and sighted band members. "We wanna make a joyful noise tonight!" said group leader Jimmy Carter.

"Down in New Orleans" is their new album, and it features the boys of Preservation Hall, hence the decision to tour with them.

Their first number was "People Get Ready," which won them their first grammy. And, well, damn. Them blind boys can harmonize.

The two groups--gutteral gospel and toe-tapping dixieland jazz--came together through their enthusiasm to spread joy and get people out of their seats. "We can't build your house back," said Blind Boy Carter, owner of perhaps the most adorable raspy old-man chuckle in the world, to the N'Awlins Jazz Band, "We can't use a hammer and a nail, 'cause we the Blind Boys of Alabama... but we can give you hope."