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Wooo Hooo! Terri and I are on our way to an Association of Concert Bands convention in Plano, Texas on April 14th and we decided to take a week in New Orleans the week before. She made hotel reservations in the French Quarter a few months ago. She knew the rates were a little high but figured "what the heck"... it's a vacation. We didn't know until we stopped at the Mississippi welcome center this morning that this is the weekend of The French Quarter Festival... three full days of great food and music. We're within five blocks of every outdoor stage in the 'Quarter'.

It's gonna be a fun weekend!

Sounds groovy! hope you have a great trip!

For just a moment, I thought you were referring to something else. Oh well!

Great! Tell us all about it when you get back.

TubaRay wrote:For just a moment, I thought you were referring to something else. Oh well!

I thought the same thing. The post did NOT start off well.

Title: Got Lucky Again!
Opening Words: "Wooo Hooo! Terri and I are..."

Heh, me too. Seemed a little out of character, but....


MA

Perhaps Dan is withholding information, here.

Got Lucky Again!

......Bragger.

tubatom91 wrote:

Got Lucky Again!

......Bragger.

Well... aside from that... the music has been very good!

What I REALLY meant by 'getting lucky' is going on a road trip without making any firm plans and just falling in to events like The French Quarter Festival in New Orleans this weekend. The weather's been wonderful and the bands have been great. The 'headliner' groups that have been performing in Jackson Square (a la Dukes of Dixieland and others) have all been their usual good bands. But... the best entertainment seems to us to have been some European groups that performed on the International Stage at Dutch Alley. The Young Jazz Cats (Germany), Doc Houlind International Jazz Band (Denmark), and The Mary-Castle Jazz Band from Koln, Germany. It seems that the International groups have made as much (if not more) of a study of the traditional New Orleans jazz than us Americans.

I didn't get the name of one of the groups who that was performing at the south entrance of the Louisiana Museum on Jackson Square but I did get a chance to talk with the tubist. I was surprised to see him playing a rotary tuba instead of a sousaphone. Turns out the horn was a B & S 'F' with five rotors. He was from France and has been in New Orleans for just a few months. Good tuba 'chops'.

I have not followed New Orleans jazz bands very closely other that knowing which ones appear annually at the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, Kentucky each year. One of the groups I was most interested in seeing while in New Orleans is 'Olympia'. In talking to members of the group 'Treme'... I got the impression that Olympia has disbanded. I can't find any web pages for Olympia. Does anyone have any information about them?