Online New Orleans-Israel Festival: Funking down from New Orleans

As we have all have had our fair share of challenges to contend with in recent times, it stands to reason to arrange a music festival that may help us to offload some of the emotional detritus.

AUGUST 20, 2020 10:59

VOCALIST-BASSIST George Porter Jr. brings some seasoned vibes over from New Orleans (photo credit: Courtesy) — VOCALIST-BASSIST George Porter Jr. brings some seasoned vibes over from New Orleans

(photo credit: Courtesy)

Those of us of Polish extract – some claim the same can be said of people with Moroccan or Iraqi roots – have a genetic handle on the blues. That refers to the emotional state rather than the musical discipline, although being in the requisite downer state of mind does tend to lead one to the eponymous form of sonic expression.

As we have all have had our fair share of challenges to contend with in recent times, it stands to reason to arrange a music festival that may help us to offload some of the emotional detritus.

Yamit Hagar certainly feels that way, as she oversees the second Online New Orleans-Israel Festival, taking in 20 shows with an impressive spread of top blues acts from Israel and the USA. The program kicked off on Wednesday and will run through to Saturday evening.

The big guns from the music’s homeland include irrepressible 31-year-old vocalist multi-instrumentalist Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, who is well known to the Jacob’s Ladder Festival faithful, with 72-year-old vocalist-bassist George Porter Jr. bringing some seasoned vibes over from New Orleans, one of several Delta locations that can lay claim to the unofficial title of “the birthplace of the blues.” The Stateside contingent also features Trumpet Mafia, also from New Orleans, while Grammy Award nominee vocalist and accordionist-violinist Cedric Watson will offer more than a whiff of the Deep South.

The local roster includes a wide range of stylistic and textural approaches with voluminous brass outfits such as Jerusalem-based troupes Marsh Dondurma and Las Piratas Piratas, and bassist Ziv Grinberg’s sextet, while veteran Israeli bluesman Yaron Ben-Ami will offer us the benefit of his accrued musical and cultural wisdom with a lecture in Hebrew and English.

ANYONE WHO has examined the evolution of the blues, and its multifarious branches, will know that numerous areas of mainstream musical endeavor, including rock, jazz, soul and funk, feed off the same sturdy sonic trunk.

The last named genre will be front and center when Porter does his solo spot for our listening and, no doubt, grooving pleasure. Best known, over the years, as bassist and singer with popular funk outfit The Meters, Porter has mixed it with a galaxy of stellar artists across a wide swath of styles and generations. Consider the likes of Robbie Robertson – of The Band fame – Tori Amos, Harry Connick Jr. and Paul McCartney and you get some idea of Porter’s mindset and his all-embracing artistic outlook.

His eclectic take was informed by the music he heard at home. His dad was into jazz giants such as Duke Ellington and Sonny Stitt, while his mother sang in a church choir.

His initial instrumental steps were fueled more by preventive action than pure artistic intent.

“There were a lot of juvenile behavior problems where I came from, and it was actually my mother’s choir director who suggested we – myself and my younger brother – take up a musical instrument, you know, to keep us out of trouble,” Porter explains.

Things didn’t exactly take off from the word go, with Porter less than enamored with the violin he was given, and his dad was even less enthused by the grating sounds his offspring delighted in producing. That was that until Porter received a guitar from his maternal grandmother for his eighth birthday. The youngster soon started taking guitar lessons, although that was largely oriented toward classical as well as country and western music.

Porter’s young ears were opened to new, roots, musical possibilities when, one day, he took a different route to his guitar teacher’s home. “I passed this house and heard music coming from it, and I looked over and there was this young guy and his grandparents sitting on the steps playing, using classical fingering, but the music they were playing was the blues.” Porter was instantly taken and has never looked back since.

While he eschews neat labels for musical genres and styles, Porter is recognized as one of the founding fathers of funk, particularly through his work with The Meters, which he founded, in 1965, along with drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, guitarist Leo Nocentelli and keyboardist Art Neville.

Over the years he has dipped into jazz, with stellar guitarist John Scofield, and says he would love to get into some fusion, but Online New Orleans-Israel Festival Zoom session participants can expect to get a multi-stratified musical offering from Porter, along with some insight into what makes him tick.

All proceeds from the festival go to the artists.

For tickets and more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/727215994766769/