Newspaper Article

NEW ORLEANS, AND ALL THAT JAZZ

Berry, Jason, JASON BERRY is the author of "Amazing Grace: With Charles Evers in Mississippi" (Saturday Review Press) and co-author of "Up From the Cradle of Jazz" (University of Georgia Press).

1987

Overview

Most disk jockeys for the station are volunteers; they are a substantial slice of local life. Bobby Mitchell, who scored a 1950's recording hit with ''Try Rock and Roll,'' conducts a popular afternoon oldies show, exhorting the audience to ''Liven up, baby, settle back, pop you a cold one, listen to what Bobby's got!'' There are frequent jazz programs, and there are Cajun music programs on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. An African-Caribbean program on Saturday nights by Gene Scaramuzza is a must tape for those who find prices of imported records of this kind of music too much for their budgets. The most colorful disk jockeys spin blues and rhythm-and-blues - particularly Duke-a-Padukah and his wife, B.B., on Friday nights; on Monday nights it's Gentilly Junior and Railroad Bill, with hard-driving blues, and on Tuesday nights it's ''Records From the Crypt'' with Billy Dell, who issues this ritual intonement: ''Open the windows, turn that radio up - let the people hear this music!'' Chief Jolley and in 1976 recorded ''The Wild Tchoupitoulas,'' a record that has become a cult classic. The Neville band was formed the following year. Big Chief Jolley and Cyril Neville recast street chants to Caribbean-accented instrumentation, coated with Mr. [George Landry]'s warm, resonant vocals. Big Chief Jolley died in 1980. Songs from the record, like ''Brother [John Coltrane]'' and ''Meet de Boys on de Battlefront'' were incorporated into the Neville repertory.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: BERRY, JASON / FESTIVALS / Landry, George / MUSIC / Neville, Cyril / Steffens, Lincoln / TRAVEL AND VACATIONS