Cajun Style

After leaving austin with our stomachs full of slow smoked beef we stopped over for a night in houston to visit my mom's cousin John and his wife Rose. Thank you very much to them for showing us welcoming texas hospitality and serving a delicious breakfast!

Hopping on out of Texas and over to Louisiana, we stopped at a roadside shack serving cajun specialties such as Boudin (in fact it was called Boudin King) and gumbo. Boudin is a fantastic invention involving the stuffing of chopped meat and rice into a sausage casing filled with cajun spices. You got your grains and you got your protein all rolled into one. Full meal. Delicious.

Our destination in Louisiana was, of course, New Orleans. If any city has a distinct feel the minute you walk in, it must be this one. It could be the smells in the air from the lush vegetation. We're talking scents I've only ever before experienced in air fresheners. Our host for the weekend, Alex Buckner, a friend of Nick's cousin Jimmie hosted us in his fantastic house in the uptown neighbourhood. Beautiful area. The houses, though not the signature french quarter buildings, just scream new orleans. I don't know what it is. Just some intangible swampy kind of vibe.

We had one goal in the city: see some jazz. Luckily Alex is an expert on the local scene. He took us to a musician's hangout the first night, called the maple leaf, where we saw this incredible trio featuring Russell Batiste, a local legend, on drums. The trio had a new-jazz-spacey funk groove. Ivan Neville, another local-well-known was in the crowd and he joined the band on stage for part of the show. It was a lot of fun, there was a lot of dancing, and the bar had a lot of character and characters.

After a lunch of oyster po-boys, we spent the next day doing a bit of driving tour of the city and then walked down to the garden district in uptown, full of old gigantic southern style mansions. We went down to the french quarter to see a more traditional new orleans band play jazz standards at preservation hall. The band played three great sets and was headed by leroy jones on trumpet. (keep name-dropping and name-dropping, just wait for nick's next post!) We also took a walk along the (in)famous burbon street, which really isn't that appealing. I mean it has history and mardi gras and all but it's mostly just filled with drunken tourists. They make for good people watching but not really for hanging out.

Saturday we finally made our way down to the french quarter during the day. The buildings are really cool, unlike any I've seen before. Brightly couloured, old and purty but built for the Louisiana wetness and warmth. We happened to catch the same jazz band from the night before at an NPS site. This time they had a really amazing vocalist, whose name I unfortunately do not know so cannot drop. We also saw the best wedding procession ever. They had this jazz marching band and everybody was waving umbrellas and they were all just marching down the street. Would have been a great time to have a suit handy. 

After heading back to Alex's to rest we went back downtown to catch yet another jazz show. Another amazing spacey kind of jazz band as indicated by their name Astral Project. Fantastic. They were followed by an octet from the university of New Orleans playing mostly Thelonius Monk compositions. Also great. We went on to see a great reggae band next door and then a jazz quintet of teenagers out on the street. They were phenomenal. Future legends. Pity I didn't get their names. We punctuated the night with late night beignets at cafe du monde which was unapproachable during the day (too big a line) and a late night schlitz at alex's local dive. 

New Orleans is amazing. If you love jazz, partying, unique cities, characters or fun in general, the city is a must visit. Thanks to Alex for showing us an awesome time!

Don't keep it too real,

Chris