Saturday, November 15, 2008
Smooth grooving with a Big Easy touch
Concert review
Stephanie Klein-Davis
Allen Toussaint performs Friday night at Jefferson Center.
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Music blog
Allen Toussaint didn’t get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a performer but as a songwriter/producer/arranger who helped put New Orleans R&B music into the collective consciousness.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t know how to put on a show. He proved it to 550 people Friday night at the 938-capacity Jefferson Center. Toussaint, rolling out the Big Easy piano grooves, and his five-piece band took the crowd through decades of hits that had people turning to one another, whispering the names of songs that were familiar to them.
During one of the best of those songs, “Mr. Mardi Gras,” he brought out a colorful bag, walked into the crowd and began handing out Bourbon Street-style trinkets, including Mardi Gras beads. No flashing was apparent from audience members. He held ball masks near his face, then tossed or handed them out throughout the crowd, telling one woman, “This is you! This is you!” as he handed her a particularly colorful mask.
Toussaint, 70, told the crowd that he had spent most of his time living in recording studios “waiting for the red light to come on ” before “a booking agent named Katrina” forced him and so many other residents of New Orleans to leave the city. The storm destroyed his Sea-Saint studio. Now this giant of pop-music recording is a road warrior. And he clearly was at home with it.
“We love you, Allen,” a man yelled from the left-hand balcony . Toussaint thanked the man, saying, “I don’t take that for granted.”
His fingers are still nimble, rolling out the barrelhouse vibes he picked up from Professor Longhair and Jelly Roll Morton before him, and his knowledge of classical, Broadway and jazz music is deep — he could sprinkle it into any song he was playing, and he often did.
Toussaint’s voice was mostly smooth — but tough when he needed it to be — as he sang such songs as “ Get Out of My Life, Woman,” “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On) ” and a medley that included “ Certain Girl,” “Working In the Coal Mine” and “Fortune Teller.” He even played Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” singing it sweetly with only his piano for accompaniment, just because he loves that song.
Simon should feel honored.
