Home » Jazz Articles » Live Review » 9th Annual Satchmo Summerfest Heats Up New Orleans
9th Annual Satchmo Summerfest Heats Up New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
July 30-August 2, 2009
Sauntering down Frenchmen Street in New Orleans late on the night of July 31, I thought: I am indisputably in the right place, at the right time, mingling with more happy people per square foot than could be found anywhere else in the world.
The occasion was the annual Satchmo Summerfest Club Strut, one of the greatest parties in this great party town. If you think midsummer in the Deep South isn't your cup of iced tea, the thousands reveling in the music from several directions, along with the food and drink and camaraderie, might change your mind.
The ninth annual 
Louis Armstrong
trumpet and vocals1901 - 1971
The Club Strut offered music in 19 different venues along raffish Frenchmen Street, which juts off from a corner of the French Quarter. For the price of a wrist band ($25, or $75 for a VIP pass that included free food and drink) locals and tourists got royally entertained from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. or beyond. (I conked out at 1:30). Thousands of others just celebrated in the street for free, serenaded by the marching Treme Brass Band and by smaller groups playing on three balconies overlooking the street.
Some choice moments:
Trumpeter-singer 
Shamarr Allen
trumpet
Bluesman Chris Thomas King
guitar
Drummer 
Herlin Riley
drums
b.1957
Tony Dagradi's New Orleans Saxophone Quartet wove intricate harmonies on bop and jazz classics, notably Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood."
Trombonist 
Delfeayo Marsalis
trombone
b.1965
Count Basie
piano
1904 - 1984
Youngest brother 
Jason Marsalis
vibraphone
b.1977
The music continued Saturday and Sunday at the Satchmo Fest's outdoor stages at the Old Mint Museum. Armstrong's music was everywhere—I heard "Sleepy Time Down South" and "It's a Wonderful World" done every which way, and his fun-loving spirit was contagious.
Seguenon Kone, on an extended visit to the Crescent City from his Ivory Coast homeland, has assembled an eight-piece African and New Orleanian band that emphasizes the forceful rhythms driving music from both places. He plays a giant timbale-like contraption, fitted up with hanging gourds and other percussion aids, that he wears around his neck while dancing and spinning around the stage. His compositions have a trance-inducing quality.
Singer Leah Chase recalled an Armstrong rarity: Louis once joined with vocalist 
Leon Thomas
vocals
1937 - 1999
Pharoah Sanders
saxophone, tenor
1940 - 2022
Trumpeters were in the spotlight all day Sunday:
Lionel Ferbos, at 98 the oldest working musician in the city, still has chops and his voice, too, and was featured in Lars Edegran's Ragtime Orchestra.
James Andrews' Crescent City All-Stars focused on the rhythm and blues music that New Orleans sent out to the world in the 1950s, brassy versions of classics by legends such as Earl King, 
Allen Toussaint
piano and vocals
1938 - 2015
Professor Longhair
piano
1918 - 1980
Kermit Ruffins
vocals
b.1964
There was more club-hopping. I checked out trumpeter-bandleader-civic leader Irvin Mayfield's swanky new club at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, where elegant singer Johnaye Kendricks mixed standards with some adventurous originals.
On another memorable night, 
John Boutte
vocals
b.1958
Just up the street, Herlin Riley led a quintet in a late set with trumpeter Marlon Jordan and the ubiquitous 
Wessell Anderson
saxophone
b.1964
Before the closing "St. Louis Blues," Riley paid tribute to Armstrong. "All of us who play jazz, or any kind of American music, are standing on Louis' shoulders," he said. Amen.
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