Allen Toussaint and Marcia Ball to play Bass Performance Hall on September 11

by PegNews wire

Allen Toussaint and Marcia Ball will play the Bass Performance Hall on Friday, September 11, at 8 p.m.

One of the most respected figures in New Orleans’ flourishing soul/rhythm and blues scene, Toussaint is one of the architects of contemporary R&B, soul and funk. Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, he helped shape those genres, producing, arranging, composing, and performing some of the most memorable R&B songs of the past four decades, including “Pain in My Heart,” “Fortune Teller” and the No. 1 hit, “Lady Marmalade.” Over the years, his songs have been covered by the Rolling Stones, The Who, Boz Scaggs, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. He also has collaborated with Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, The Band, Dr. John, and dozens of other artists.

The 2000s have found the New Orleans native on equally successful ground. This year, the 71-year-old pianist, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, released a critically acclaimed new album, The Bright Mississippi, his debut for Nonesuch Records. Produced by Joe Henry, the CD features Toussaint reinterpreting the works of jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Sidney Bechet and Thelonious Monk.

“I hadn’t tackled (these songs) on my own,” Toussaint says. “'Tackled' is a bad word. I hadn’t caressed them on my own. Even the gigs that I’ve done during my gigging days, I was playing whatever was on the radio at the time, boogie-ing and woogie-ing and the like. I hadn’t been through the standard bag. I always loved those songs, but I had never been in a setting where that is what I would do for a while – until now.”

The Bright Mississippi, Toussaint says, was recorded live, with very few overdubs or studio trickery. “It was wonderful. Everything is live,” he says. “This isn’t the kind of assembly line music where somebody puts the wheels on here and somebody puts the top on there. Everybody fed off each other.”

The project grew out of Toussaint’s contributions to Our New Orleans, a benefit album released by Nonesuch Records to aid Hurricane Katrina victims. Henry was involved with the album, and the two hit it off so well, Henry produced Toussaint’s 2006, post-Katrina collaboration with Elvis Costello, the Grammy-nominated album, The River in Reverse.

Toussaint was raised in a shotgun house in the Gert Town area of New Orleans. His mother welcomed and fed traveling musicians, and encouraged her son to practice and record with them. Following the release of his debut album in 1958, The Wild Sound of New Orleans, Toussaint spent the ‘60s writing and producing songs for New Orleans R&B artists such as Ernie K-Doe, Irma Thomas, Lee Dorsey, and Aaron Neville. Eventually, his songs caught wind with other artists, including The Yardbirds, who recorded Toussaint’s “A Certain Girl,” and the Rolling Stones, who covered “Pain in My Heart.”

In the ‘70s, Toussaint restarted his singing career with albums such as From a Whisper to a Scream; Life, Love and Faith; and Southern Nights, all of which were hailed by critics and, in hindsight, were wildly influential in the evolution of contemporary R&B. It was during this time that Toussaint collaborated with Paul McCartney and the Wings for their hit album, Venus and Mars. Two years later, country singer Glen Campbell took Toussaint’s song Southern Nights to the top of the country and pop charts.

Today, Toussaint still steadily records and tours; his relevancy has not dissipated. Of his new album, The Bright Mississippi, Milo Miles of NPR’s Fresh Air said, “Toussaint sounds as eternal as New Orleans,” and Pop Matters said the album, “may be the finest jazz recording of 2009.”

Tickets are $25-$35 and will go on sale this Saturday, August 1, at 10 a.m.

Source: Bass Performance Hall