Visits to the area by essential New Orleans singer/songwriter/pianist/producer/ Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack have become such regular events that they hardly qualify as news. On his last three trips, including February 12 at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, he’s brought the same reliably excellent band — guitarist John Fohl, bassist David Barard, and drummer Herman Ernest — and played variations on a reliably superb mix of New Orleans anthems, piquant originals, Tin Pan Alley standards, and dashes of Ellington.
At the Regent show, his first visit to the area since Hurricane Katrina, the news wasn’t that he had a few things to say about the disaster but rather how much. On stage, he’s a man of few words aside from singing, announcing song titles, and introducing the band. But in the middle of the bayou stomp “Runner in the Jungle,” he brought the band down to a quiet vamp, admitted he was angry, then qualified: “No, I’m pissed off!” He rambled on, breaking from his patented nasal drawl to do voices — politicians, TV talking heads. Imitating a journalist asking, “Do you think Tipitina’s and the House of Blues will come back?”, he answered, “Those are buildings — what about the people!” He veered into his signature invented New Orleans patois to wonder why no one in the Bush Administration has been charged with treason for his role in the Valerie Plame/CIA affair; he expressed disgust at Cheney’s shotgun mishap and added, “And that was the high point of my day!”
This last suggested that the funny, angry rant, though obviously planned, was nonetheless a work in progress. And it seemed to give the band a lift. Middling-tempo organ recitals of the Ellington band’s “Caravan” and “Perdido” gave way to a nasty piano “Junco Partner” that became “junkie partner” in the verse, a redemptive “Sing Sing Sing,” and a section of his “Hurricane Suite” that packed much more punch live than it does on his current fundraiser CD, Sippiana Hurricane (Blue Note). The good news is that Dr. John himself is still a work in progress.
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Topics:
Live Reviews
, Valerie Plame, David Barard, John Fohl
