February 2019 – BLU NOTES

The darker blocks within the wood floor of happylucky no. 1, an art gallery and community arts space in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, spell out the name of the place in morse code, according to Liane Fredel.

Fredel, the former graphic designer who bought the space five years ago, renovated it to express, “an inviting concept, open but with an air of mystery,” she said, and she intends it to foster “more than just art, but rather a larger sense of culture.”

There is no sign outside announcing the place. There is, however a website, that offers this by way of description:

…a gray, fishscaly building…. The façade is marked by a door and a yellow neon dandelion. We are not exactly sure what happens, or what will happen, within the elongated rectangular box that is the interior of happylucky no. 1. Vaguely speaking, there will be events, exhibitions and experiments, the subjects/results of which might occasionally be edible, or medicinal.

There will be things on the walls and floors and floating through the air; sights, sounds and ideas requesting your assistance in their propagation. There will be triumphs and, as this is a human endeavor, the occasional disaster.

All of the above—the subtly encoded messages, the overarching mission and the blend of seriousness and humor—make happylucky no. 1 a fitting home for the latest iteration of The Stone— which began as a tiny but influential East Village performance space in an unmarked windowless former Chinese restaurant, founded by John Zorn in 2005 to present experimental music, and that has grown into a somewhat sprawling initiative.

Zorn, whose influence as a producer and presenter now equals his stature as a musician and composer, has curated “The Stone Series” at happylucky no. 1, beginning March 1—Friday and Saturday night performance that will run at least through 2020. Continue reading “John Zorn’s Stone Rolls Into Brooklyn’s Crown Heights”

photo by Eric Waters/courtesy of krewedelusion

On Saturday, Feb. 16, in New Orleans, when Lois Andrews Nelson rides as Queen in the tenth annual Carnival season parade of krewedelusion, she’ll wear a purple, green and gold satin baby doll dress, representing one time-honored local tradition she helped revive. On hand will be brass-band musicians and, as her honor guard, the Treme Sidewalk Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Club, drawn from a second-line parade community in which she is one of the few female grand marshals. She’ll be surrounded by the denizens of an indigenous culture she was both born into and begat.

Nelson, who is 66, is the daughter of singer/songwriter Jessie Hill, best known for his 1960 hit “Ooh Poo Pa Do”; granddaughter of guitarist Walter Nelson, who played with an early hero of New Orleans clarinet, Alphonse Picou; and niece of guitarists Walter “Papoose” Nelson Jr., who played with Fats Domino, and Lawrence “Prince La La” Nelson, best-known for the song, “You Put the Hurt on Me.” Among her children are musicians named Andrews who notably extend and expand local legacies—James, Buster and Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews.

A collection of new and old marching groups, krewedelusion gathers each year with a heady mission—“to save the Universe, beginning at its center: New Orleans”—according to its website. Nelson was born and raised, and raised her own children, in the Sixth Ward, which, culturally speaking, was long the center of the universe for New Orleans. Continue reading “In New Orleans, Lois Andrews Nelson Rules Over krewedelusion (and the Universe)”