This plus, of course, the passing of Leah Chase this week had some of us thinking in kind of a fin-de-siecle mode.His 2008 album, “City That Care Forgot,” offered his gritty meditations on Hurricane Katrina and the official response to the disaster that wreaked havoc on his hometown.“None of my work has been as aggravated or disgusted as this record. I had never felt the way I do now, seeing New Orleans and the state of Louisiana disappearing,” he told Smithsonian magazine in the 2009 interview. “We've given the world jazz, our kind of blues, a lot of great food, a lot of great things. It's so confusing to look at things these days.”
Ella Brennan,
Fats Domino, Paul Prudhomme, Leah Chase, Dr. John—a generation that
presented New Orleans to the world, and invented it in the process—all
gone in the space of a few years.
— Brett Martin
(@brettmartin) June
6, 2019
Chase's obits alone practically tell you the whole story of 20th Century New Orleans. For the better and for the worse, the elements of that century are rapidly receding now along with its icons. I know that sounds stupid. But this is the mood this week. Probably we can throw into that reckoning the ominous situation on the river and beginning of Hurricane Season as well. For Mr. Clio here it called to mind the loss of Buddy D in January of 2005. I thought also of Tootie Montana who passed in June of that year. Pivotal year, that one. But, again, maybe this is stupid. Not every passing is a portent. Or maybe, actually, that's exactly what they all are.
Anyway this week has been one hell of a year. Maybe let's take a day or two off.
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