At a moment when musical streams are crossing with unprecedented frequency, it’s crucial to remember that throughout its history New Orleans has been the point at which sounds and cultures from around the world converge, mingle and resurface, transformed by the Crescent City’s inimitable spirit and joie de vivre.
Nowhere is that idea more vividly embodied than in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which has held the torch of New Orleans music aloft for more than 60 years, all the while carrying it enthusiastically forward as a reminder that the history they were founded to preserve is a vibrantly living history. see the band live at Harris Center for the Arts on March 11.
Preservation Hall Jazz Band marches that tradition forward once again on “So It Is.” The album redefines what New Orleans music means today by tapping into a sonic continuum that stretches back to the city’s Afro-Cuban roots, through its common ancestry with the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti and the Fire Music of Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane, and forward to cutting-edge artists with whom the PHJB has shared festival stages from Coachella to Newport, including legends like Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello and the Grateful Dead plus modern giants like Beck, The Foo Fighters, My Morning Jacket and the Black Keys.
The show begins at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 11, at Harris Center for the Arts on the Folsom Lake College campus, 10 College Parkway in Folsom. For tickets and more information call (916) 608-6888or visit HarrisCenter.net.
