Program of Events

Friday, April 18
8:00 p.m.
Sound Cafe, 2700 Chartres Street
Join us for a public event featuring live interviews by Nick Spitzer with several New Orleans tradesmen-musicians, including Don Vappie, Eddie Bo, Lionel Ferbos, Alonzo Bowen, and Earl Barthé. Admission is included in the conference registration fee.

Nick Spitzer, a folklorist at the University of New Orleans, is host and producer of American Public Media's radio program American Routes.

Don Vappie, a banjo player and guitarist, has single-handedly revived the role of the banjo in New Orleans traditional jazz and is featured in the noted PBS film American Creole.

Eddie Bo (Edwin Bocage) is an R&B and soul piano player who is also a finish carpenter from a multiple generation family of Algiers Point Creole craftsmen.

Lionel Ferbos is a trumpeter and singer who, at 96, is the oldest active musician in the City of New Orleans. Until age 75, he was a tinsmith.

Alonzo Bowen is a native of the Creole 7th ward. As a clarinet and sax player, he plays both traditional jazz and R&B, something he continues to do while repairing his flood-damaged home.

Earl Barthé, a legendary Creole plasterer, was awarded the NEA National Heritage fellowship in 2005. "Mr. B," a sixth-generation New Orleans building artisan, uses musical analogies of performance and improvisation in his work and employs musicians as apprentices and journeymen.

Saturday, April 19
All of the events listed below will be held on the campus of Xavier University of Louisiana, 1 Drexel Drive, New Orleans, except for the 8 p.m. event at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

Registration will open at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 19, in Room 105 of the Norman C. Francis Science Center. Sessions I, II, III, IV, and V will be held in the same room. The reception and faculty/student recital will be held in the music building. Registrants should park in Faculty Lot K which is located next to campus security and just across Short Street from the NCF Science Center.

Session I
8:15-8:45 a.m.

Jason Berry, (Tulane University and independent scholar, author, and journalist), "Spirit Tides From Congo Square."

This presentation is based on a chapter from Berry's current book project, which focuses on funeral traditions, using these as a lens through which to view the history of New Orleans. Beginning with a discussion of slave dances as recreations of African burial choreographies, the narrative will then touch on a series of related phenomena, ranging from Indian burial customs to the death of a maroon slave, concluding with a commemorative funeral for Carlos III, king of Spain, in 1789.

Session II
8:45-10:15 a.m.

Thomas Brothers (Duke University), presenter, "Musical New Orleans and the African Diaspora"

Lawrence N. Powell (Tulane University), moderator

Garnette Cadogan (independent researcher and scholar), respondent

Theodore Vincent (University of California, Berkeley), respondent

Session III
10:30 a.m.-noon

Samuel Kinser (Center for Research in Festive Culture, Northern Illinois University), "No Words without a Beat, No Flesh without the Spirit: Kinetics, Mixture, Identity"

Felipe Smith (Tulane University), moderator

Joyce M. Jackson (Louisiana State University), respondent

Matthew Sakakeeny (Tulane University), respondent

Session IV
2:00-3:30 p.m.

Nick Spitzer (University of New Orleans and host of American Routes), presenter

Bruce Raeburn (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University), moderator

Lawrence Gushee (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, emeritus), respondent

Eddie Meadows (San Diego State University), respondent

Session V
3:45-5:15 p.m.

George Lipsitz (University of California, Santa Barbara), "New Orleans in the World and the World in New Orleans"

Jason Berry (Tulane University and independent scholar, author, and journalist), moderator

Helen Regis (Louisiana State University), respondent

Jack Sullivan (Rider University), respondent

Conference Luncheon
Conference registrants will attend a luncheon featuring a keynote address by Michael G. White (Xavier University of Louisiana). The luncheon is included in the registration fee.

Reception and Performance
"A Celebration of New Orleans Classical and Jazz Traditions in Music," featuring the faculty and students of the Xavier University Department of Music.

Special Event
The History of the Creole Wild West, as Told by Themselves
Bruce Boyd Raeburn (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University), moderator
A panel discussion and oral history project presented by the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Council, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago
The event will feature a live performance from the Creole Wild West, the oldest of New Orleans' Mardi Gras Indian tribes, followed by a panel with tribe members to discuss their history, practices, and the current state of the culture.

Saturday, April 19th, 8 p.m.
The Louisiana Humanities Center at Turners' Hall
938 Lafayette Street
New Orleans

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
www.leh.org