May 24--"Hear Dat New Orleans: A Guide to the Rich Musical Heritage Lively Current Scene"
Countryman Press, $18.95
To say that music is everywhere in New Orleans is to state the obvious, but it still bears repeating. Indeed, author Michael Murphy reports there are more than 100 live-music venues in the Crescent City. He also notes that you can hear live music at a jazz brunch, in hotel lobbies, on dinner cruises and even in bowling alleys. Of course, music is heard in the city's many clubs, bars, dance halls and juke joints.
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Murphy devotes chapters to jazz; blues; R and funk; Cajun, zydeco and swamp pop; street music; rock 'n' roll and punk; and hip-hop, rap and bounce. He offers brief portraits of musicians, both living and dead, such as Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton, Trombone Shorty and Kermit Ruffins, the Marsalis Clan and the Neville Brothers, Professor Longhair and the Meters, and Fats Domino. Murphy also profiles individual clubs. He calls legendary Preservation Hall, for example, "hallowed ground." He shines a spotlight on the clubs found along Frenchmen Street in the Marigny neighborhood, which he says has replaced Bourbon Street as the live music center of New Orleans. "It's our version of Beale Street in Memphis or 6th Street in Austin (only much, much better)," he writes.
In a touching grace note, the book is dedicated to the quintessential New Orleans musician, Allen Toussaint, who passed away late last year while on tour (Toussaint is interviewed in the book). It concludes with appendices of festival and free concert listings, where to buy stuff (from new and used vinyl records to stereo equipment), best-of lists (Top 20 New Orleans venues, Top 20 New Orleans historic musicians and Top 20 New Orleans musicians to see and hear tonight), as well as a list of 50 essential New Orleans songs. No. 1 on the list is Louis Armstrong's "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"
A loving musical tribute to a unique American city.
"50 Bars to Blow Your Mind"
Lonely Planet, $11.99
What makes a great bar? Authors Ben Handicott and Kayla Ryan contend that the best bars are "much more than the sum of their parts." A great bar combines great service, smart design and perfect cocktails that converge to create a "joyous drinking experience." A stunning view helps too. And so Handicott and Ryan have gone around the world to discover all kinds of bars -- cocktail bars, craft beer bars, historical bars, music and party bars, bars in paradise, quirky bars -- that, in their estimation, create a mind-blowing experience.
The Sky Bar in Bangkok is on the roof of the Lebua at State Tower and offers a 360-degree view of the city below. The Cave Bar in Petra, Jordan, occupies a 2,000-year-old rock tomb and is, according to the authors, the world's oldest bar. The sumptuous Opera Club in Warsaw, Poland, is in the basement of the national opera house. There are many ice bars around the world, but Handicott and Ryan recommend the original Ice Bar in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, where everything -- stools, tables, chairs, lamps and glasses -- is made of ice. But the weirdest and creepiest bar must be the H.R. Giger Museum Bar in Gruyeres, Switzerland. The authors say it's the brainchild of Swiss artist H.R. Giger, who as every sci-fi geek knows designed the alien in the popular "Alien" movies. This is the place to be if you want to savor a cocktail under "gigantic vertebrae" that stretch across the ceiling, "creating the impression of having been swallowed by a gigantic reptilian creature."
Also in the series are "50 Museums to Blow Your Mind" and "50 Beaches to Blow Your Mind."
June Sawyers is a freelance writer.
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