INTERVIEW: Joe Krown remembers Allen Toussaint ahead of Piano Night
Joe Krown, one of the preeminent piano players in New Orleans, has crafted a career of honoring many musical traditions and collaborating with stellar players who similarly cherish the sounds of the Crescent City. On any given night, Krown can be found around New Orleans gigging solo, with other musicians or with his trio at the Maple Leaf Bar. That last collaboration with Walter “Wolfman” Washington and Russell Batiste Jr. has become something of a legend in NOLA.
Monday, May 1, with Jazz Fest swinging through town, Krown can be found at the House of Blues in New Orleans producing and playing WWOZ’s annual Piano Night alongside the likes of Marcia Ball, Ellis Marsalis and John “Papa” Gros, among others.
Hollywood Soapbox has spoken with Krown before, and readers can check out that interview here. Recently, Krown opened up in another interview about Allen Toussaint, his music plans for 2017 and on his busy schedule in New Orleans. Here’s what he had to say:
On his plans for this year …
“Well, a lot of piano shows. I’ll be playing a bunch with my trio with Walter Washington and Russell Batiste and just continuing to do a bunch of stuff. Every week I have a lot of steadies that I do. Most of it is playing solo piano actually, but … I do a double every Friday early over at the Sonesta Hotel at the Jazz Playhouse from 4 to 7. And then I go up to do Le Bon Temps [Roule] on Magazine Street, which is an Uptown music club right on Magazine Street near Magazine and Napoleon, and I play there from 7:30 to 10. And that’s all playing the New Orleans piano style like Professor Longhair kind of stuff and Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, and then every Sunday, I will be continuing to play with Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington and Russell Batiste Jr. This March will be our 10-year anniversary of doing every Sunday.”
On his touring plans outside NOLA …
“We’ll probably do a little bit of touring, but I’m not really focusing so much on touring right now just because I’ve got a bunch of things happening around town that are tying me up a lot. But we’re looking forward to doing something either in July or August up in the Northeast. We’ve got some things in the works right now for that but nothing on the calendar as of yet for it — and just playing around town, playing with all different kinds of people. I have a little trio that I do, piano trio, that plays at some of the local bars like Dos Jefes, the Bombay Club, the River Shack. Oh, I reactivated another trio I was doing with Johnny Sansone and John Fohl. That was more of just a straight up kind of acoustic blues thing — piano, guitar and harmonica — and that’s been kind of nice. That’s about it. That’s plenty, huh.”
On choosing his set list …
“There’s different gigs that I do. What I call my day job is I play at one of the local restaurants. It’s a Brennan restaurant. That’s midweek, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays, and then I do a brunch. It’s a variety of stuff, and I look at who’s coming out. It’s a restaurant, so I look at who’s at the bar and who’s sitting at the tables around me. And I play the music accordingly. If I see a younger crowd or people who that are a little bit more into New Orleans, I just kind of feel it out. Sometimes I see an older crowd, I’ll play 30s, 40s standards kind of stuff, some stuff in the [Frank] Sinatra book. When I see a younger crowd, I’ll play more the Allen Toussaint songbook kind of thing. I can pull in some Longhair or some [James] Booker or something like that, so it’s kind of a variety of stuff. Now when I play over at the Jazz Playhouse or Le Bon Temps, that is strictly doing the New Orleans R&B piano. I might throw in a few New Orleans standards like ‘Sunny Side of the Street’ or ‘Basin Street Blues,’ but it’s mostly playing a lot of Booker tunes. Again I’m a big fan of Allen Toussaint’s music, so I play a lot of that and some Fats Domino. Some Huey ‘Piano’ Smith I do, just New Orleans R&B tunes, and I do it with that New Orleans mambo Afro-Cuban kind of Professor Longhair sound or straight-up boogie-woogie kind of stuff.”
On Toussaint’s legacy after his death in 2015 …
“So it was kind of a shocker to everybody. Nobody was expecting it. He was part of a generation of piano players that there aren’t too many guys like that around. Dr. John is pretty much … the last of that generation of 1950s, ‘60s R&B piano players like Eddie Bo. Well, Fats Domino is still around, but he doesn’t play at all anymore. Huey ‘Piano’ Smith is still around, but he hasn’t played in almost 20 years. I mean, Allen was out there. He passed while he was on the road in Spain, but, yeah, it was a shocker. No one expected it.
“It was kind of hard for me because I kind of got to know Allen in the last five years of his life. I mean, I obviously knew who he was, but he got to know me a little bit post-Katrina. And then we did a tour with Allen with my trio with Wolfman and Russell. We did this little group tour with Allen and another New Orleans musician, Nicholas Payton. We played with him for three weeks every night, and we were on a bus. And we hung, and we talked, got to know each other. I’ve done those kind of tours in the past, and, you know, after it’s done, you don’t really pursue anything. A lot of times you just go your way. You see each other, it’s like big hugs, how you been, good night, nice to see you. …
“I was incredibly nervous around [Toussaint] just because he was such an idol of mine, and he really stayed in touch. … He liked to come out and hear me. It was kind of on his way home, not too far from where he lived when he was coming from Downtown. He would drive by. I’d see him drive by in his Rolls looking because I play in the front window, and you can see him craning his neck to look to see if I was playing. And he would come and visit me all the time. Sometimes he’d play with me. I have actually video of him playing with me and pictures of it. We were friends. It was a little bit intimidating at first, but he definitely made me feel very comfortable. And we talked a lot about music, and he gave me a lot of encouragement and stuff.
“It was kind of a shocker for me when it had happened. It was what it was, and then his son, Reggie, who managed his career and everything, called me last year right around this time. And I saw the caller I.D. come up because we’re all friends and everything, and I was like, sitting eating dinner with my wife. And I said, ‘Hmm, this is going to be an interesting call. Let me take this.’ Because we have a rule that we don’t take calls when we’re eating. It was Reggie, and he invited me. They were doing some tribute shows, and he wanted me to be the piano player and fill in for Allen with his band. I was like, wow.
“We did about half a dozen shows altogether last year, and each one was special. They were really great. I really [learned] all the material super hard and tried to learn as much as what Allen played, which was kind of like taking lessons just sitting there picking out every note that he played on these songs and getting inside his playing. It was great. I got to play with Bonnie Raitt and Aaron Neville and Dr. John and Cyril [Neville] and Irma [Thomas] and all kinds of great people. It was a great experience. We played some stuff around Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest, and then we did some stuff up in New York. And we also did Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Each show was great for me. It was kind of spiritual the whole thing.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Joe Krown is currently gigging around New Orleans. Click here for more information.
