Destivley Bonnero

I have seen this term listed as a form of Cajun/French. It's not. The phrase comes from Dr. John aka Mac Rebennack. Meaning "everything is fine", the phrase arose from the Doctor's own vocabulary created from New Orleans drug and musician underground patois. They would speak in this extemporized slang to confuse both the police and the squares. Like the Big Easy's music, the language is colorful, creative and to quote Mac mos'scocious.

I've listened to the music of New Orleans my entire life. As a child, I would sit with my father listening to Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt and Pete Fountain. I never knew it at the time, but they all came from the Crescent City making the roux that became my musical gumbo.

At 12, I was given a tenor banjo. Popular in the early part of the 20th century, this short necked,
four-string banjo was used in ragtime and traditional Dixieland music. In a few years, the guitar's siren call supplanted the tenor. But, the occasional foray into jug band music would resurrect my Vega Little Dixie.

In 1969, then Police Commissioner, Frank Rizzo, closed the original Electric Factory, Philly's rock venue. After that, Electric Factory Concerts were held at the Spectrum. One of the first was Dr. John, The Night Tripper. He was the opening act, but I cannot tell you who headlined the show. I had fallen under Mr. Rebennack's hoodoo spell and remain entranced to this day.

His psychedelic rock overtones with the underpinning of New Orleans jazz and R&B harkened back to the music I had listened to with my Dad so many years before. But it was more than the music, his feathered, buckskin costume, the Voodoo paraphernalia, the burning incense wove its spell. He had three Nubian beauties as back up singers. The show was a rockin' erotic, exotic explosion that blew away this naive 15-year-old.

Time marched on. At Siena College, I met my guitar mentor. I remember exactly the day I told him of my love of Dr. John's music. He said, "Do you know Professor Longhair?"  That simple question led to  Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd aka Professor Longhair aka Fess who led to Allen Toussaint, the Meters and a life-long love of New Orleans music.

The musical trough of the Big Easy never goes dry. From Sidney Bechet to Dave Bartholomew to Randy Newman to John Mooney and Bluesiana, to Eric Lindell... its music gently caresses the soul like tendrils of Spanish moss across the skin on a warm Louisiana evening. As ever - BB

"Hot can be cool, and cool can be hot, and each can be both. But hot or cool, man, jazz is jazz." - Louis Armstrong