I love New Orleans and it follows that I would love New Orleans jazz. In the last couple of months especially, I’ve really gotten into the music that comes out of NOLA. One of my favorite jazz musicians is Kermit Ruffins. I recently became a fan of his on Facebook. It must have been serendipity because he was playing this week in NYC and I was able to get tickets!
The show was at the Highline Ballroom in the Meatpacking District. Unfortunately, it was a weeknight (sigh, work) and we had to leave early – early being a misnomer because we left at 11pm to slog back to NJ and the show had just hit intermission! It was an amazing performance nonetheless! I took along my G11, not wanting to lug around the big DSLR. All the images were shot at ISO 3200 and were super noisy but I tried to fix them up as much as possible with Lightroom‘s Noise Reduction feature.
They serve dinner there which, while expensive, was actually tasty (vegan sliders FTW!)
We arrived early just in case. Thankfully it didn’t get super packed at any point.
The show opened with Henry Butler, an amazing blue pianist. He performed for almost an hour and a half!
Feel It
In between sets. Here I must mention that I was in love with the lighting at the venue. I could probably sit and just take photos of an empty stage with all the various lighting they employ.
Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers take the stage!
(On another note, I really hated that stupid mic in front of the stage, which was there for no reason as no one used it, except to mess up my photos. Alas.)
Jerry Anderson on drums
Emile Vinette on piano (our favorite of the three!)
Kevin Morris on bass
Soul
Mykia Jovan, a jazz/blues/soul singer, also performed at the show and I just loved her voice!
Trumpet Your Heart Out
I heard the rest of the performance was amazing and I’m still sad that we missed it. This means we’ll definitely have to head back to NOLA soon and catch him there!