Mardi Gras And American Music

By Michael Verity

For some of us, it’s just another weekend. But for the inhabitants of New Orleans (and a few other notable places in the world, like Asakusa, Japan), it’s Mardi Gras, the traditional end of Carnival season, the last big party before the faithful take their Lenten vows of abstinence. Mardi Gras in America dates back to the 17th century, when it was just a single day celebration, a final Tuesday of feasting on rich foods before beginning Lenten fasts on Ash Wednesday (hence, the French name “Mardi Gras,” meaning “Fat Tuesday”). Wikipedia notes that “popular practices on Mardi Gras include wearing masks and costumes, music and dancing, overturning social conventions (and) debauchery.” As near as one can tell from the “not safe for work” photos that pop with a Google search, the latter is certainly still alive and in tune with our ambitiously extroverted times.

Music and dancing is still very much a part of Mardi Gras, too, and the word “creolization,” loosely defined as a “melding of many cultures,” is also alive and well. There’s all manner of music at Mardi Gras — from heavy metal to Native American — but at the core of it all is a sound that’s unique to the city itself. It doesn’t really have a name, does it — maybe the New Orleans Sound? — but when we hear that blend of West Indies rhythms, European harmonies and spiritual melodies, we intuitively know from whence it comes.

Perhaps what makes “roots” or “Americana” music so attractive is it’s also a creolization of many sounds and cultures. Whether we’re listening to a very modern band like The California Honeydrops — whose frontman, by the way, happens to be from Poland — or digging deep into the crates of 1940s country and western, all of our uniquely American music comes back to the crossroads where Europe, the Caribbean, the Deep South and the front porch all come together.

Listen to this interview field recordist Alan Lomax did with the jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton back in 1938. Beyond his stories about the so-called “Black Indians” of the Mardi Gras, who were a part of the social fabric of the celebration, listen closely at about 1 minute 55 seconds into the interview. The brief melody he sings and the rhythms he taps out can be found in virtually every authentic brand of American music from the turn of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. It summarizes what still excites us today about authentic American music, whether it be Louis Armstrong or Hank Williams — Steve Earle or JD McPherson.