NOLA Comes To Harlem.

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Author: Ouellette, Dan douellette@billboard.com

Jazz Notes

The Jazz Foundation of America may have started as a homespun organization to help elderly jazz and blues musicians pay their rent and medical expenses, but the New York-based group has blossomed into a major force in the musical community's response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation in New Orleans.

Case in point: After Fats Domino's prized piano was destroyed by the floods, the JFA supplied him with a new one. It also raised more than a quarter-million dollars to buy instruments to help get unemployed musicians back on their feet.

At JFA's fifth annual A Great Night in Harlem benefit concert May 4 at the Apollo Theater, New Orleans came to New York. The Newbirth Brass Band was flown in that morning from its appearance at Jazz Fest; the group opened the show with a slow funerary march through the aisles that erupted into a rousing celebration onstage.

Later, clarinetist Dr. Michael White and his trad jazz Liberty Band, also flown in from the Big Easy, played music from the city's jazz repertoire, including the legendary Buddy Bolden's "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It." Also, keyboardist Davell Crawford, dubbed the Prince of New Orleans, performed with trumpeter Kermit Ruffins.

JFA founder/executive director Wendy Oxenhorn welcomed the crowd by acknowledging the plight of displaced New Orleans musicians who have "given us an amazing gift in their music." She added, "Not too long ago, the JFA was helping 35 musicians a year. [Since Katrina], it's been 35 a week."

MCs included comedian Bill Cosby, actor Danny Glover and pianist Dr. Billy Taylor, who introduced such guests as folk icon Odetta, jazz guitarist James Blood Ulmer and pianist Harold Mabern's band featuring saxophonist Gary Bartz, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Ben Riley.

The highlight of the evening came at the end when spunky Chicago blues singer Johnnie Mae Dunson Smith, a JFA recipient who wrote songs for Muddy Waters and Elvis Presley, ripped into a short set from her wheelchair. Her band? Her son, guitarist Jimi Prime Time Smith, pianist Henry Butler, drummer Will Calhoun and on guitar, Elvis Costello, who earlier sang his song, "River in Reverse," from his upcoming album of the same name with Allen Toussaint, set for release June 6 on Verve Forecast.

The event raised $1 million, which Oxenhorn says will continue to help New Orleans musicians find housing, instruments and employment.

PHOTO (COLOR): JOHNNIE MAE DUNSON SMITH, JIMI PRIME TIME SMITH and ELVIS COSTELLO perform during the A Great Night in Harlem concert.

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By Dan Ouellette, douellette@billboard.com