Street Sweet Symphony
Hey! You got the funny hair!

Sweet Street Symphony??? And who the heck are the Sweet Street Symphony? So let me tell you what happened that night when I found myself smoking a cigar while strolling through the streets of New Orleans...

The tip was to push on to Frenchmen Street. Not that the old and glorious Bourbon Street is entirely devoid of charm, but it's on the street of the French that today the wildly vibrant and festive heart of the cradle of jazz beats strong, the Big Easy, the undisputed queen of Mardi Gras, her majesty New Orleans! What grand star will perform at the legendary Sun Harbor tonight and who are those white kids swinging away at the popular The Spotted Cat? We go in to take a look and there’s an old black man with a wide-brimmed hat that seems straight out of an episode of "Starsky & Hutch" who gets on stage and improvises vocals with the band...we smile amusedly at the character’s bizarre attire and are immediately called to order by a local patron who frighteningly resembles Michael Moore, who promptly tells us "Hey man, no jokes here, he is mr..." (in the noise, I don't catch the name) "and he's a big master...a BIG MASTER!". I nod to indicate I understood, make a toast, and meanwhile, a cheerful company of couples dressed as in the '30s comes in, ready to dance with leopard-like steps. We leave the venue, and at a street corner, a group of colored musicians armed only with bongos and winds pops up, saturating the air with an afro-funk groove that doesn’t blow the roof off only because they’re playing outdoors. The locals, along with the tourists, sway on the sidewalks, holding tightly onto cocktails of improbable appearance or simply a bottle of beer. It’s New Orleans exactly as you imagine it and perhaps more than you’ve always imagined it ("...and I feel fine!").

At a certain point, THEY come onto the scene. And they too position themselves at a street corner and seem the most wretched, the most unlikely, a band of amateurs stumbling around. A shirtless double bass player resembling the old magician Galbusera, two shy-eyed kids on the winds, and for a frontman, a kind of dark-haired Asterix with a banjo slung across, dressed like an old floozy from some ‘60s western movie (I’ll only find out much later that he’s Mr. Shameus Pan Greymountain, leader and author of all the group's pieces). Encircling them is a girl with an elf-like look and a drummer who seems there just by chance...At first, we see them setting up the instruments and don't pay them the least attention...damn, amidst such a bounty of delights, who cares about these guys?

"And I saw the river soar," wrote Stefano Benni in his famous poem dedicated to the great John Belushi. Well, amidst such a bounty of delights, we instead saw this ragged band (gang) of punk-jazz musicians turn Frenchmen Street upside down and place it at their feet. After twenty minutes of show, the crowd gathered in front of the Street Sweet Symphony was blocking traffic on the street, people were halting there and starting to dance, just as we were caught by their drive, spirit, and nature, perfect expression of the most boisterous and primordial soul of jazz!!!

I head over to their Bandcamp page to see if besides the sea of videos that splendidly immortalizes them on YouTube still alive and kicking (though often with poor audio), there also exists a trace, an album, something of theirs recorded in a proper studio. I find it, "Hey! You got the funny hair!" (2012) available for free streaming and download at the modest price of 10 dollars.

Now...I don't know if the record truly captures what this extraordinary ensemble manages to recreate live...I can't be impartial...I listened to these songs while they opened up the sky on an August night in New Orleans and what can I say? Even as they are recorded up there, they drive me crazy. So the invitation is to click HERE, to listen to these nobodies (to us), who are, in truth, one of the truest appearances of contemporary jazz. And no, it’s not just my idea. It simply happened, one August night, on Frenchmen Street, in New Orleans. Enjoy!