I’ve been fortunate to have seen the great Allen Toussaint perform live a couple of times – once in a solo show in Washington that was a benefit for the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and once in the late ’80s at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
The other day I heard him playing an astounding solo piano piece on the radio – it was called Tipitina and Me – a slowed down, minor key version of Professor Longhair’s trademark tune Tipitina, and I had to go out and buy it. It’s on a CD called Our New Orleans, and the whole CD is a gem. In addition to Tip and Me, Toussaint does a hard grooving minimalist version of his Yes We Can Can, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has a good rockin’ thing called My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now, the Wild Magnolias do their Mardi Gras Indian version of Brother John Is Gone, and the great Irma Thomas does a nice blues.
It’s also got the Preservation Hall Jazz Band doing Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? (all of these songs take on such added poignancy now), and it ends with Randy Newman doing a hearbreaking rendition of his Louisiana 1927 with the NY Philharmonic.
Not only is the music great, but the proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity to help with Katrina rebuilding efforts. What more could you ask for?
Go out and get this CD.
Oren Sreebny 
“Tipitina” is the theme music for the excellent American Routes series, which is based in New Orleans and is broadcast weekly at 9PM on KUOW. In the period just after the Katrina disaster they shifted to that minor-key version, which is both haunting and beautiful. You can listen to an Americal Routes interview with the great man from the mid-December 2005 “After the Storm V” show at
http://www.amroutes.com/ram/AR_0549AToussaint.ram
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