For the past 14 years, the Panorama Jazz Band's variegated mash-up of world beats has consistently challenged expectations about what New Orleans jazz can be. Equally at home anchoring a second-line parade as a traditional Jewish wedding, the band's raucous party music, which it has performed everywhere from Gypsy campfires to Carnival parades, combines sounds from all over the globe.
According to bandleader and clarinetist Ben Schenk, the group's polyglot repertoire would be nothing without the historic discipline of a century of New Orleans trad-jazz as its standard -- or, for that matter, without New Orleans audiences to feed the fire.
“Sidney Bechet talked about how in New Orleans, there's no barrier between the band and the crowd, “ said Schenk. “It's all one thing. That kind of interaction is in all these musics. Like the Gypsy music -- that's such people's music. If you look up Gypsy chochek on Youtube -- “Romski Chochek" is the first song on our new album, but chochek just means a Gypsy dance -- you always see the band in the middle of the circle, and the crowd is dancing in a circle around the band."
That relationship between band and audience, Schenk points out, is echoed in New Orleans -- at second-lines, house parties and small clubs like the Spotted Cat (now Jimbeaux's) where Panorama has played a weekly gig for many years. And it's essential, he thinks, to the way Panorama presents its music.
“We're all up in the noise, “ he says. “We take a seven-piece outfit with no mikes and we'll rock 400 people. That's what it's about."
Panorama's new album, “Come Out Swingin', “ is its third full-length recording and its first since Hurricane Katrina. Its eclectic track list includes traditional klezmer freylekhs (Schenk was a founding member of the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars), French waltzes, Gypsy chocheks, Argentine milongas and even one song -- “Ladja, Ladja" -- whose roots are in India's buoyant, joyous Bollywood sound, channeled here, by its arrangement, through a Balkan lens and recorded during Carnival season 2009. (In the liner notes for the song, Schenk wrote simply, “India, Serbia, New Orleans, you!")
According to bandleader and clarinetist Ben Schenk, the group's polyglot repertoire would be nothing without the historic discipline of a century of New Orleans trad-jazz as its standard -- or, for that matter, without New Orleans audiences to feed the fire.
“Sidney Bechet talked about how in New Orleans, there's no barrier between the band and the crowd, “ said Schenk. “It's all one thing. That kind of interaction is in all these musics. Like the Gypsy music -- that's such people's music. If you look up Gypsy chochek on Youtube -- “Romski Chochek" is the first song on our new album, but chochek just means a Gypsy dance -- you always see the band in the middle of the circle, and the crowd is dancing in a circle around the band."
That relationship between band and audience, Schenk points out, is echoed in New Orleans -- at second-lines, house parties and small clubs like the Spotted Cat (now Jimbeaux's) where Panorama has played a weekly gig for many years. And it's essential, he thinks, to the way Panorama presents its music.
“We're all up in the noise, “ he says. “We take a seven-piece outfit with no mikes and we'll rock 400 people. That's what it's about."
Panorama's new album, “Come Out Swingin', “ is its third full-length recording and its first since Hurricane Katrina. Its eclectic track list includes traditional klezmer freylekhs (Schenk was a founding member of the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars), French waltzes, Gypsy chocheks, Argentine milongas and even one song -- “Ladja, Ladja" -- whose roots are in India's buoyant, joyous Bollywood sound, channeled here, by its arrangement, through a Balkan lens and recorded during Carnival season 2009. (In the liner notes for the song, Schenk wrote simply, “India, Serbia, New Orleans, you!")
For more information contact All About Jazz.
