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ŠAndrea D. Rubinstein, 1995-2007
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Bay Area Calendar
(maintained by Ellen Papper)
This website is created and maintained by Andrea Rubinstein.
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9th Annual Fort Lauderdale Cajun-Zydeco Crawfish Festival
May 2001. This is the 3rd year I've
attended the Crawfish Festival in Ft. Lauderdale
and each year it gets better. This year, I had 2 personal
nicknames for the festival: "Shut up
and Dance" and "Love the One You're With". Regarding the
former, it turns out I caught a bad case of laryngitis on Thursday night and
by Friday almost no sound came out of mouth (some would say that was a
good thing). I spent 3 days communicating using
only facial and hand expressions, which was pretty frustrating.
Nonetheless, my feet functioned just fine, and I didn't lack
for dance partners (maybe silence is golden, after all). Regarding
the latter, the music and dancing was so good at this festival, that I kept
thinking, it can't get better than listening to xxx and dancing with xxx
right now... (fill in the xxx's with current band playing and dance
partner)... and then it did.
The weather was perfect this year... in the low 80's most days, plus 4 out of
5 stages were in the shade or under a tent. As with any event in the
summer heat, however, the key to survival was drinking lots of water and staying
nourished. Ft Lauderdale made it very both easy to do. You could
register as a designated driver at the Crystal Springs or O'Doul's booths, and get free
bottles of water or non-alcoholic beer for all 3 days of the festival, and the food booths were
reasonably priced and varied (Cajun-Creole, as well as Greek, West Indian and
American). Also, the dance floors were large and level, and in
addition to the normal port-a-potties the festival supplied air-conditioned
portable rest rooms that had running water and were kept
clean. I also tried dancing this entire festival in bowling shoes, and I
highly recommend them as an alternative to boots. The slides on their
soles work on the dance floor as well as on a bowling alley (if you look for
them, be sure to make sure the shoes have slides on both shoes).
The charm of the Ft. Lauderdale festival is in its mix of
3 'main' stages
combined with 2 more intimate 'Back Woods' stages; one of which featured acoustic
music and the other was educational (history/cultural workshops) . The strength of the festival was in its varied and most
excellent selection of both national and regional Cajun and Zydeco musicians
presented in a very balanced way and at staggered times, so you catch partial
sets of most of the bands. The agony of the festival was deciding where
to go. The ecstasy of the festival was in the fabulous music and in how many
outstanding dancers
attended and the general 'one dance and move on' etiquette, so there were always
lots of great partners making the rounds.
The bands at the festival included: Roy Carrier & The Night Rockers, Chubby Carrier & The Bayou Swamp Band, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, Bruce Daigrepont, Hackberry Ramblers, Balfa Toujours, Nathan & The Zydeco Cha Chas , Filé, Savoy/Doucet Family Band, Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie, Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic, Lil Brian & The Zydeco Travelers, Lil Malcolm & The House Rockers, Donna Angelle & The Zydeco Posse, La Bande "Feufollet", T-Mamou, Bayou Teche Band, Porchdogs, Atlanta Swamp Opera, River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs, Murphy's Law, Magnolia Sisters, Zydeco Bone Shakers, Big Al & The Heavyweights, Willis Prudhomme, Gris Gris, and unexpectedly, Sean Ardoin, all playing in regularly scheduled sets and some in jam sessions.
At the Backwoods stages, I enjoyed:
D'jalma Garnier's
Fiddle Workshop. D'jalma was accompanied by band mate, Ward Lormond, from
File', demonstrating Creole
fiddle. He dedicated a song to recently departed Bebe Carrier and Danny Poullard,
talked about his musical background (his father played with Louis Armstrong) and
described
taking fiddle lessons from Canray Fontenot while at the University of Texas.
He said when Canray taught, he would just teach the basic way of playing a song, But
then when Canray would play it for an audience, he would only play
variations. He said, by way of example, to try to imagine , "Blue
Runner" by Bebe Carrier. played by Jimi Hendrix on fiddle, and then demonstrated
what he meant playing variations on that tune. Sunday, I heard La
Bande Feufollet play "Blue Runner" and do the same thing.... the fiddle playing was so wild and fast
and improvised off the melody that I immediately thought "Jimi
Hendrix" when I heard these remarkable 13 & 17 year old fiddlers.
The Bay Area's Andre Thierry
was joined by Sean Ardoin for an acoustic accordion
set. If you know Andre, you know he is incredibly shy, just gets up
on stage and plays intensely, hardly saying a word or looking at the
audience. With his cousin Sean up there, it was like seeing Gracie
Allen and George Burns doing a comedy routine. Sean did a great job asking
Andre questions and kidding him about his silence. For example, he
teased Andre about not wanting
to talk into a mike because Andre leaned over to tell Sean to tell the audience
what he would play next, even though there was a microphone right in front of
him. Sean added that his brother Chris Ardoin, used to do the same thing. Andre
was asked about his influences and he mentioned Boozoo Chavis. But later, Sean
commented that when he drove to the festival from
Lake 
Charles with Andre
all he heard was Clifton Chenier
and Amede Ardoin, and then more Clifton and Amede. Sean laughed and said that
when he fell asleep in the van listening to Amede, he woke up and thought he was
a youngster back home
being called to work out in the fields by his father! Sean asked
Andre what his goal in life was and all Andre would reply is "I want to
play". Sean commented that it showed, because his extraordinary technical mastery
of the instrument. Andre was asked by the audience if
the legend about him and Clifton Chenier was true. He replied that he was
just a baby but what he was told was that when his grandmother used to put
on zydeco dances in St Mark's Church in Richmond, CA, if Clifton came to
play there, he would stay at her house. During one visit, his grandmother
showed Clifton her infant grandsons and pointed to one and said he was
going to play accordion. But Clifton looked at the other grandchild, which
was Andre, touched his arm, and said no, this is the one that will play the
accordion. Andre laughed and said maybe he just had big arms for a
baby.
Geno Delafose
played accordion accompanied by Djama Garnier on fiddle, and answered questions
posed to him from his adoring fans. At
one point he was asked, "how does it feel to be the best"... to
which he answered, " I don't know about being the best, I just
know about being Geno". And then he thanked the audience for
supporting him in his efforts to follow his heart and allowing him to play the more
traditional music that he felt drawn to.
I also enjoyed sets on the acoustic stage by the Savoy Family (in particular one song which featured triple fiddles and later during "Sam's Red Rooster", when the audience started crowing ), and the Magnolia Sisters.
A few of the highlights from the big stages:
Nathan & the Zydeco
Cha Cha's, who were a last minute replacement for Boozoo Chavis, put on
another of their high energy shows.
Geno Delafose's set with Dirk Powell sitting in. Smiling that big grin under his cowboy hat and wearing a starched orange shirt, Geno was 'being Geno" and looking and sounding as incredible as ever.
Roy Carrier, whose freight train, chugga-chugga, hard-driving beat never let up for the entire set sounded. perhaps the best I've ever seen him. His record label, 'right on rhythm' certainly describes Roy's set perfectly.
T Mamou - Al Berard and Bob Reed always look like they are having the time of their lives on stage, and their traditional Cajun sets are brilliant.
La
Bande Feufollet - These kids can really play
traditional music but they like to play it fast and hard (ah, the energy of
youth!). As I mentioned earlier, their rendition of Bebe
Carrier's "Blue Runner" sounded like a Jimi Hendrix fireworks display.
BeauSoleil. I was particularly touched by Michael Doucet's mournful
rendition of the song he dedicated to Danny Poullard.
Cajun and Zydeco Jam sessions: These were special.
Interestingly, Sean Ardoin whose forebear, Amede, was the root of
the Cajun-Creole tree, showed up at both sessions, playing three spectacular
funky, modern zydeco numbers on Saturday night, and two hard-driving Cajun
songs the following morning.
Andre Thierry's sets. Andre
demonstrated his prodigious talent - playing selections from the traditional Clifton Chenier
repertoire to
Boozoo to Beau Jocque to original compositions with a killer, hard-driving
backup band.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of the great dancing to be had at this festival. Joseph Campbell spoke about following your bliss. Well to me dance is bliss and there are 2 aspects of dancing that I really enjoy: One is when you when you can connect with a partner with whom you seem to share an intuitive sense of the dance, and the steps seem to come as naturally as breathing. Your mind turns off, the music becomes hypnotic and away you go. The other is when you are dancing with someone that makes you really focus in order to follow new dance patterns and styles or complicated routines. You have to concentrate and be in the moment to follow but if you 'get it', the dancing is exhilarating. I was fortunate this festival to be blissed out a lot... particular thanks for the dances go to Wayne Kahn, Arn Burkhoff, Tom Zurn, Ken from Nashville and those San Diego boys, Greg Benusa, and Peter "Speed-turning Demon" Oliver (we clocked in at over 9mph on our spins**).
It is obvious that the Ft Lauderdale festival planners love Cajun and Zydeco
music and culture and understand what it takes to make the festival a
success for dancers. The Ft Lauderdale festival has joined Festivals
Acadians as one of 2 CZ events permanently etched on my travel calendar.
I highly recommend it.
** The statistics were measured by the Sportbrain I was wearing.... which also told me that I averaged 20 miles per day in distance and over 40,000 steps per day dancing. (Send me an email at andrea@sfbayou.com if you are interested in seeing all my dance statistics for those days).
Note: For another perspective and complete description of the scope, logistics and layout of the festival, you should also check out Gary Hayman's review in the May 15, 2001 edition of his Zyde-zine, which you can get at http://users.erols.com/ghayman/articles.htm.
