Laissez les bon temps rouler! That's French for let the good times roll...it's Mardi Gras! Which is French for Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. Which is the beginning of the forty days and forty nights of Lent. Which is a time of penance, self denial, self discipline and repentance in the days leading up to Easter. If you were going to give up chocolate, wine and even sex from now until Easter, wouldn't you have a big all-day-all-night party the day before?
Mardi Gras is celebrated in Catholic communities all over the world, yet, only two cities are synonymous with the festival: New Orleans in the USA, and Brazil's Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. I can hear my Italian friends saying, "what about Venice, Italy? It's been celebrating Mardi Gras off and on since 1162, when Venetians gathered in victory dances against the Patriarch of Venice!" Venice is famous for it's spooky, elaborate masks...but it doesn't have the passion and rhythm of the two New World cities. Vivaldi is lovely for a wedding, not the bachelor party!
From the pancakes and beignets Tuesday morning, 'til the last drop of bourbon and champagne early the next morning, the people of New Orleans eat, drink, and make merry in the streets of their city. The food and music have a French and Creole influence, heard in the Cajun fiddles, Zydeco accordions, and the horns and drums of brass bands.
Portuguese-speaking Rio dances to a different beat: the Samba. Samba's roots are found in West Africa's Angloa and Congo regions. All year long, Rio's dozen samba schools create, choreograph, compose and rehearse for the big Carnival samba competition - called the "biggest attraction on Earth". Once a theme is announced, musicians, dancers, costume designers, float designers work together to create the best dance parade. The floats are three storeys high. Nearly nude dancers are adorned in vibrantly coloured feathers, sequins, feathers, silk, feathers, satin...and feathers.
New Orleans is more of a free for all, with jubilant neighbourhood parades, including the "Indian Nation" gangs dancing through the streets of the city, the Chiefs wearing enormous feathered headdresses. A popular '50s song,
Jock-A-Mo by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford, tells of the tribes running into each other at intersections. They'd call out, "Jock-a-mo fee na na", and "Iko, Iko". The Dixie Cups' cover is
Iko, Iko.
The Blacks in New Orleans formed the Indian Nation gangs about 120 years ago, as a tribute to the Indigenous people of the region who gave pre-Civil War runaway slaves safe refuge. They also parade on St. Patrick's Day.
Louisiana was refuge to white runaways too. In 1755, the English expelled the Acadians from what is now Nova Scotia, Canada...burning down their homes to drive them from their land. The Acadians had come to Canada, from France, and in 1605, established the first permanent European settlement in the New World. They were French, and would not swear an oath of allegiance to the King of England. So, the great exodus began.
The Acadians, mispronounced as Cajuns, fled to Louisiana. The Cajuns brought their fiddle music with them, and for the next 150 years, shared music with African American freed slaves, and Creole Haitians who had fled Haiti. The Cajun Creole sound was born. They used whatever instruments would create a beat, including washboards and spoons. Around the late 1800s, the accordion was brought in, almost drowning out the fiddle. Listening to Cajun music, I hear the sounds of Quebec kitchen parties in my Grandparents' home...Metis friends will hear the same sounds.
In recent times, Creoles dropped the fiddle, and left it with the Cajuns. The accordion became the dominant instrument. Clifton Chenier coined the word Zydeco, to describe the accordion "swamp blues" cajun music he made famous in the late '50s. Chenier, known as the King of Zydeco, was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2014 Grammy Awards.
Today, Cajun is a little more Country, and Zydeco is a little more Rock 'n' Roll. Those sounds, along with Jazz, and Blues are heard spilling out of bars, onto the street corners where brass bands are playing. It's the rich fusion of all these sounds that makes New Orleans music great.
Don't make this just another day at the office...Here's a playlist of music that will get you in the Mardi Gras spirit, and let the good times roll:
