John Boutté (English version)

On Sundays as the red beans were soaking for Monday's dinner, John Boutte was awakened by the sounds of his New Orleans neighborhood. Voices carried over the fence from the church behind his home in the Seventh Ward, the home where he grew up, where most of his Creole family still lives and sings. Past the front yard, second-line parades rolled by, matching the madness of Carnival season and the transcendent joy of the jazz funeral. This roux of influences created John Boutte, and serves him to this day.

During his school days John played coronet and trumpet, those clarions of life in New Orleans, in his junior high and high school marching bands. School also gave John the chance to sing, first at talent shows and then with street a capella groups, groups named -- listen -- "Spirit" and then "Remnant”. Stir in the spices of the music that was on the turntables of his older brothers and sisters, the music that ruled the street and raised the spirits: Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5 and Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. During these years traditional jazzmen like Paul Babarin, Louis "Big Eye" Nelson and Danny Barker became both John's friends and mentors. John's sister, Lillian Boutte, introduces the young stylist to local legends like Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and James Booker.

After high school, John studied at Xavier University, a black Catholic institution known in New Orleans and indeed the entire Deep South. After graduating John was commissioned as officer in the U. S. Army, and provided with the opportunity to direct and sing in the Army gospel choirs in Virginia, Texas and, eventually, Korea. It was in Korea, ironically, when sinqing gospel and deep, deep blues after hours in restaurants he'd only accidentally entered, that he began to know himself as an American, an artist and a person. Not long after his return to the States, John was invited to tour almost the entirety of Europe with his sister Lillian. Europe was a set of lessons in languages and cultures and customs, which gave John a chance to meditate on the very idea of a life led as a jazz singer.

With his sister Lillian

When John eventually got back home to New Orleans he continued singing. But now there was a new generation, a new breed of musicians available; musicians like Herlin Riley, Shannon Powell, Nicholas Payton and Bryan Blade. He began to open shows for the likes of Mel Torme, Lou Rawls, Rosemary Clooney and, most recently, Herbie Hancock. In recent times he has recorded three CD's. Through the Eyes of A Child , Scotch and Soda, and the remarkable Jambalaya, recorded for Bose. Yet another CD entitled Gospel United, a concert recording arranged in Denmark, contains his remarkable solo arrangement of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", which has achieved Gold Record status in several European markets.

Down in the treme
Just me and my baby
We're all going crazy
While jamming and having fun

Boutté's "Treme Song" on his Jambalaya album is the theme song of HBO’s series, Treme. Boutté appears in Treme's Season 1 Finale, serenading Kim Dickens' character before she leaves New Orleans; Season 2, episode 1, performing several songs (including "Accentuate the Positive"); and sings onstage in Treme Season 3, episode 10.

John Boutté’s new album : A “well tempered” Boutté

Let’s face it: if an album of John Boutté singing (mostly) standards with a jazz trio had turned out to be anything less than magnificent, anyone who knows the man’s music would have been surprised. His way with a standard is a calling card by now; most of these songs have been in his live repertoire for years, and they’re a large part of the reason people float out of his best shows instead of just walking.
So this is exactly the album you’d expect and hope for. Which is not to say there wasn’t some art involved in capturing these particular performances: The trick of making a standards album is to make the songs sound like they were written last week, and Boutté manages that here: it’s no small feat to put a thrill of discovery into songs this familiar. It’s the delight in his voice that makes “Fly Me to The Moon” fresh again, as he playfully stretches syllables and holds off on the “I love you” until the song’s very end. The Mardi Gras Indian anthem “My Indian Red” gets one of the subtler treatments it’s had; he finds the hymn within the marching song. On “The Very Thought of You” it’s the sound of his voice that delights; he becomes a muted trumped on the “my love” before the instrumental break. And on “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans”—perhaps the most oft-recorded of all the songs here—his high-register glide on the line “Wish that I were there” says it all about yearning. (Notably he also pluralizes the last line—“I miss the ones I care for”—maintaining the post-Katrina content he gave it on the Treme soundtrack).

The gamble of recording the whole album with only three players pays off, as accompanists Christopher Todd Duke (guitar), Nobumasa Ozaki (bass) and Oscar Rossignoli (piano) know when to add subtle shadings and when to step forward and swing. Guitarist Duke, who passed away soon after the sessions, carried a lot of the percussive role with his strumming, and added in some standout solos. There’s some especially nice guitar/voice interplay on “Little Red Rooster” one of the few times here when Boutté calls on his funkier R&B side.
True, it would have been nice to hear an original song here, since Boutté’s written a local standard or two himself. But this is above all a singer’s album, and you’re unlikely to hear a better vocal disc this year.

The Gravy: In the Kitchen with John Boutte

Offbeat Magazine

“The house I grew up in was actually built by my father and grandfather, and I can honestly say that it was built on po-boys. My mother would make the po-boys on Sundays, Saturdays. My dad would get his cousins and his friends and some beers. We came together as a community and built that house. We always had fresh produce. Beans and greens and lettuce, cabbage and roots. My great aunt was a true horticulturist. She had this beautiful bush, what they call ham and eggs, or bridal’s wreath. And wonderful roses, you’d walk through those neighborhoods, man, you’d smell food and wonderful flowers. People did that because the streets weren’t always that clean and they used their gardens as a bumper for the foul air of the sewerage.
My mom made po-boys with whatever my dad would catch. If there was no fish, she’d fry chicken livers. We had fried chicken liver po-boys, man. She fed a lot of kids and we ate well. Something we would beg for—this sounds a little gross—were brains, cow brains! We ate them for breakfast, man. She soaked them in cold water and took the membranes out, ran them through cornmeal and we thought we were eating oysters. It was delicious! Surprised I don’t have gout. We’d have cow brains and scrambled eggs. Our brains wouldn’t be scrambled because we always went to school with a full belly and well tanked up to attack the day. How she fed 10 children on a postman’s salary? I don’t know how, but she did.

The Boutte Family

My dad would go out fishing—this is how bountiful Louisiana was—he would go out fishing and catch so much fish, man. When he got tired of scaling and cleaning and stocking up, we’d literally give it away to the neighbors. My mama, she’d cook it, but she didn’t want to clean no fish. And my dad would not eat fish unless it was right out of the water. So we had a lot of seafood in the house and we also had game, because he was a hunter. We had venison and cowan [turtle], duck and poule d’eau–a little black duck–water hen is what it is, basically.
This is my stove. I looked it up and it used to be on cruise liners, and those stoves were built well, because you can’t have a fire aboard no ship. Don’t look, now. It’s not too clean. Who’s got time to clean their stove? Screw that!
This morning, I cracked two nice organic eggs and whipped them up really well and heated up the olive oil just right and slid it across there, there’s something beautiful about seeing that egg go. Just flipped it over and put a little sour cream and parmesan and a little wheat toast. That was just quick. I like breakfast. In the morning, I’ll do sweet potato pancakes. Instead of water or milk, I’ll use—here’s the trick—orange juice. And coffee, I drink coffee, coffee doesn’t bother me.
I like the red wine too. Actually, I was in Colorado and doing a benefit for one of their public radio stations. Guy asks me, do I like red wine? I said, “Sure,” and he poured me a glass of this syrah and it was really good and then he turned the bottle around and it was a bottle that was made in my honor. That was very humbling. I’ve done a lot of records and stuff, but to have your face on a wine bottle, that will really impress your friends.”