HSB: Another example of music in exile
Source: Honolulu Star Bulletin
Following up on this week's Music Friday theme, here's another example of New Orleans music in exile, this time via Portland, OR, and Hawaii:
... conditions in the flooded city caused [Devin Phillips] to leave New Orleans and rebuild his life in Portland, Ore. — thanks to the Portland Jazz Festival and Azumano Travel.
Those organizations offered jazz musicians from the devastated area free transportation to Portland, temporary housing and access to work in the Portland jazz community. Phillips was one of more than 50 who took them up on it. He re-formed his group, New Orleans Straight Ahead, in Portland, then recorded "Wade in the Water."
He headlines the First Manoa Jazz Festival at Andrews Amphitheater on Saturday.
"We played that song a little before the hurricane, but I think after the hurricane we put it together and it started to mean a little something more to us. Maybe it's irony or whatever, but all that stuff is there," Phillips said during a brief telephone conversation last weekend.
