Ben Schenck is the recognizable face of the Panorama Jazz Band (and Panorama Brass Band). Tall, lanky, wielding his clarinet like a snake charmer, Schenck leads his vivacious troupes through the streets of New Orleans and on stages around the world. Their music is celebratory and joyful, drawing from New Orleans jazz, the tropical rhythms of the Caribbean and the exotic melodies of Eastern Europe.
In this episode of Confetti Park, Ben vividly recalls the elation of encountering a brass band during a parade when he was just a wee lad.
Thank you, Ben, for sharing this beautiful childhood music memory.
Confetti Park is a community radio program out of New Orleans. We feature local storytellers and songs that kids love, songs created for kids, or created by kids, right here in Louisiana. This medley of kids music shows the diversity of Louisiana musicians. Songs featured in this episode, in order:
Choo Choo Boogaloo – Buckwheat Zydeco
Choctaw Choo Choo – Confetti Park Players
Big Brown Cow – PH Fred
Ice Cream – George Lewis’ Ragtime Band
Music Memory Ben Schenk
Pig Latin Song – Leadbelly
La chanson ee cinquante Sous – Michael “Beausoliel” Doucet With Family & Friends
You Are My Sunshine – Confetti Park Players
Circle Of Life – Johnette Downing
This week’s Confetti Park Storytime feature is Ew! The Shabby Sheep, a terrifically fun story in rhyming verse, delightfully narrated by author Scott Lemonier.
In a town on a farm not far away, There lived a sheep who loved to play. Now, this sheep was odd, and quite smelly, too. And because of all this, she was simply called Ew.
Poor Ew cannot find any friends. Is she just too shabby?
Scott is a veteran journalist of 26 years with the Times-Picayune, a teacher, and an accomplished children’s book author and illustrator. (And he is a talented vocal artist!) His freelance credits include illustrating and editing a variety of children’s picture books via Ally-Gator BookBites, a Lake Charles publishing services company.
Scott lives in a community on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.
Jessie McBride. Photo by Paula Burch, courtesy Tulane University.
Jazz pianist Jesse McBride is the director of The Next Generation (begun by Harold Battiste), which features up-and-coming talent in the exploration of modern New Orleans jazz. Jesse is also director of jazz ensembles at Tulane University.
In this episode of Confetti Park, Jesse shares a music memory from his childhood. He talks about how encouragement from his family, and resources through his aunt’s nonprofit, the Community Music Center of Houston, fostered his love for music and cultivated his natural talent.
According to its website, the Community Music Center has roots dating back to the late 1970s, and it was an outgrowth of the black church. One of the wonderful programs of the Community Music Center is providing individual and group lessons & ensembles for children and adults!
Confetti Park is a community radio program out of New Orleans. We feature local storytellers and songs that kids love, songs created for kids, or created by kids, right here in Louisiana. This medley of kids music shows the diversity of Louisiana musicians. Songs featured in this episode, in order:
The Confetti Park podcast and radio program, hosted by Katy Hobgood Ray, features music and stories spun in Louisiana. It showcases songs that kids love, songs created for kids, and songs created by kids. Sparkling interviews, in-studio performances, delightful music medleys, jokes, local author storytime, and a little surprise lagniappe make for an entertaining show!
In this episode of Confetti Park, Johnette Downing narrates her wonderful trickster tale, Why the Crawfish Lives in the Mud.
Long ago, the Crab and the Crawfish used to be best friends. But one sweltering day, Crawfish is feeling lazy and decides to take advantage of Crab’s generosity. Young readers will enjoy the colorful collage art while they learn a lesson about the consequences of tricking other people.
Johnette Downing is an award-winning and internationally recognized singer and songwriter. Her many accolades include Parents’ Choice Awards, iParenting Media Awards, and National Parenting Publication Awards. She is a favorite guest and contributor to Confetti Park!
Angela Russell is a violinist from Shreveport, Louisiana, who trained in NYC and who has played in symphony orchestras and rock bands around the United States. She has also taught hundreds of students a love for stringed instruments. Currently, Angela lives in Los Angeles.
Angela shares how she first discovered the violin in this childhood music memory.
The New Orleans-based jazz band the Swing Setters play kids music!
In this episode of Confetti Park, Katy Ray interviews jazz vocalist Jayna Morgan about her newest New Orleans band, the Swing Setters, a fun, energetic group that plays kids music jazz-style!
(Is this a great name for a jazz band that plays kids music, or what?!)
The Swing Setters truly fill a void in the New Orleans live music scene with their polished treatment of classic American songs, folk songs, and Disney favorites that kids love.
Says Morgan, “There’s not many jazz bands in New Orleans that play children’s music…we were trying to think of names of other people in New Orleans that have a great personality [that aren’t grumpy!], very affable with children, who wouldn’t mind being silly once in a while!”
The band is comprised of professional jazz musicians including Morgan on the vocals, Alex Owen on trumpet, Greg Agid on clarinet and saxophone, David Phy on trombone, Ted Long on guitar, Joe Kennedy on piano, Alan Broome on bass, and Gerald French on drums.
The band recently released their first CD, called Swingin’ at the Playground, available for purchase online at http://11thcommandmentrecords.com/store/ This podcast includes several previews of songs from that record, including “Look for the Silver Lining,” “The Glow Worm,” “This Old Man,” and “A-Tisket A-Tasket.”
Confetti Park is a community radio program out of New Orleans. We feature local storytellers and songs that kids love, songs created for kids, or created by kids, right here in Louisiana. This medley of kids music shows the diversity of Louisiana musicians. Songs featured in this episode, in order:
When facing off with a cockroach in the shower, what would you do?
Some people would scream. Some people would hurl the shampoo bottle at the little sucker, and then run.
But Ben Schenck? He wrote a song for the cockroach.
“I was raised with a strong care module, so I cared deeply about this cockroach, but at the same time I didn’t want to touch it…. I set him free and then wrote him a song at the breakfast table.”
Here’s Ben on clarinet and vocals, performing with the Panorama Jazz Band of New Orleans on the “Cockroach Song,” which he wrote when he was 17.
Sing along, everyone: “Ya Ya Ya, Wally Wally Wah!”
In this episode of Confetti Park, Tommy Sancton shares one of his earliest music memories from Preservation Hall, a musical venue in the French Quarter founded in 1961 to protect, preserve, and perpetuate traditional New Orleans jazz. There, Tommy heard the sound that would guide the course of his life.
Tommy Sancton has had an illustrious career as a journalist and musician. After studies at Harvard and Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, he began a 22-year career with Time magazine as writer, editor, and Paris bureau chief. Music has always been part of Tommy’s life. As he traveled the world, he never stopped playing his clarinet.
He also never stopped feeling the pull of home. In August 2007, Tommy left Paris for New Orleans. He now teaches at Tulane, continues to write, and plays and records frequently with numerous traditional jazz bands. Visit his website to learn more.
Tommy has a beautiful memoir called Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White, published in 2006, which recounts his experiences at Preservation Hall and explores his childhood apprenticeship with clarinetist George Lewis and other musicians, as well as his relationship with his own father.
In this episode of Confetti Park, Katy Ray interviews Jeremy Lyons about how he started playing for kids and what kinds of songs he plays. Jeremy also discusses how much he enjoys the curiosity and interest of little human beings in music.
Jeremy Lyons began his musical career playing in a washboard band on the streets of the French Quarter in the early 1990s. He played in several bands, most notably Jeremy Lyons and the Deltabilly Boys, a group that blended the sounds of rockabilly and New Orleans R&B with Piedmont-style fingerpicking and surf guitar.
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Jeremy and his family (who had evacuated to Baton Rouge to be with his grandparents) lost most of their possessions when their house flooded. He has since permanently relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.
That’s where Jeremy started playing kids music, using his style he dubs ‘DeltaSilly.’ He now has two CDs for children, Music for Kids and Silly Goose Music.
As a music buff, Jeremy likes to draw from folk songs and the early popular music of America, and he shares fun music history with his little listeners. Jeremy offers a special in-studio performance for Confetti Park—he plays the Woody Guthrie song “Mail Myself to You.”
