Confetti Park

Tag: pirates

  • Music Medley: A Pirate’s High C’s

    Music Medley: A Pirate’s High C’s

    There be Pirates!
    Ahoy!!!! Welcome to Confetti Park, a magical place full of music and stories for children. Aye, You’ll hear lots of songs from the Mississippi delta and beyond as we hear an amazing variety of American music for scurvy buccaneers! This week we are celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day! It’s held on September 19… avast… that’s right around the corner!

    Here are some songs of the piratical nature for ye to enjoy:

    • Sensible Life of a Pirate – Imagination Movers
    • Talk Like a Pirate – Jake & the NeverLand Pirates
    • Watch out for the Pirates – Confetti Park Players
    • Down by the Bay – Andrew Best
    • A Sailor Went to Sea – Johnette Downing
    • Allons a Lafayette – Feufollet
    • The Big Blue Sea – Danny O’Flaherty and Khaetidawne Quirk
    • Sri Lanka Fisherman’s Chant – Katherine Dines

    In this episode, first we have that grand kids band, the Imagination Movers of New Orleans, with “Sensible Life of a Pirate.” And then a sensible lesson in Pirate talk for ya, as featured on that brigand show, Jake & the Never Land Pirates. How about those Confetti Park Players, the cutest pirates in all the land, with Watch out for the Pirates! (Enjoy this music video featuring the Confetti Park Players and the NOLA Pyrate Society, shot on location in Pirate’s Alley in the French quarters of New Orleans.)

    Sea Shanties

    Argh, Mateys I hope you enjoy the song about sailors, too, by Louisiana pied piper Johnette Downing, and the camp favorite “Down by the Bay” by Memphis children’s performer Andrew Best.

    Then we go dancing, “Allons a Lafayette,” by the Cajun band Feufollet, who started performing together as young buccaneers and are still traveling the high seas today. We also hear a song about that Big Blue Sea from Danny O’Flaherty, an Irishman who relocated to New Orleans (as many a good pirate will do), and then the beautiful “Sri Lanka Fisherman’s Chant,” performed by Katherine Dines, a fine fellow of the Children’s Music Network.

    This episode’s Storytime feature is a delightful piratical tale from Bill Harley, the “Ballad of Dirty Joe.”

    I hope ye join me again — yer Mate Katy Hobgood Ray — for more wonderful children’s music from Confetti Park…. and remember to look for the magic in every day!

    More about Confetti Park

    The Confetti Park radio show streams online and airs in cities across the United States, made available to all community radio stations on the Pacifica Network. Check to see if your local community radio station carries it, and ask! Support for Confetti Park comes from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation and Music Rising at Tulane University.

     

  • Storytime: Lafitte’s Restless Ghost narrated by Ted Lindsay

    Storytime: Lafitte’s Restless Ghost narrated by Ted Lindsay

    You’ve heard of Pirate Jean Lafitte, a French pirate who gained infamy in the bays and swamps off the Gulf of Mexico. He lived from 17080-1823. He is often featured in tales of treasure hunters and is part of many legends from Louisiana and Texas.

    Here is one that takes place in Laport, off the coast of Galveston Bay… in the 1800s, many years after Lafitte;s death. We learn thatt he ghost of the smuggler continually wanders the earth searching for a worthy inheritor. Only when he finds a person who is worthy can he at last rest.

    The story is narrated for you by Ted Lindsay of Mooringsport, La.

    We begin with a weary travel who is approaching an abandoned house at dusk, and he enters it to take shelter from the cold wind. He can hear the waves tearing at the bluffs of Galveston Bay…. After stabling his tired horse, he enters the old house and builds a fire for comfort.

    He wakes to find a strange man standing over him, who beckons him to follow. The weary traveler, in a stupor, is so commanded by the presence and entreaty in the eyes of the stranger that he does….

    The strange man says to him,

    “Here more gold lies buried than is good for any man. All you have to do is dig, and it is yours. You can use it; I cannot. However, it must only be applied purposes of highest beneficence. Not one penny may be evilly or selfishly spent. Do you understand?”

    I said “Yes.”

    Then the visitant was gone, and I was shivering with cold.

    What happens next? Listen to the full story as featured on Confetti Park!

  • Music Medley: Pirates on the Deck

    Music Medley: Pirates on the Deck

    pirateConfetti 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, inspired by life here Louisiana. This medley of kids music shows the diversity of our state sound.

    Songs featured in this episode, in order:

    Also featured in this episode, a music memory from Foots Quinn of Bogalusa and the storytime feature Tale of a Spitball by Ms. Chocolate.

    The Confetti Park 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!

    Subscribe on iTunes

    The radio program version launched on April 4, 2015 in New Orleans on WHIV FM and is supported by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation and Music Rising at Tulane University.

    Current broadcast schedule:

    Community radio stations, interested in carrying Confetti Park? Contact Katy Ray.

  • Scenes from Family Pyrate Day

    Scenes from Family Pyrate Day

  • Family Pyrate Day in Old Algiers Point on Saturday, March 25

    Family Pyrate Day in Old Algiers Point on Saturday, March 25

    Family Pyrate Day
    Family Pyrate Day in Old Algiers Point

    Treasures from the Point and Family Pyrate Day – Saturday, March 25 
    The Confetti Kids Treasures from the Point porch sale starting at 8 a.m. will be followed by a day-long family-friendly celebration of pirate culture hosted by Confetti Kids & the NOLA Pyrates starting at 11 a.m. in Algiers Point

    Arghh, mateys! It’s the first annual Family Pyrate Day in Old Algiers Point, a family friendly event celebrating pirate culture in New Orleans.

    Join Confetti Kids, Confetti Park and our mates of NOLA Pyrate Week for a swashbuckling good time on the Mississippi River in Algiers Point. SEE MAP There will be storytellers, musical performances, a pyrate market and cafe…games, demonstrations, and crafting, too.

    Storyteller-LineupConfetti Park Storytelling Stage

    You can look forward to the sea shanties of The Whiskey Bay Rovers and the Confetti Park Players, and pirate tales spun by authors such as Dianne de Las Casas, John Couret, David Ray, Erin Rovin, Ol’ Chumbucket, Sam Staley, Zachary W. Mohr, and crafting with Karen Konnerth of Calliope Puppets.

    Lots more piratical fun

    Next door to the kids pirate cafe at Warren’s Corner at 601 Patterson is the 21+ pirate tavern, the Old Point Bar. There will be fun along the river all the way down to Larkin Playspot, including pirate merchants, magicians, historians, nautical knot lessons, and a neighborhood-wide treasure hunt co-sponsored by Hubbell Library. And it’s all coinciding with the Treasures from the Point sale of the century in Algiers Point (beginning at 8 a.m.)

    NOLA-Pyrate-Week-LOGO-2017-1280Take what you can, give something back

    All proceeds from Pyrate Day food sales, garage sales, and donation buckets go to building a new children’s park in Algiers. Want to help in other ways? Bring your old instruments to donate to children. The Hungry for Music bus will be parked at 601 Patterson to take donations! And bring canned food for the Algiers Point Lil Free Pantry and take a “pigture” with Coco the Pirate Pig!
    More information about Family Pyrate Day

  • There be pirates in Algiers Point!

    There be pirates in Algiers Point!

    Family Pyrate Day is upon us!

    Treasures from the Point and Family Pyrate Day – Saturday, March 25
    Rain or shine! The Confetti Kids Treasures from the Point porch sale will be followed by a day-long family-friendly celebration of pirate culture hosted by Confetti Kids & the NOLA Pyrates

    Join Confetti Kids, Confetti Park and our mates of NOLA Pyrate Week for a swashbuckling good time on the Mississippi River in Algiers Point. SEE MAP There will be storytellers, musical performances, a pyrate market and cafe…games, demonstrations, and crafting, too.

  • Interview with Ol’ Chumbucket, co-creator of Talk Like a Pirate Day

    Interview with Ol’ Chumbucket, co-creator of Talk Like a Pirate Day

    Ol' Chumbucket reads to kids at Hubbell Library in Algiers Point
    Ol’ Chumbucket reads to kids at Hubbell Library in Algiers Point

    In this episode of Confetti Park, Katy Hobgood Ray interviews Ol’ Chumbucket, the co-creator of International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. Chumbucket, also known as John Baur in certain circles, lives in New Orleans today (he has lived in many places including the Virgin Islands) and spends much of his time traveling the pirate festival circuit promoting his books and pirate culture.

    Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter, is his latest. It’s a truly entertaining young adult book about a 13-year-old girl in colonial Virginia who disguises herself as a boy in order to sign onto a merchant ship. What drives her to such rash madness? She must rescue her father, who has been taken by terrible pirates. This book is a great ride!

    Ol’ Chumbucket has co-authored  at least eight books about pirate culture with his buddy Cap’n Slappy (a.k.a Mark Summers, the co-creator of Talk Like a Pirate Day), including A Li’l Pirate’s ABSeas, “a piratical romp through the alphabet with all that that implies. Sometimes rude, sometimes downright dangerous and subversive, but always fun and always funny.”

    Kids in the Algiers Point neighborhood where Confetti Park is located were very lucky to have Ol’ Chumbucket come to the Hubbell Library. He and the NOLA Pyrates Society sang sea shanties and shared pirate lore. Katy recorded this interview with Chumbucket outside the library located near the river. (You can hear the wind! Sorry for the rumbles.)

    Here she talks to him about the genesis of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and they uncover what it is that makes pirates so universally appealing.

    Says Chumbucket: “Pirates, they’re an expression of freedom. We always tell people it’s ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’—not ‘Commit Felonies Like a Pirate Day.’ We’re not advocating you actually waylay a Spanish galleon.

    But… pirates were the freest people on earth. They lived by their own rules; they rejected convention. So when you go out and live your life for YOU instead of the rules that everybody else’s putting on you, the TV ads that tell you you have to smell like this, and the magazine ads that tell you you have to wear these shoes… if you do what you want, because it’s what you want, then you’re living like a pirate.”

    For more information about Ol’ Chumbucket, visit his websites https://baurlife.com/ and  http://talklikeapirate.com/.

     

  • Watch Out for the Pirates – the music video!

    Watch Out for the Pirates – the music video!

    Enjoy this music video for “Watch Out for the Pirates” featuring the Confetti Park Players and the NOLA Pyrates, filmed on location in Pirates Alley in the French Quarter, New Orleans, La. (Additional footage from Mardi Gras 2016.) This catchy pirate tune was written by Greg Schatz, a fabulous and prolific songwriter living in New Orleans, ‘specially for the Confetti Park Players. He’s one of our favorites!

    The video debuts just in time for NOLA Pyrate Week, which comes around once a year. We are so thrilled to have such good friends in the NOLA Pyrates, who come to our city to do good deeds and have a good time. Thank you to Captain John Swallow, QM Seika Hellbound and their NOLA Pyrates crew for telling our kids stories, teaching us how to swashbuckle, sharing with us your pirate history lore, and for being in our music video.

    Thank you to ‘Ween Dream! The kids were outfitted in loaned pirate costumes by ‘Ween Dream, a costume donation 501(c)(3) nonprofit that recycles donated Halloween costumes and gives them to kids in need.

    And a very special thanks to Ava Santana-Cassano and Sally Asher for loving film footage, to Leighton Barrett Strong for assistance, and to Thais and company at Pirates Alley Cafe for all the support and goodies. And to John Haffner, for being sparkly and awesome on Mardi Gras day.

     

    We're Going to Confetti Park
    We’re Going to Confetti Park

    “Watch Out for the Pirates” is from the album We’re Going to Confetti Park! by Katy Hobgood Ray & the Confetti Park Players. Available on CD & digitally.

    “Watch Out for the Pirates” (Greg Schatz, Kathryn Hobgood Ray) features: Rick G. Nelson, bass; Beth Patterson, Irish bouzouki; Katy Ray, vocals; Tim Robertson, guitar; Greg Schatz, accordion; Dr. Sick, fiddle; Michael Skinkus, percussion. Pirates: Matt Aguiluz, Keller Clark, John Haffner, Chris Lane, Elisa McDonald, Charleston McLean, Millie Moffett, Beth Patterson, David Eugene Ray. Recorded at Marigny Recording Studio. Mastered by Bruce Barielle.

     

     

     

     

    Spend my days on the Seven Seas
    Live my life just as I please
    Ride the waves, catch the breeze
    Watch out for the pirates

    Chorus:
    Watch out, hey watch out!
    Watch out for the pirates!
    Watch out, hey watch out!
    Watch out for the pirates!

    I don’t know but I’ve been told
    The pirate ships are strong and bold
    They come in the night and they steal your gold
    So watch out for the pirates

    Doesn’t matter what your rank
    Keep your coin safe in the bank
    Don’t let them make you walk the plank
    Watch out for the pirates

    We’ll dock at New Orleans at dawn
    Eat those beans until they’re gone
    Look out for that old man Jean,
    He was once a pirate

    Doesn’t matter where you are
    Could be a boat could be a car
    They’ll sneak up on you and go “ARGH!”
    Watch out for the pirates

     

  • Storytime: The Fifolet by Johnette Downing

    Storytime: The Fifolet by Johnette Downing

    The Fifolet by Johnette Downing
    The Fifolet by Johnette Downing

    In this edition of Confetti Park, we have a very special reading by Louisiana children’s author Johnette Downing. This is a narration of her new book, The Fifolet.

    The fifolet (or feufollet) is a very spooky Louisiana legend that appears frequently in Cajun and Houmas Indian folklore. The say that the fifolet are swamp spirits making lights deep in the swamps……  Great big eerie balls of light, that seem to float above the water, and beckon the watcher to follow! Interestingly, this kind of legend appears not just Louisiana culture, but around the world. (Ever heard of the will o’ the wisps in Europe or ghost lights in Japan?)

    Different explanations blame supernatural spirits, or mischievous elves and fairies, or even the lost souls  of pirates guarding lost treasures in the swamp. And some people say it’s nothing but phosphorescent swamp gas making the blue fire.

    In her book, which was illustrated by Jennifer Lindsley, Johnette Downing tells about the fifolet through the experience of fisherman Jean-Paul Pierre, who has his heart set on finding the fifolet’s buried treasure.

    “Through cypress trees and beards of moss, there is a fire spirit that you never want to cross. It will tease you and coax you and draw you near, but all the Cajuns know that you better beware.”

    Worth noting is that the music to this story was also written and performed by Johnette. The music is actually from a song about another swamp creature known in Louisiana: the loup garoup, featured on her CD From the Gumbo Pot.

  • Pirate Video Shoot

    Watch out for the pirates!
    Watch out for the pirates!

    Today the Confetti Park Players had an awesome time shooting a video for a feature song of our upcoming CD, We’re Going to Confetti Park. The song, called “Watch Out for the Pirates,” was written by Greg Schatz and Katy Ray. What better way to illustrate the song than with NEW ORLEANS PIRATES?

    This weekend was the kickoff for NOLA Pyrate Week, a festival celebrating the pirate heritage and culture of South Louisiana. Too Perfect! We owe a huge thank you to the wonderful pirates, Captain John Swallow and QM Seika Hellbound and their NOLA Pyrates crew for telling our kids stories, teaching us how to swashbuckle, and sharing with us important pirate history and lore.

    The hosts of the shoot were the wonderful owners and staff at Pirates Alley Cafe at 622 Pirates Alley behind St. Louis Cathedral. Thais, the kids loved their treasure!

    And thank you to ‘Ween Dream! The kids were outfitted in loaned pirate costumes by ‘Ween Dream, a costume donation 501(c)(3) nonprofit that recycles donated Halloween costumes and gives them to kids in need. http://www.weendream.org/

    The kids will be dressed as pirates again for our French Quarter Fest appearance, in the Kids Tent on Sunday, April 12 at 11 a.m.

     And another thank you to our sweet videographer, filmmaker Ava Santana-Cassano.

    Watch out for the Pirates!!!