Give back to the city’s music community while treating yourself to Music Redeems, a live album featuring Ellis, Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo and Jason Marsalis along with friends Harry Connick Jr., Eric Revis on bass and Herlin Riley on drums. Proceeds go toward the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in Musician’s Village. The recording is from Ellis’ acceptance of The Duke Ellington Jazz Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Kennedy Center. The concert showcased passionate jazz done by the best, peppered with fun tales of the influential family. And in typical New Orleans fashion, it all ends with a rowdy second-line!
Nonfiction l It could be your street – familiar people pulling through unprecedented challenges to restore their ways of life. Dave Anderson’s photography of the Caffin-Douglas-Flood-Chartres streets square in One Block: A New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilds is turned into a hauntingly beautiful story. Also, check out Anderson’s ongoing exhibition at the Ogden. The introductory essay “H-O-M-E” by Chris Rose is poetic and honest, as are the words from the block’s residents.
Nonfiction l The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots, From Combat, to Camelot, to Katrina: Memoir of an Extraordinary Life by Archbishop Philip Hannan with Nancy Collins (his cousin) and Peter J. Finney Jr. is a 457-page tome chronicling the full life of the 97-year-old leader and New Orleanian. Hannan recalls his experiences as a chaplain with the 82nd Airborne in World War II, as a trusted advisor to President Kennedy and the First Lady and as a Hurricane Katrina survivor wielding a golf club. Followers of Archbishop Hannan’s faith will be particularly intrigued by the inspirational life, though the all-encompassing message is simple: “In the end, all that matters is love.”
Nonfiction l Louisiana is the Sportsman’s Paradise, and outdoors writer Jerald Horst is its enthusiastic gatekeeper. For his latest endeavor, Game Warden: On Patrol in Louisiana, the author accompanied enforcers from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for a year as they battled the elements and the bad guys. Plentiful pictures throughout help show the everyday challenges of this noble profession – one that allows us all to have fun and games.
