CD Matt Lemmler’s New Orleans Jazz Revival Band has just released Ubuntu, the latest effort from the innovative pianist and a couple dozen of his best friends. Lemmler’s supergroup borrows talent from Shane Theriot, Brian Blade, Jason Marsalis, Mark Mullins, Kim Prevost, George Porter Jr. and many more. The tracks break from traditional New Orleans jazz, employing mandolins, balalaikas, flugelhorns and ocarinas.
PHOTOGRAPHY Photographer Richard Sexton has collaborated with the writing team of Randy Harelson and Brian Costello to compile New Roads and Old Rivers: Louisiana’s Historic Pointe Coupée Parish. Assembled with the cooperation of the Pointe Coupée Historical Society, the book traces the nearly 300-year history of the parish, illuminated by hundreds of photos of its oxbow lakes, bayous, riverbanks, plantations, mounds and more.
HISTORY Civil War Historian Larry J. Daniel sheds new light on one of the war’s pivotal battles in Battle of Stones River: The Forgotten Conflict Between the Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland. In the chronological middle of the war, Union Gen. William S. Rosencrans faced off against Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg (who was married to a Thibodaux girl and would go on to grow sugarcane in Louisiana after the war). Although the battle ended in a strategic draw, it confounded Confederate efforts to move into Middle Tennessee and reinvigorated demoralized Union forces. Daniel tells the story of the battle through the context of the two sides’ distinctive commanders.
FICTION New Orleans author Geoff Wyss’ recent compilation of short stories, How, earned the Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction. The narrators and protagonists of his stories flee their circumstances, delude themselves, rationalize decisions and berate their contemporaries, all in search of the answer to the question: “How did it come to this?”