Tonight, Wed. Aug. 29, 2007, at 8ET, Going Back To New Orleans, The Deacon John Film premieres on Fox's MyNetwork TV. I shot the film in 35mm and HD video and recorded it with high resolution audio using the Euphonix R-1 for the concert recordings and took the audio feed directly from the console in the studio recordings. When we first started the project, we wanted to illustrate the fact that many of the conventions of the rock and roll genre originated in NOLA. It's hard not to digress to Katrina tragedies (this is a picture of recording engineer David Farrell showing where the floodwaters came in his studio, Ultrasonic) but a reader, Adrienne, asked for other examples of the influence of the musicians and performers at Cosimo's. In the film, Amadee Castanell, a great tenor man in his own right, talks about the "tone" innovations from the tenor players at Cosimo's. Lee Allen, Red Tyler, Herb Hardesty and others began to use a small-chambered metal mouthpiece to generate a more "cutting, biting" tone. He points out that during the big band swing era, tenor players used a large-chambered plastic mouthpiece (Amedee calls it a "Fat Boy,") to achieve the round, mellow sound of the big band sax sections and Lee Allen and his compatriots adopted the small-chambered metal mouthpiece to achieve the cutting tenor solos of early rock and roll. Amadee then demonstrates the "tone" difference using a Lee Allen solo from a Shirley and Lee record as an example. Lee and Herb and Red's tenor "tone" set the standard for rock and roll tenor solos and recordings that followed. There are other elements of NOLA music and culture that I'll talk about in future posts, but as Arthel Neville says tonight in wrapping the broadcast, NOLA is a real "gumbo." There are melting pots...and then there's New Orleans. What we hope to do with our film is to highlight the music, the food and the joie de vivre of the city's diverse populations and its Creole and African-American influences. Till next post... Cy (I wouldn't be true to the goals outlined in my first post if I didn't plug the fact that my LSU Tigers play their SEC opener on the road at Miss. State tomorrow night on ESPN. Tiger fans all over the USA are looking for an exciting season...Geaux Tigers!)