Fashion benefits Dreamland Ballroom, Big Brothers, Big Sisters
Dec 8, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Dreamland in Print, Events
By Meredith Cavaness Corning, The Compassion Fashion Project
Once again, fashion has its place in raising funds for worthy causes. Last Saturday, December 3, 2011 from 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Alexandria Gordon produced a fabulous event touted, ‘Modeling for a Cause,’ to benefit the restoration of the Dreamland Ballroom and Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The Dreamland Ballroom is located at historic 800 West Ninth Street in downtown Little Rock. Supporters of the Dreamland Ballroom are committed to “bringing back the music, the history, and the party to the historic space.”
Dreamland Ballroom’s Public Relations states, “Stately Taborian Hall, located on the corner of Ninth and State Streets, is the only remaining historic building on West Ninth, a testimony to the street’s former vibrancy and glory days as Little Rock’s “Little Harlem.”
Modeling for a Cause featured over forty models sporting seven fashion designers’ digs that were availbale for purchase and the event was hosted by Jaid Taylor. Designers showcasing their collections were Wynika Smith (Splendid Fever), Jo Claire Dodson (Just Faux Fun), Chavon Sewell (Chavon Shree), Aaliyah Fisher (Grafetti), Kenny and Sandra Fisher (Novel T’s), Alicia Hawkins (jfBf), and Sheila Scott (N’chole Feroce). The model who won first place in the modeling competition and a cash prize was Michaela Boothby.
Fashion Designer, Sheila Scott with N’Chole Feroce says of the evening, “We were all trying to give back to our community with fashion. Everything went really well. We all had such a great time. The space is amazing and I hope it can be saved from demolitian. There is so much history there.”
More volunteers and supporters are needed. Those interested should please visit the Dreamland Ballroom website at http://www.dreamlandballroom.com/.
Tags: 2011, dreamland, fashion, fashion show, fundraiser, little rock, models, news, show, venue
Magic in Dreamland
Oct 25, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Dreamland in Print, Events
Business owner, friends giving new life to ballroom in historic 95-year-old building
BY LINDA CAILLOUET – Democrat Gazette
LITTLE ROCK — At Ninth and State streets in downtown Little Rock, the historic brick building wedged against Interstate 630 survived long after all of its neighbors fell to make way for newer buildings, parking space, or simply empty lots.
But 20 years ago, the regal building — marred by a gaping hole in its roof — appeared doomed to the same fate.
Kerry McCoy, owner of Arkansas Flag and Banner, fell in love with the threestory building at 800 W. Ninth and wanted to move her business, then in a house on North Little Rock’s Main Street, there. She bought the building in 1990.
At the time, many wondered if she’d lost her mind.
Everyone who traveled I-630 could see its roof had caved in. And it wasn’t any better inside.
The hole extended from the roof through the third, second and first floors’ ceilings. Those brave enough to venture inside could see from the first floor below all the way up to the sky.
The building, Taborian Hall, begun in 1916 and occupied by a black fraternal insurance organization, the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor, had served as an anchor to Little Rock’s once-bustling black commercial district along Ninth Street during the first half of the 20th century. So vibrant was the area when segregation reigned the area was dubbed “Little Harlem.”
Through the years, Gem Pharmacy and Doc’s Pool Hall were located on the ground floor of Taborian Hall as well as the Dreamland Grill and a Negro Soldiers Club. Black professionals — physicians, dentists and lawyers — occupied the second floor.
Since buying the building, McCoy has moved her business there and restored its first and second floors.
But the uppermost floor awaits its salvation. Decades-old peeling paint in shades of salmon pink, bluish-green, yellow, orange and royal blue still cling to the walls. A 1930s Art Deco pattern remains along the edges of the balcony and box seats.
The project is a worthy one. An important part of Little Rock’s cultural history lies within this 8,000-square-foot, tattered and battered space — the Dreamland Ballroom. It was once where central Arkansas’ black residents came to socialize, dance, and hear black musicians traveling on the “Chitlin’ Circuit.”
“I want the walls to tell the story of Dreamland and its rich music history,” McCoy says. “And I want this to be open to the public; a space everyone can use because that’s what it once was.”
SWEET SOUNDS OF LONG AGO
Cab Calloway is said to have performed at Dreamland in 1934 and Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and W.C. Handy are known to have played there in 1936.
In the 1940s, the ballroom was renamed Club Aristocrat and Count Basie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and his All-Star Esquire Combo, and Arkansas native Louis Jordan graced the stage.
In the 1950s, the ballroom was renamed Club Morocco and B.B. King, Etta James, and a new “blind singing star” — Ray Charles — played there. The cost to see Charles? A dollar for tickets bought in advance; $1.50 at the door.
From 1960 through 1967, the ballroom was dubbed the Magnolia Room.
Despite the name changes, locals always referred to it as Dreamland.
BUILDING ON HISTORY
The original structure, less than half its current size, first faced State Street. In 1918, it was expanded southward and its front moved to Ninth Street.
“You can see where the ballroom was retrofitted into this space,” says Amber Jones, executive director of the private, nonprofit organization Friends of Dreamland Ballroom, working to revive the space. “You never would have built windows [now half-covered] behind the stage.”
Inside the ballroom, one of the stage’s plaster shield medallions fell and was destroyed when the roof was rebuilt in 1991, “It will be re-created from a mold from a remaining one. The missing portions of the plaster molding which frames the stage will be re-created too,” Jones says.
But the ballroom will not be restored to look brand new.
“In the preservation world, its current state is known as arrested decay,” Jones says, explaining that the room’s structure and decor will be stabilized and maintained to prevent further decay and restored to some degree but the wall’s layers of paint will be left as is.
“People think it is so cool,” Jones says. “The majority of the people don’t want to see it restored and looking brand new but left the way it is now.
“People who’ve come here tell us ‘I saw Count Basie here’ and ‘This is the paint that was here 50 years ago when I was here for my prom,’ with tears in their eyes. And they say, ‘Please don’t paint over it.’”
In the 1940s, the building served as a black USO Club and USO Charm School and once was the backdrop for gatherings by the Colored Beauticians Association and Alpha Phi Alpha sorority’s Sweetheart Ball and it even served as a gym — complete with a court on the wooden floor and basketball goals attached to the balcony — for Dunbar High School, which had no gym of its own.
A DREAM REALIZED
McCoy recalls buying the building for $20,000 (which she borrowed from her mother who said resignedly at the time, “Well, I’ll never see that 20,000 again”) in 1990.
“It was November and the rainy season had just begun and every night I’d lie awake in bed wondering if the roof would make it through the next rain,” she says.
On Thanksgiving weekend of that year, two workers removed and replaced the rotting section of the roof.
Early on, McCoy campaigned to sell the building to the black community, to no avail; there were no takers.
She could have gotten her mother’s money back — she was offered $18,000 by an antique brick company to demolish it for the bricks.
Instead, McCoy invested $250,000 to restore the first floor and put her Arkansas Flag and Banner store there in 1991. Years later, she restored the second floor, placing her offices, sewing room, and space for printing banners there.
Since then, McCoy has bought the rest of the property on the block.
Last year, the ballroom’s floor was reconstructed with a plywood subfloor that cost about $60,000.
“These guys were on the floor on their hands and knees; at every joist, they had to level it,” McCoy says.
Other work already completed in the ballroom includes replacing all of the broken and missing windows, rewiring a portion of the space, re-stabilizing the two sections of balcony seats, and adding restrooms.
Friends of Dreamland Ballroom was formed in July 2009, and in August 2010, Jones was hired as its executive director. The nonprofit has a dozen members on its board.
“I signed on to work here without having seen the ballroom,” Jones says. But she had fallen in love with the building years earlier.
“When my husband and I were going to Arkansas Tech in Russellville and planning to get married here in Little Rock, I would drive over here and see the building sitting there with the big hole in the roof and wish someone would save it. Then one day, I drove by and saw it had a new roof and I was so relieved. Little did I know I would end up working here,” Jones says.
“It was hard to give tours up here before we got the floor,” she says. “The floor was so soft it felt like you could fall through at any time.”
Last winter, restrooms were added to the ballroom space.
Initial fundraising began in spring 2009 with concerts in the Doc’s Pool Hall section of the building and in 2010, summer drive-in movies began being shown in the parking lot.
In January this year, the first public event was held in the ballroom — a concert by the Big Cats. Other concerts have been held there since and a Prohibition-themed “A Night at the Speakeasy” was held earlier this month.
WAITING IN THE WINGS
McCoy estimates she has already spent about $1 million on the building and estimates it’ll take another million to complete it.
Her wish list for the ballroom? Central heating and air conditioning (in its current state, events can be held only in the spring and fall), completion of the electrical wiring, a kitchen, an elevator and a museum display to share the ballroom’s history.
McCoy’s vision extends beyond the walls of her own building.
“I’d like to see Mosaic Templars building [three blocks east] and Dreamland to serve as the two bookends for this Ninth Street corridor and see it revitalized with a real family feel to it,” she says.
Several who’ve learned of efforts to revive the ballroom support the efforts.
“The Stella Boyle Smith Trust has been our biggest and best sponsor since day one,” McCoy says.
Others in the community supporting the effort include the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Philander Smith College and Arkansas Baptist College.
But there are still many in the community unaware of the ballroom or its storied history.
“It’s such a jewel but so many don’t realize it’s here,” Jones says.
SPREADING THE WORD
Efforts continue with a campaign in which supporters can buy a brick for $100 that will be engraved with their name and used on a walkway outside the building.
And a fundraiser — a dancing competition, “Dancing Into Dreamland,” presented by the Stella Boyle Smith Trust, is set for 6 to 9 p.m., Nov. 4 at the Governor’s Mansion. Lawrence Hamilton will host the event, which will include a silent auction, refreshments, an hour-long dance contest, and a 30-minute performance by Hamilton. The winners of the contest, chosen by a panel of judges, receive a trip for four to New Orleans including dinner and hotel in the French Quarter. Tickets are $100 and can be bought at the website below.
Also helping to spread the word is local author Berna J. Love, who has published a history of Ninth Street titled End of the Line and has written another book, Temple of Dreams: Taborian Hall and Its Dreamland Ballroom set to be published by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
“I started on it in 2004,” Love says. “It includes both historical research but also a lot of personal recollections from individuals.”
For tickets or more information on renting the ballroom or taking a private tour of it or Taborian Hall, visit dreamland ballroom.org or call (501) 255-5700.
Night at the Speakeasy Will Help Stock the Bar at Dreamland Ballroom by Karen Martin, inArkansas.com
Oct 10, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Events, Press Releases
Night at the Speakeasy is an evening of cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, music, dancing and more from 6-9 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 12) at Dreamland Ballroom, 800 W. Ninth St., Little Rock.
To increase the clandestine feeling of an illegal drinking establishment during Prohibition, participants are encouraged to dress in 1920s-era attire (fedoras, flapper dresses), climb the stairs to the Dreamland Ballroom, and whisper the password to get in.
Cover charge is a bottle of wine valued at $25 or greater or a $25 eTicket (to purchase click here). Tax donation forms will be available.
RSVP to friends@dreamlandballroom.org or (501) 255-5700 to get the password.
Dreamland Ballroom is located in Taborian Hall, the only remaining historic building on West Ninth Street, which showcased legendary musicians of the 1930s. Proceeds from Night at the Speakeasy will benefit its restoration.
For more information visit www.DreamlandBallroom.org and click on Events.
Tags: 1920s, bar, drinks, little rock, music, news, speakeasy, stock, tickets, wine
Dreamland Ballroom on TV: Video Footage!
Aug 18, 2011 Dreamland on TV, Events
Dreamland Ballroom on TV: Below are 3 videos that feature Amber Jones, our Executive Director, promoting Dreamland and Drive-In events from Summer 2011. Enjoy!
Dreamland Ballroom: History & Drive-In:
Dreamland Ballroom: Tuskegee Airmen and Drive-In
Dreamland Ballroom: Drive-In and This Place Matters
Also, you can check us out on our new YouTube® Channel for the latest videos all about the Dream!
Tags: drive-in, history, little rock, news, this place matters, tuskegee, video, youtube
Outdoor Movies Raise Awareness for Dreamland Ballroom
Jun 10, 2011 Dreamland in Print, Dreamland on TV, Events
By Katherina-Marie Yancy
(KATV) In its heyday, the Dreamland Ballroom was the place for African Americans to hang out during segregation. Decades later, organizers with Friends of Dreamland are focused on preserving and celebrating the building and its rich history.
Starting Thursday, they’re hosting drive in movies that highlight its history.
It’s the last building of its kind still standing. A place that during so much heartache people of color were able to let loose and forget about the thin line they couldn’t cross when out in society.
Many people enjoying the drive in movie on the side of the historic Arkansas Flag and Banner building have never even been to one. Its small things like this, Friends of Dreamland want to highlight.
Just a few floors up history lives. Built nearly a century ago by the black community, it’s preservation at its finest. The ballroom hasn’t been restored since the days when musicians like Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and Nate King Cole sang and people put all their worries aside and danced the night away.
Rychy St Vincent found out he was related to music legends after he became a jazz singer. He says, “My first opportunity to go on that stage, I talked about being on the wood, standing on the original wood of that stage where people like Count Basie, Nate King Cole and Billy Holiday and all these other greats. All these jazz greats stood on that stage, played and sang on that stage, the same exact wood I had an opportunity to come to and I’m jazzed about it.”
Amber Jones heads the Friends of Dreamland. They received a 1.3 million dollar estimate to restore the ballroom, but maintain its integrity. She says, “Too difficult to put into words, but it’s just a touchstone for the community and for it to be here and be in use and be used just as it was in the last 90-years, it’s the perfect use for this space and we’d like to see people come back to it and new people come to it.”
It’s not just about the building; they’re also compiling interviews from people who attended those dances.
Jones says they’re applying for grants because renting out the facility isn’t a significant money maker. They hope to have enough money to get started in about 2- years.
Drive in Movie Schedule 8:30 p.m.:
June 16: Goonies
June 23: The Tuskegee Airmen
June 30: The Blues Brothers (R)
Blazing Saddles at Dreamland Drive-In Tonight
Jun 10, 2011 Dreamland in Print, Events
By Karen Martin
InArkansas.com
Updated: June 9, 2011, 6:24am
Friends of Dreamland Ballroom invite you to a screening of the 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles at sundown tonight (around 8:30 p.m.), the first of four drive-in movies in the parking lot behind Taborian Hall (Arkansas Flag and Banner building) at 800 W. Ninth St., Little Rock.
The Friends of Dreamland, dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history of the Dreamland Ballroom and Taborian Hall, have selected this year’s movies to highlight the history of the building and Ninth Street. Arkansas Baptist College history professor Edmond Davis will give a brief overview of each movie prior to their start.
Blazing Saddles (rated R), deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress, satirizes racism. Count Basie, who performed several times at the Dreamland Ballroom, and his band have a cameo in the film.
The screenings are projected on the back of the historic Arkansas Flag and Banner building, also known as Taborian Hall, with the audio broadcast through your car radio.
Hot dogs, soft drinks, bottled water, ice cream and Diamond Bear Brewery beer will be on sale.
During its heyday, the ballroom at Taborian Hall played host to Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong and his orchestra, B.B. King, Duke Ellington, Arkansas natives Al Hibbler and Louis Jordan, Nat King Cole and his trio, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzie Gillespie.
Admission is free. Donations are accepted for both cars and walkups (bring lawn chairs). Proceeds from the movie series go toward restoration of the ballroom. For more information click here.
Here’s the rest of the screening schedule:
June 16: Goonies (PG-13) A band of children from the “Goon Docks” neighborhood of Astoria, Ore., hoping to save their homes from demolition, go in search of the buried treasure of One-Eyed Willie, a legendary 17th-century pirate.
June 23: The Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995 HBO television movie based on the exploits of the first African American combat pilots in the United States Army Air Force that fought in World War II. Laurence Fishburne stars. Milton Crenchaw, an original Tuskegee Airman from Little Rock, will share his experiences before the movie.
June 30: The Blues Brothers (R) Jake (John Belushi) and his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) take on “a mission from God” to save from foreclosure the Catholic orphanage in which they grew up. It features musical numbers by R&B and soul singers Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and John Lee Hooker, who performed at Dreamland.
For more information call (501) 255-5700.
Dreamland Ballroom: 1930s Love Affair
Mar 17, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Dreamland in Print, Events
From – Arkansas Free Press
Written by Tracy Crain
Mar 16, 2011 at 07:45 PM
“You will fall in love with it,” Kerry McCoy, owner of Arkansas Flag and Banner, says lightheartedly. “The Dreamland Ballroom is the smallest performing theatre on the Chitlin Circuit. The heyday for this type of event was back in the 30s, with performers like Bebe King, Jordan, and Red Fox. The list is incredible.”
She continued, “You come out to Dreamland and you are going to find it exactly like it was in the 1930s. We have not done one thing to destroy its character.”
If seeing is believing, a good chance to find out more about the Dreamland Ballroom is this weekend, March 19, during the “Bringing Back the Ballroom” Concert and Dance Party, Big Smith & Johnson’s Crossroad Event.
“It’s a great place to come if you like good music, a great atmosphere, and cool people,” McCoy said. “I first fell in love with the Taborian Hall from its outside appearance, a stately, three story, red brick building, standing alone on I-630, abandoned, with a huge hole in the roof, letting in the sun and rain. I always envisioned, my company, Arkansas Flag and Banner, housed in a building of such grandeur.”
The FlagandBanner.com headquarters and storefront now reside in the same building as the historic Taborian Hall and Dreamland Ballroom, which has since been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior and Arkansas Historic Preservation Society.
Doors for the “Bringing Back the Ballroom” Concert open at 7p.m.. Show starts at 7:30p.m. Tickets are available at the door or can be purchased online at http://www.dreamlandballroom.com/
Located at 800 West Ninth Street in the historic district of Little Rock, individuals can get additional information by phoning (501) 255-5700.
Overachievers in overalls
Mar 16, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Dreamland in Print, Events
Big Smith plays authentic and intellectual hillbilly music … No, really.
By Shea Stewart
Sync Weekly
The Springfield, Mo.-based band Big Smith is familiar to metro music fans. They’re those five family members — either brothers or cousins — and one non-relative who play “hillbilly” music. (Certainly not bluegrass. At least not in the traditional sense of the genre. There are no drums in “real” bluegrass.)
They are a familiar sight because they play a Little Rock club two to three times a year, packing fans in and shaking them on down with their high-spirited hillbilly music.
The band — brothers Mark (guitar) and Jody Bilyeu (mandolin), and Rik Thomas (ukulele, mandolin and banjo) and Bill Thomas (upright bass), and cousin Jay Williamson (washboard and trap set) along with Molly Healey (fiddle and cello) — mix a little old-time mountain, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, country and blues in their powder keg and set it on fire. The resulting musical explosion is raucous acoustic music, a hillbilly hoedown as craggy as the Ozarks but still quite charming due to the group’s harmonies, with each member singing. It’s music that is joyous and unconstrained. Authentic, but highly literary and slightly academic, but not in a boring, stuffy way. It’s just … intellectual hillbilly music. Most of the members of Big Smith either are academics (Jody Bilyeu has a doctor of English) or come from an academic background. And the band’s lyrics can be poetic. Tunes such as “John Elvis” could stand alone as a short story, with its tale of the dead man writing “a fair line when his wits were around.”
So yeah, it’s hillbilly music. It possesses all the rugged passion of the mountains it escapes from, and it’s as quick-witted as it is quickly moving, with an added dose of Ozarks mojo.
But the band’s music is not bluegrass music. It’s an entirely different creature.
“We used to allow people to think we were a bluegrass band so we could get hired at bluegrass festivals,” said a laughing Jody Bilyeu. “And occasionally a bluegrass festival still likes our stuff, and knows what it is. But we have percussion, and we don’t write about driving mules and living in the Blue Mountains of Kentucky because we didn’t do any of that. We don’t have the repertoire and we don’t sort of have the bluegrass attitude, and we certainly … well, not certainly but it’s close — don’t have the bluegrass instrumentation. We got percussion.
“We’re not a bluegrass band so the hillbilly label was sort of available as a term that applied to the music we make and the region so it was sort of easy. In terms of radio genre, I’m sure you could stick us anywhere from Americana to singer/songwriter or wherever.”
Whatever label it’s saddled with, the music of Big Smith has discovered a fanbase. Formed in the fall of 1996, the band grew out of Mark Bilyeu’s weekly gig as a solo performer, and Big Smith has slowly branched out from its Springfield base, touring as far as the West Coast and Europe, and transforming into a Midwest or Midsouth institution (depending on what region the Missouri Ozarks belong to).
“Mark started as a solo act playing hillbilly music, which was crazy at the time because no one was doing that, and he just started adding [members],” Jody Bilyeu said. “They had run out of instruments by the time I’d joined which is why I’m playing mandolin.
“The way our family works is we had a mandolin lying around the house so that’s how that happened.”
But what the band hasn’t done a lot of is recording its sound in the studio. Beyond the 1998 self-titled debut, the 2000 release Big Rock and their newest, Roots, Shoots, and Wings, the band only has two other albums, both live; Gig and Live at Lonestar (a gospel set paying tribute to Big Smith’s musical roots). Ten years passed between Big Rock and last year’s Roots, Shoots, and Wings. (The band did record the two-disc children’s album Hay to Zzzzzz: Hillbilly Songs for Kids in the interim.)
That’s slowly changing, though. With the addition of Bill Thomas in 2007 and Healey in 2008, Big Smith has become a “full-time” band, touring usually Thursdays through Sundays, which affords members time with their families. And the band is finishing up a follow-up to Roots, Shoots, and Wings.
“We’re on the verge of having a new, studio CD,” Jody Bilyeu said. “All the tracking and stuff is done. We’re just at the mastering stage, and we’re pretty excited about it.”
No release date has been offered, and the band hasn’t “set a deadline or anything like that,” Jody Bilyeu said.
“We’re just making sure everything is done, and we’re happy with it,” he said. “That’s our schedule.
“We had the doldrums … not producing an adult CD for a long time, and we sort of did some things to address that and get the creative juices flowing again. We’re ready to hit the ground running and keep the creative output up.”
SEE THE SHOW:
Saturday’s Bringing Back the Ballroom benefit at the Dreamland Ballroom in downtown Little Rock is headlined by Big Smith. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the music at 7:30 p.m. with opener Johnson’s Crossroad, an Asheville, N.C., band that plays self-described “Appalachian soul,” a collection of bluegrass, old country and Appalachian old time. Big Smith takes the stage at 9 p.m. Following the two bands there will be an Old School Soul Dance Party with Seth Baldy. Tickets are $10 in advance and $14 day of show.
A musical taste of New Orleans in Little Rock
Feb 24, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Dreamland in Print, Events
FROM: SYNC Weekly
101 Runners play Mardi Gras celebration at Dreamland.
By Shea Stewart
“We’re going to bring a little New Orleans up your way.”
This is how Chris “BTO” Jones begins the interview. The percussionist — more specifically conga player — for 101 Runners is speaking via telephone from the Crescent City. His statement is not a boast. Just fact.
At the time of the call, Fat Tuesday is still three weeks off, and Jones is tying up loose ends. The 101 Runners are leaving the city shortly for a touring jaunt before returning to New Orleans and the maddening carnival season leading up to March 8: the actual Mardi Gras day. But Jones is “trying to get it all together” because he knows he’ll return to New Orleans “smack dab in the middle of Mardi Gras,” he says.
“What you don’t get done now you pretty much put off until after Mardi Gras.”
101 Runners is a band that sounds like it’s been around for ages but in reality was only formed in early 2006. It’s a mix of sounds: Heavy on the titanic punch of New Orleans funk but combined with mesmeric Mardi Gras Indian chants. It’s a group of musicians led by Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, a former member of the Wild Magnolias tribe.
“I’ve known Monk forever,” Jones says. “He’s kind of a one-shot guy that does a lot of other stuff with a lot of other people. … But he’s never had a steady band to work with. He’s been with us since day one. He’s been fully committed to helping us out. He’s like a thousand-year-old man who’s younger than anyone else.
“He’s like a shaman. The man’s really a spiritual leader in a lot of ways.”
Beyond Boudreaux, the group also includes such New Orleans music luminaries as Lionel Batiste Jr. (the original drummer for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band) and AJ Mallory of the Rebirth Brass Band.
Jones calls 101 Runners’ music “Mardi Gras Indian funk.”
“That’s enough for people to hear it in New Orleans and understand what it is, and enough for people from out of town to hear and wonder what the hell are we talking about,” he says.
The band’s tunes are Indian classics such as “Injuns Here Dey Come” and “Let’s Go Get ‘Em,” Boudreaux signatures such as “Shotgun Joe” and “Shallow Water,” and other New Orleans traditional tunes. The music possesses a spiritual rhythm to it, sounds moving the soul and feet. Jones says 101 Runners’ music is “chant-and-response music with funk undercurrents.” “Dance-and-trance folk” and “really groove oriented.”
“We take a song, and we bring it full term. A lot of the Indian songs are very linear. You can really get the hypnotic effect of the music if you hold on to it for 10 or 15 minutes.”
101 Runners’ current stretch of dates is three late-February dates in Arkansas before two weekend-before-Fat-Tuesday dates, including a Friday before Mardi Gras day date at the legendary Maple Leaf. (Technically, one of the shows is a Thursday night show, but the weekend starts on Thursday in New Orleans, if it ever ends.)
A return to Maple Leaf is a true visit back home for 101 Runners. The fabled, Oak Street music venue in the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans was where the 101 Runners started. The band first played Maple Leaf in January 2006.
The club owner wanted Jones to form a band to play the Krewe of Oak ball at Maple Leaf for the neighborhood New Orleans Mardi Gras krewe. Jones, who had returned to New Orleans in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina, agreed, but he wanted a little more. He wanted the band’s first gig to be for Twelfth Night before playing the ball.
“I wanted them to realize it was more than just a one-off gig,” he says.
Naming the group the 101 Runners after the unaffiliated Indians who form an ad hoc group for Mardi Gras celebrations, the group played that first gig. Then things exploded.
“I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time as far as putting a band together; I was just putting a band together for a party,” he says. “What I did was put together the best band I could.
“It was only by the second show where I looked around and said, ‘Geez, how did this happen? I just put together a band.’ By that time it was a 14-piece band. How the hell did I put together this band? I suckered myself into it without even knowing it. It’s like I played a trick on myself.”
The band played the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and Jones and the rest of the Runners knew they had stumbled onto something special.
“We played Jazz Fest, and it was really combustible,” Jones says. “The music was really hot right from the beginning. It was really amazing.”
Five years gone, 101 Runners is a fixture of the New Orleans music scene. And in the past few months, the band has slowly started to branch out. A European tour was undertaken in 2010, and now the band is playing Arkansas for the first time.
“I think five years later we are starting to realize what we did was what we were supposed to do at the time,” Jones says. “We realized that this was born from the storm in a strange way. It is uniquely different than what was going on beforehand. It kind of happened by accident.”
SEE THE SHOW:
Arkansas Convention & Events Marketing presents a Mardi Gras Celebration with the music of 101 Runners at the Dreamland Ballroom on Saturday with the show starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $35 with $5 from every ticket going to the Friends of Dreamland. Costume attire is encouraged — but not required — with the most decorated contest winner receiving a 101 Runners gift assortment and an opportunity to dance onstage.
In the Ballroom – The Calendar is Filling up Fast!
Feb 17, 2011 Dreamland Ballroom, Events
Now that we have a solid foundation (New Floor) the calendar is filling up with great events. There is something for everyone.
If you have an event you would like to have in the Dreamland ballroom give Amber Jones, our Executive Director a call at 501-255-5700 or email friends@dreamlandballroom.org.
UPCOMING EVENTS! -
Sandwiching In History Tour by Arkansas Historic Preservation Program
Friday, February 18th, Noon
Bring your Lunch!
101 Runners Mardi Gras Indian Funk Band Party
Saturday, February 26 · 7:00pm – 11:00pm
In the Ballroom!
Buy Tickets Now!
“Bringing Back The Ballroom”
Concert and Dance Party
Big Smith and Johnson’s Crossroad
Saturday March 19th 2011
Doors at 7:00pm Show at 7:30pm
Tickets: $10.00 presale, $14.00 day of show
Buy Tickets Now!
Runaway Planet
Saturday March 26th 2011
Doors open at 2pm Show 3-5pm
All ages, $5 Cover
Tickets sold at the door!
Nat Baldwin Music and Multimedia Event
Tuesday, April 19th
All ages, $5 Cover
Doors open at 6pm
Tickets sold at the door!