about

Yamomanem  came together a couple of weeks after  Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.   I watched on TV as news trickled out of Nola, Some of the first words my oldest son ever spoke were "superdome broken" as he watched us glued to the TV looking for some sign of something or someone familiar, destroyed or intact, dead or alive.  In New Orleans  I did secondlines, and jazz- but it wasnt really the focus of music I was into-just stuff every New Orleans musician ends up doing to make gigs. Through the fresh perspective of Katrina; it occurred to me that there may not be much secondline, that maybe people would be so spread out into the country and maybe New Orleans wouldnt come back.  I immediately began recruiting all the people I knew in the DC area who did New Orleans music. Most of the cats who really cared about the sound  were rooted in Dixieland and Traditional styles of playing- which was pretty new to a guy who's experience was primarily parades, funerals and crawfish berls- So we learned a bit from each other. What we end up with is a repetoire rooted in the 20s and 30s  hot jazz styles, but, true to New Orleans style, we use electric guitars, funky percussion and like to play the secondline beats of the street too. Not really a brass band, not really a dixieland band, Yamomanem is true to the New Orleans creed as stated by songster Mac Rebennack: In New Orleans we dont play the music- we play WITH the music.