Down By The Riverside: An Evening with American Routes

Anthropocene River Campus Public Programs welcomes Campus participants and collaborators and the public to gather together for a slate of experiences open to all. Programming includes offerings by Campus participants, members of the Anthropocene Working Group, and additional Gulf South artists, scholars, and scientists from Tulane University and beyond.

An evening with American Routes, hosted by Nick Spitzer and featuring Tom McDermott, the Doucet Brothers, Doc Hawley, and Dr. Michael White with Topsy Chapman

Friday, November 15, 2019 New Orleans Jazz Market 6:30pm Reception (Invitation only) 7:30pm Doors open 7:45pm American Routes concert (Registration required. Email anthropocene@tulane.edu.) 10:00pm Afterparty with DJ Brice Nice

American Routes concert The Mississippi River has produced great cultural icons in jazz, blues, gospel, rockabilly, roots rock and soul and many other music styles near its banks and levees. “Down by the Riverside” sug- gests many cultures along the River, as well as the waterway as the site of exploration, travel, baptism, floods, agriculture, commerce and more.

The concert is being recorded for public radio airing in 2020 and will feature artists from the cafe au lait portion of the River and its connected watershed of bayous and backswamps in South Louisiana. The historic French presence will be represented by the continuity of the Cajun tradition of Michael and David Doucet where French fiddle tunes met the American guitar and German accordion. Work on and navigation of the River in the 19th and part of the 20th century will be commented upon by the retired captain of the Natchez steamboat, Clarke “Doc” Hawley. Captain Hawley has made over 100 roundtrips to St Paul, Minnesota and many other journeys on the Missouri, Ohio and Monongahela rivers. We’ll conclude with Dr. Michael White and band playing New Orleans traditional jazz, joined by singer Topsy Chapman, representing creativity and improvisation of Creoles and African Americans in music that set an aesthetic standard for global freedom and person expression born in the Mississippi great city of dignity and flamboyance, social aid and pleasure to this day.

Both Michael Doucet and Michael White are recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship of the National Endowment for the Arts. The radio concert accompaniment will be provided by Tom McDermott.

Down by the Riverside is the final evening of Anthropocene River Campus: The Human Delta (November 10-16, 2019) and is funded by the initiative #WunderbarTogether, with additional support from New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and Tulane University.

For more information, please contact Regina Cairns at 504-314-2854 or rcairns@tulane.edu.