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MARDI GRAS

Professor Longhair, photographs by Michael P. Smith © The Historic New Orleans Collection. Michael P. Smith, who died in 2008, documented the music, culture and folklife of New Orleans. He photographed every New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival from its beginning in 1970 until his retirement in 2004.

Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Barbara George, Ernie K-Doe, Benny Spellman — how long is the list? Fess’s magic lay in his transfusion of the rhythms of feet on the street into a piano style that sounded like people parading. We turn now to 1960, and “Carnival Time,” sung by 20-year-old Al Johnson in a joyous high octane with three saxophones roaring out of the box: The Green Room is smokin’

And the Plaza’s burnin’ down Throw my baby out the window And let the joint burn down, All because it’s Carnival time Whoa, it’s Carnival time ... And everybody’s havin’ fun.

“Claiborne used to be our street for Carnival,” recalls Johnson, a sprightly 77, riding the clouds of local celebrity. “Carnival is fun time. I remember we used to walk from our house in the Lower Ninth Ward to St. Claude Avenue, and go across the bridge — they didn’t have a Claiborne bridge at the time.We partied all down Claiborne. The joints were jamming, packed, like I call ’em in the song.The ‘baby’ is your girlfriend.”

Well I’m goin’ to New Orleans, I’ve got my ticket in my hands… When I get to New Orleans, I wanna see the Zulu King Way down in New Orleans Down on Rampart and Dumaine… Gonna make it my standing place Until I see the Zulu Queen.

Rampart and Dumaine (across from today’s Louis Armstrong Park) was a 1950s main spot to watch the Zulu parade. On that corner, also, stood J & M Recording Studio, where the venerable Cosimo Matassa recorded Fess and a legion of R&B all-stars — Allen Toussaint, the Nevilles, Mac Rebennack before he became

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