POP MUSIC REVIEW : Serving Up Musical Gumbo

The Southern California Cajun & Zydeco Festival has been around long enough now--six years--that it seems overdue for the kind of criticism that greets other such annual events, specifically that it’s become too big, too disorganized, has lost sight of its reason for being, or in some other way just ain’t what it used to be.

Well, the blahs haven’t gained admittance to this festival yet, as nearly 5,000 fans who turned out Saturday and Sunday at Rainbow Lagoon Park can attest. Indeed, this is one music and cultural celebration that seems to keep getting better.

This year, for the first time, the event took on the flavor of a full-fledged (if still modest) festival (as opposed an all-day concert) thanks to the addition of several workshops that explored the people and the customs behind the ebullient music indigenous to southwestern Louisiana.

Perhaps because the fest has been in the same location for three years now, the performances ran precisely on schedule, food booths offering Cajun and Creole specialties were more plentiful and varied than ever, and so were activities designed for the kids. Ironically, the one man whose presence seemed to dominate this year’s fest wasn’t there: veteran Cajun fiddler Dewey Balfa could not perform as scheduled; he is extremely ill with cancer and hospitalized back home.

But most of the musicians who did appear acknowledged Balfa in words and music, as it was he who largely is credited with sparking interest in Cajun music outside Louisiana when he appeared with his brothers at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. And, it was at Balfa’s urging that promoters added the workshops--common to other, older Cajun and zydeco festivals--to the Southern California fest.

Fittingly, the workshop on Cajun fiddle music that Balfa had agreed to conduct was led in his absence by accordionist-fiddler Steve Riley, whose Mamou Playboys band was making its first Southland appearance.

Riley is a protege of Balfa’s who started playing with the legendary fiddler when Riley was just 15. He and the fiddler from his own band, David Greely, discussed and illustrated the twin fiddle work, gossamer vocal harmonies and insistently danceable rhythms that characterize the Balfas’ contribution to Cajun music.

Accordion builder, player and raconteur Marc Savoy led a workshop on the unique charms of the 10-button diatonic Cajun accordion, while his wife, guitarist-singer-historian Ann Savoy, conducted a seminar in Cajun song lyrics. In the opening workshop, on the differences between Cajun and Creole cuisine, Phyllis Levitt examined how those differences reflect the two close but distinct cultures of southern Louisiana.

The workshops added a deeper dimension than sheer musical enjoyment, and provided extra incentive and reward for two-day attendance, since it was impossible to hear all the performers and take in all the workshops in a single day.

As for the music, the scale tipped this year slightly in favor of Cajun over zydeco, the pumped-up, blues-based music that is the Creoles’ answer to Cajun.

Riley, though still in his early 20s, hewed closely to Cajun music tradition in his early afternoon set, drawing from the Balfa Brothers’ songbook as well as from such Cajun music cornerstones as Amedee Ardoin and Austin Pitre.

Riley’s fleet accordion work paved the way for a set that glided and soared over melodies. Riley’s band takes the instrumental foundation of Cajun music for the last 75 years or so--accordion, fiddle and triangle--and adds acoustic guitar and drums. The absence of the additional rhythmic anchoring that an electric bass provides freed the musicians to reach new heights of grace and elegance.

It was back-to-back traditionalism when Riley was followed by the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, playing the festival for the first time. In accordionist Marc Savoy and fiddler Michael Doucet (on loan from his band Beausoleil, which closed the show both days), the Savoy-Doucet Band has what probably are the two finest traditional players of those instruments. Though Doucet, when playing with Beausoleil, is capable of flights into jazz, country and territories unknown, he knows how to rein in his experimenting when playing in the traditional style.

With guitarist/singer Ann Savoy, the group doesn’t have a stereotypically gorgeous voice but one perfectly suited to bringing out the plain, unadorned emotions that fill Cajun songs, from heartbreak to revelry.

At one point, she joked that “this song is about sorrow, which is pretty unusual in Cajun music.” Yes, and crawfish usually aren’t found in the Louisiana mud. In fact, it is the juxtaposition of stunningly bleak stories with music as jubilant as humans can make it that gives Cajun music its bittersweet appeal.

Cajun gave way to zydeco with successive sets by John Delafose & the Eunice Playboys and Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas. Rooted more in basic 12-bar blues song structure, and less on the linear storytelling that typifies Cajun songwriting, zydeco depends on the quality of the singer and on whatever sparks instrumental soloists can add if it is to be more than just bouncy music for dancing.

Delafose delivered more in those key areas than younger Nathan Williams, a singer and accordionist who is gaining in proficiency but who remains years--perhaps decades--away from the kind of vocal and instrumental treks of wonder that made Clifton Chenier the standard by which all zydeco followers continue to be measured.

Delafose, on the other hand, has a wonderfully rich voice and can maintain variety in his accordion work by alternating between the Cajun one-row button, the three-row six button, and piano keyboard accordions, depending on his mood.

He even picked up a fiddle Saturday during part of the show when he turned the mike and accordion over to his heir-apparent son, Geno. Perhaps he was trying to prove that an old dog can learn new tricks (even if his rudimentary fiddle work suggested that some canines may take a bit longer to master certain tricks). But Delafose seemed to lose energy halfway through his hourlong sets, which may be the real reason he is so intent on handing over the spotlight to his earnest but less accomplished son.

Beausoleil closed things out with the most eclectic, most consistently invigorating performances of each day. Without sacrificing purity of style, this connoisseur’s band incorporated the drive of rock, the improvisational creativity of jazz and the danceability of Cajun and zydeco.

All that was especially welcome on the heels of Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas’ excessive reliance on one-chord vamping, which wound up sounding like so much musical mush. Razor-sharp as ever, Beausoleil gave a refreshing reminder that a great band is like a great gumbo, creating a balanced mixture of tastes and textures that never loses the flavor of any individual ingredient.