Pop Music Review : Rare Display of Delafose’s Zydeco Mastery at Museum

John Delafose has played a lot of places in his 40-some years fronting a zydeco band: dance halls, dive bars, house parties, barbecues, fish fries, church basements and giant festivals before tens of thousands of fans.

But Wednesday was the first time the veteran singer and accordion player could recall having played an art museum.

He and his Eunice Playboys launched the Long Beach Museum of Art’s annual summer concert series with a typically bouncy performance that provided an interesting complement to the art on the walls, a couple of dozen quirky works by Jonathan Borofsky. (Before the music, an announcer invited concert-goers to tour the exhibition at intermission--something you don’t hear at most zydeco performances.)

Among Borofsky’s Expressionist-Surrealist works on view is a piece reflecting his respect for Lech Walesa. According to the wall label, “Borofsky asserts that artists are also involved in remaking the world, and that art and politics are part of the same conflicted realm.” That’s the same argument Nietzsche once made, to which Schopenhauer, I believe it was, responded:

“Shut up and dance.”

And that advice was fairly easy to follow, given the infectious rhythms laid down by the band.

The setting, a grassy courtyard between two brick buildings that house the museum and gift shop, is casual and picturesque, overlooking the ocean and framed by palm and bottlebrush trees. The space was packed by nearly 1,000 people.

Anyone familiar with Delafose’s recent history wouldn’t have been surprised when he turned virtually the entire first set over to his son, Geno. Indeed, given that John underwent major heart surgery last year, fans probably should count themselves lucky to hear him playing at all anymore. According to concert promoter and booking agent David Gaar, John has, at 55, all but retired from touring.

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Delafose the Younger is an engaging front man and an increasingly accomplished accordionist. As a singer, he lacks a voice with the richness and character of his father’s. That may come with time.

Once John took the stage Wednesday, his playing and singing was understandably restrained. He engaged in enough accordion squeezing to keep the dancers going but rarely displayed the kind of melodic and rhythmic wizardry that can make zydeco soar.

Toward the end of the second set, however, during the R & B swing tune “Make Me Yours,” he managed some transcendent vocal moments. And he finally generated some instrumental sparks with an exceptionally zippy run-through of the zydeco national anthem, “Les Haricots Son Pas Sales.”

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By that time, a good portion of those in the crowd--whose picnic baskets with wine and cheese gave the proceedings the aura of a Hollywood Bowl for roots music fans--were up and two-stepping. Some even tried jamming the square peg of the Electric Slide line dance through the round hole of a zydeco waltz.

I guess that’s what happens when art and zydeco are part of the same conflicted realm. Next up in the museum’s weekly series is Afro-Nicaraguan reggae singer Raymond Myers, who plays Wednesday.