Congo Square: Remembering Jazz at Lincoln Center's Return to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
Andre Kimo Stone Guess on producing the Congo Square concert, the first major musical event in New Orleans after Katrina.
In my previous post, the interview focused on telling the story of the Higher Ground benefit concert, which raised millions of dollars for New Orleans musicians in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Following this, the focus of Jazz at Lincoln Center shifted from raising money to a return to New Orleans. Six months after the storm, on April 23, 2006, that homecoming became a reality with a performance of Wynton Marsalis’s Congo Square in its namesake location, featuring a special collaboration with Ghanaian traditional drummer Yacub Addy and his ensemble Odadaa.
Congo Square is a space where, in the 18th and 19th centuries, enslaved and free African people were allowed to gather on Sundays to practice their music, dance, and cultural traditions, most prominently their drumming traditions. This weekly tradition allowed for the preservation of more of African culture in New Orleans than in other areas of the country. It is widely considered the birthplace of jazz.
My father, Andre Kimo Stone Guess, was a driving force behind the production of the concert in Congo Square. It was among the first large-scale musical productions in the city following Hurricane Katrina. As a twelve year old, I was also working on the concert as well as a Score Reading Assistant for the New Orleans public television production crew.
In the following conversation, my father reflects on the effort and the personal meaning behind producing that concert in Congo Square.
Q: What was your role within the production of Congo Square?
Andre:
Wynton had decided to write this piece with Yacub Addy based upon Congo Square. I remember talking to him about it and saying that we needed to do the piece in New Orleans. Wynton hadn’t done anything on a large scale in his hometown, particularly with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, so the wheels in my head started to turn. So I said to him, “Man, we got to do this in New Orleans. We got to do this in Congo Square.”
When Wynton is conceptualizing a piece, he’s not really thinking about things like where it might be performed, he’s concentrating on writing the music. I used to come up with all kinds of crazy ideas, half the time he wasn’t even listening to me because he was busy writing music.
“You know me. I always want to move the needle and get something done. And what I love about Wynton is he never really shut me down on my crazy ideas. I’m sure for most of them he thought to himself that it would never work and that I would either figure that out on my own or move on to the next thing. As long as I didn’t hear from him, “hell no, don't even think about doing that”, I’ll go ahead and try to do it. Some of my ideas were crazy enough that I did get a few of those “hell no don’t even think about it”. But not this time.
I also knew that because of his relationship with the city, that he had left so many years ago, even if he was thinking that he would have liked for it to be performed in Congo Square, and I’m sure that it crossed his mind as a possibility or even a desire, that he would have never outwardly tried to impose his will in that regard.
When I worked with him he never was one to do things that were self serving like that. He would never had said to me “Hey, I want to do this in New Orleans”. If I said that, or if we as the institution said that and worked to make it happen, then that is different.
I wanted him to go back home with the Big band with something really special and this was it.
So when I got his tacit agreement that he was cool with it, I just sprang into action.
So I got David Gibson [Director of Production] and Susan John [Director of Touring], and we planned a three- or four-day trip to New Orleans, talking to schools and people in the city about when we could do this and how we could pull it off.
Q: Was it a residency that you had planned?
Andre:
What we talked about when we first went down there is different than what actually happened. We had talked about being there for an extended residency and going into schools and different things, but of course we weren’t able to do all of that.
Q: When you eventually did have it, it was like six or seven months after Katrina right?
Andre:
Yeah, we were the first big outside public performance after Katrina. I mean given everything that happened and in the wake of what we just did with the Higher Ground Benefit Concert it was s more important than ever for us to go back down there and make this happen. Especially since we were down there doing the initial planning just 3 days before Katrina.
My boss at the time, the late, Derek Gordon - who was in fact from Baton Rouge - and I went to Baton Rouge. We went before either the State Senate or the House and we asked them for some money to do this. I think they gave us like $50,000.
Q: Did working on Congo Square affect the way you think about the connections between West African music and New Orleans music?
Andre:
Yeah, being around Yacub Addy, I was fortunate to have been around them while they were writing the piece. You were up there too. Didn't you go to Wynton's place when they were writing it?
Just being around them and seeing that happen and seeing the negotiation of the different forms, seeing Wynton deal with the rhythm. And seeing all of that unfold with the coming together of all those cultures.
Also seeing Herlin inside of all of that. Seeing him in that environment kindal like unlocked Herlin for me. And I think it unlocked Herlin for himself to a certain extent. He had such freedom, like he was returned to something that he came from.
Herlin was the engine for that big band. And nobody that's played with that big band has ever played with his fire. I mean that brother plays the entire drum kit. Stands, cases, boxes. If it’s in striking distance he’s going to make music with it.
There was a thing I would do with Herlin. For most of the gigs over the years I’d stand off to the side of the stage where the audience couldn’t see me and dance. Herlin would pick up on it, throwing in rhythmic hits and accents, responding to me. He’d indulge my little moves and incorporate them into his playing, just to let me know I was part of it.
Standing on the side of the stage over the years, watching him with that band, I saw what an incredible musician he is and how rhythmically he just charged and drove that band.
There are a couple of different things that stand out for me in terms of Herlin's brilliance and rhythmic brilliance. He was the MD for the Monk show with Savion Glover. Savion was on his tap instrument and Herlin was on his tambourine and they were trading with each other. And then with Congo Square to see him bringing the American drum to the African drumming and see them incorporated together was just ridiculous.
Q: What was the concert like? How was it received?
Andre:
It was like performing in a third world country, but it was liberating. The people loved it, especially the musicians who came out. It was like they were being returned to some sense of normalcy for just a few moments in time.
There was a lot going on. The Higher Ground benefit, with all those stars, was one of the easiest things I ever did. This one wasn’t exactly hard or laborious, but there was a lot that had to happen to make it work. There was no time to relax. Not even during the concert. Like I said, it was like producing a concert in a third world country. We had to bring everything with us.
Q: What memories stand out to you the most from this particular concert?
Andre:
I mean the family, we all went. I took all of you guys down there with me. You hanging out with Wynton and wanting to go to rehearsal all the time and just working with the score and with the television crew. I think it was the family more than anything else, that's what I remember the most. That we were all down there together.
Q: When you look at Higher Ground and Congo Square together, what do they say to you about the role of music in healing New Orleans?
Andre:
Jazz music is inextricably tied to New Orleans, to the people, the narrative, and the mythology of the city. It's at the center of it. And music is a language.
So you see what's going on down there now with their brand of hip hop, it's a part of their mythology now. All of that comes, fortunately, unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it comes from that same root. There's a spiritual root inside of that where for whatever reasons, the powers that be during times of slavery, from a temporal or a physical and a spiritual standpoint, allowed those African drummers to go to Congo Square and have a release on Sunday. And because of that freedom on Sunday, you have what you have down there now, the good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent. It all comes from that same place.
Those two events, the Higher Ground Concert and Congo Square, are linked together. They are opposite sides of the same coin. And we have a document of both of them to remember them by. I'm very fortunate to have had an opportunity to be a part of both of them. It's a blessing.
Bravo Brother Wynton, for documenting that special concert!