After thirty-five years of being at the forefront of the ever-evolving musical landscape of New Orleans, Grammy Award winner Jon Cleary decided to bring that sound back home, both figuratively and literally, He assembled his Absolute Monster Gentlemen (his acclaimed all-star big band) in his home studio in the Bywater neighbourhood of New Orleans, drew up a setlist of some of his most beloved songs- and some new favourites and rolled tape.

“We set out to capture that sound in the old-fashioned way: everybody in the room, playing together,” Cleary explains. The result is The Bywater Sessions, a musical tour-de-force that showcases the grit, funk and joy that’s packed concert halls from New Orleans to Tokyo and beyond. Co-produced by Cleary and John Porter (Roxy Music, The Smiths, Taj Mahal), it’s a stunning collection of performances that affirms Cleary’s place in the New Orleans musical vanguard.

“There's a lot to be said for the ‘lean and mean’ sound of a piano trio, stripped down to basics, simple and direct,” Cleary says. “But recently, I've been experimenting with different combinations; adding horns, guitar, percussion and even another keyboard player. This expanded line-up has allowed the arrangements to blossom in new directions.”

“Sophisticated, nasty, good-time, low-down funk is the folk music of New Orleans,” Cleary says. “Everyone playing on this recording is a New Orleanian by birth or by choice, having learned their craft at the feet of the masters who in turn were taught by the old lions in their day - it's a tradition stretching back over two hundred years.

"…Take some Garlic and Onions, add some Congolese and Senegalese Africans, Spanish Cubans and Frenchmen, throw in Sicilians and a few Irish for good measure, smother the lot in Cayenne pepper, drown it in Louisiana hot sauce and let it bake in a malarial swamp for a couple of hundred years. Strain it, put it through a speaker… and that’s kinda what New Orleans sounds like.

Take a gang of the funkiest musicians in New Orleans, a bunch of good songs - old and new, play them with soul every night in sweaty saloons with condensation dripping down the walls and that’s kinda what this– our new record– sounds like.
Here, in this city, perhaps more than any other place I’ve ever been, the locals demand real music played real good. That’s what they want, so that’s what we give ‘em.
As soon as the studio was fixed, after the last hurricane blew through town, I assembled the whole Absolute Monster crew down at Funk Headquarters in the Bywater and we just did what we do the way we like to do and got it done. And now all you have to do is press the play button.

(By the way, should you make it down here to New Orleans you’re welcome to swing by, but, remember, please, just keep your hands off my Zulu Coconuts!)".

Tracklist: 

1. So Damn Good 
2. Zulu Coconuts
3. Fessa Longhair Boogaloo
4. Uptown Downtown
5. Bin a Lil' Minit
6. Just Kissed My Baby
7. Boneyard
8. Lottie Mo
9. Pickle for a Tickle
10. Unnecessarily Mercenary

from https://spindizzyrecords.com