ALBUM REVIEWS - Une Tasse Cafe

ANTI GRAVITY MAGAZINE New Orleans, LA Patrick Strange, May 2006 Lost Bayou Ramblers present the Mello Joy Boys - Une Tasse Cafe Not often does a Cajun swing album appear in these here pages. In fact, one never has. However, the contents of the Lost Bayou Ramblers' third album are such that I just can't help myself - and oh my, don't it feel good. Donning the personas of the "Mello Joy Boys", the Ramblers traverse the rocked up, jazzz rag sounds of Cajun swing, the dominant form of Cajun music during the 1930s and 40swhich served as one of the first national exports of the Cajun genre. Departing from the material on their first two albums which kept to the traditional form - bare acoustic playing, accordian dance tunes, lyrics a la Francais - the latest tracks are full-bodied piano-banjo-steel guitar numbers that are sometimes bilingual but always retain the distress of the Cajun voice. The tracksThe tracks include both Cajun swing standards and original material, making this album an exercise in musical preservation as well as development. Although the music is very "old" in a sense, there is something very novel about what the "Mello Joy Boys" are doing. In all meanings of the word, this is foremost a concept album...and a Cajun swing concept album at that. Acting as purveyors of the Lafayette-based coffee company (Mello Joy), the Boys seem to make clear the commercial history of the music that they are playing and the (healty/unhealthy?) cultural exportation of the genre. These are not a bunch of unwieldy twenty-somethings we're dealing with here, but a band that is very much aware of its musical past. Sure, some of the conceptual components are a bit kitschy, such as the "Mello Joy Boys are on the air!" announcement at the begining (and the scratchy sound of needle-meets-record that precedes it), but the purpose of the album stays true throughout. Also, listening to these Great Depression-era melodies that are so filled with raucousness, anticipation and an underlying sorrow, it's as if these tunes are expressively tailored for present day southern Louisiana and all its loss and anger and anxiety. Some songs will especially strike a chord with those who feel ddeply and feel often, like the renditions of "Blues D'Hiver" and "Louisiana Breakdown," and the last track of the album which offers guest Wilson Savoy on piano and vocals is simply heartbreaking - no matter if you understand the language or not. The Ramblers' enthusiasm for playing both traditional and original tunes, combined with an immediate place and audience that seems ripe for reconnecting with its cultural and historical past, makes Une Tasse Cafe mofe than just pertinent, it makes it very new.

---