In the spirit of the season, today we have a special music episode of the show.
We learn about klezmer music from a local band — with a name that’s a little tongue in cheek — Labia Menorah. Our producer, Alana Schreiber, heard them perform at Okay Bar in New Orleans earlier this month. She spoke with the band’s leader, Clementine Hartman, who also goes by her stage name Klezlie Feinberg.
The rest of the band’s members are Orlando Gilbert “Rigorous Mortimer” on soprano sax, Raph Zee “Fupa Maccabee” on trumpet, Peter Bowling “The Fiddler on the Boof” on viola and Rodney Weber “Rodney Weberstein” on drums. When they performed at Okay Bar, they were joined by Ben Ellman of the New Orleans-based funk band Galactic.
Rosemary Westwood asked some of New Orleans’ most beloved musicians what they listen to around Christmas, and she had some of them play music for us, too.
The segment first aired on NPR’s Weekend Edition and was produced by Sarah Ventre. A big thank you to all of the musicians who participated: Irma Thomas, John Boutte, Big Freedia, Tank, Leroy Jones and Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes.
And we have an encore of NPR’s Ari Shapiro’s interview with Big Freedia from this past summer on her new gospel album.
Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Aubri Juhasz. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber. We get production support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.
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