South
SSC1742 2025-03-07
Track List
Go to the Mardi Gras - 5:33
Southern Nights - 5:54
’Round 3AM (A Blues Nocturne) - 8:31
Si tu vois ma mère - 4:15
Jelly Roll’s Living Room - 4:27
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - 5:34
Dying to Live - 4:12
Blues Rheumatica - 3:58
Just a Closer Walk with Thee - 4:11
Musicians
Randal Despommier - alto saxophone
Jason Yeager - piano
David Torkanowsky - piano
Aaron Holthus - bass
James Singleton - bass
Rodrigo Recabarren - drums
Johnny Vidacovich - drums
Phil Despommier - drums
Some of the first public performances by alto saxophonist and composer Randal Despommier were at Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans alongside his father, a drummer who studied with Crescent City guru James Black and served a stint in the Big Easy rock band South. Although Randy grew up in Metairie, just outside New Orleans, and was steeped in the regional sounds of funk, R&B and jazz (not to mention digging punk and grunge), he would stretch his musical wings far beyond in subsequent years. He studied early sacred music in Italy, earned a doctorate at New England Conservatory, played the organ and led choirs in churches, and eventually settled into the bustling, ever-challenging jazz scene of New York City. Despommier’s 2021 album Dio C’è, his debut as a leader, earned praise from such outlets as All Music Guide for being a “wildly ambitious, genre-mashing” record that reflected his wide-ranging influences. After teaming with venturesome guitarist Ben Monder to explore the folk-inflected lyricism of Swedish composer Lars Gullin for 2022’s A Midsummer Odyssey — which Offbeat magazine touted as “fascinating” and “exquisite” — Despommier has returned to his New Orleans roots with the soulful album South, to be released digitally and on CD by Sunnyside Records on March 7, 2025, with a vinyl edition to follow.
For the bulk of the sessions for South, held at Marigny Studios in New Orleans, Despommier drafted in “heavy hitters” that aficionados of the town’s music culture know and love as the real deal: keyboardist David Torkanowsky, bassist James Singleton and always-in-the-pocket drummer Johnny Vidacovich; as a foursome, they recorded a jubilant take on Professor Longhair’s iconic “Goin’ to the Mardi Gras” and an enchanting version of super-producer Allen Toussaint’s FM-smash “Southern Nights,” as well as the Despommier-penned “Jelly Roll’s Living Room,” an homage to jazz godfather Jelly Roll Morton that showcases some blues-rich piano by Torkanowsky. A very special guest at the drum kit in New Orleans was the saxophonist’s father Phil, who came out of retirement to supply the ideal gospel rhythm for “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” a New Orleans jazz-funeral standard. Despommier co-produced South alongside longtime collaborator Jason Yeager, who also played piano during additional sessions at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn; they were joined there by their regular quartet compatriots on the New York scene, bassist Aaron Holthus and drummer Rodrigo Recabarren, for such numbers as clarinet/soprano-sax kingpin Sidney Bechet’s “Si Tu Vois Ma Mère” (If You See My Mother) and Despommier’s deeply felt fantasia on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” Charles Mingus’s tribute to sax great Lester Young (who grew up across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, in Algiers).
“The music of New Orleans has a distinct sound and sensibility, like an accent,” Despommier explains. “You can hear it in the way Jelly Roll Morton bends those blue notes when he sang ‘I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say.’ That sound intoxicated me as a kid — and it still does, no matter the different musical paths I’ve taken over the years, with classical music and ethnomusicology. I grew up hearing the funky ‘street beats’ in New Orleans, and they’re still very much the rhythm of the city. It’s easy to love because it’s a festive, celebratory sound, a music that pulls people in and brings them together. On Mardi Gras day, everyone’s moving and grooving — it’s not the Macy’s Day Parade, after all!”
About working with Vidacovich, Singleton and Torkanowsky, Despommier adds: “I’m truly honored that these representatives of New Orleans culture were so open and generous in the way they infused my album with their rare brand of spice, not only breathing energy into the arrangements but helping to pull out my own New Orleans accent. The music of New Orleans comes out of an oral tradition, one where feel is the essential thing, and these guys have that authentic feel deep in their bones. It was infectious playing with them. And just hearing their banter in the studio — that was music in itself.”
