Zeitgeist is going to begin participating in Pecha Kucha nights here in New Orleans. 'Pecha Kucha' is Japanese for "the sound of conversation." I'm very excited about this offering and wanted to share it with each of you. The following information is taken directly from www.pech-kucha.org. If you're interested, you can actually organize Pecha Kucha Nights in your own city. (If you do, please let me know. I love hearing about all of your adventures!)

Check it out:

What is Pecha Kucha Night?

Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

But as we all know, give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) and you'll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a† demand that seems to be global – as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world. Find a location and join the conversation.

If you are interested in starting a Pecha Kucha Night in your city, please contact : pechakucha@klein-dytham.com

Ok, Y'all. I went to see 'What Just Happened' at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center last night. Before the movie the proprietor, Rene, stood before us and told us about the upcoming movies and musical performances they will host in Jan-Feb. There are quite a few things that I'd like to experience. However, Rene had us rolling on the floor laughing as he was describing why he has chosen to honour our Canadian film-making neighbors with an on-going series highlighting work from that country. Thought y'all might enjoy reading what Rene has posted on Zeitgeist's web site describing the series.

In Joy:

CANADA IS BIGGER THAN THE U.S.

Zeitgeist is in the process of initiating a monthly series of films, music, performances and visual art exhibitions celebrating the innovative, utterly bizarre and extremely vast body of work from our neighbors to the north. Their films may be smaller, but at least their country is bigger!

I have been attending the Toronto Film Festival regularly since 1990. Aside from seeing films from all the world, it has given me a profound appreciation of the work of Canadian filmmakers. Due to my love for
the work of filmmaker Guy Maddin, in 1991 I programmed the largest exhibition of works by the Winnipeg Film Group outside of Canada, THE MONDO MANITOBA MARATHON which I presented at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, N.Y. as well as here in New Orleans. As part of the marathon, I produced a 30 minute video on the working relationship between filmmaker Guy Maddin and screen-writer George Toles entitled STRANGLED BY A LARGE INTESTINE. Then from 1995 to 1998, Zeitgeist presented the on-going series of films and performances entitled QUEERLY CANADIAN, which celebrated works and artists from Canada that personified both definitions of the word "queer", meaning either "gay" or "odd". Over the years Zeitgeist has screened hundreds of films and hosted Canadian performers and filmmakers Bruce La Bruce, David Bateman, Michael Achtmann, and David Roche. But that's not enough…we need bigger!

According to Canadian author and Presbyterian minister Tristan Emmanuel, Canada is looking to destroy America. In his new book, WARNED: CANADA'S REVOLUTION AGAINST FAITH, FAMILY AND FREEDOM THREATENS AMERICA, Emmanuel writes:

"Canada is being used as a staging ground to export radical liberalism and its being aimed right at America: everything from gay 'marriage' to polygamy to lowering the age of sexual consent and strengthening 'human rights' laws to protect prostitution. If it's radically liberal, Canada is involved."

Well if this is true, it's all the more reason for Zeitgeist to celebrate and to help promote their agenda.

I'm not saying that Canada is trying to turn America Gay, but not only is Canada bigger than the U.S. (and we all know size does matter!), when you look at the map, it's on top...

Please note: Even though we will be including events in this series on the Zeitgeist website, a series this "Big" deserves a website/blog of it's very own...http://canadaisbigger.blogspot.com

Okay, y'all. I'm exhausted and I gotta get some sleep. However, I wanted to at least start this thing because Slumdog Millionaire has become one of my top five films of all time. I HIGHLY recommend this film. It is incredible storytelling at it's finest. It is an exciting new movie. I hope to have time to elaborate on my Slumdog experience later. However, if you see it playing in your area, PLEASE go see it. It's filmed in India. It doesn't have anyone you know in it. (That is, unless you are one of my department heads and then, unknowingly, you will see two of your dearest friends from childhood in it. Go figure!) It is in English with minimal sub-titles (VERY very brief exchanges.) I ask that you take a breath and do something a little different. Step thru the threshold of unfamiliarity and go see this movie! More to come....

MORE:

Slumdog Millionaire is the tale of an orphaned Indian boy, a street kid, a "slum dog," who is on their version of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. The host suspects he is cheating because a "slum dog" cannot possibly know the answers to the questions he's been asked on art, literature & pop culture and has him arrested. The movie begins with his arrest.

Then, you take a WONDERFUL journey & you learn Jamal's life story as he is interrogated and forced to explain how he came to know each of the answers to the question's posed to him on the game show. Jamal is endearing. You want him to succeed. And it's a love story and you learn that, in the end, the money is inconsequential.

It is flippin' awesome story telling at it's flippin' awesomest best! You will leave feeling alive and happy at the end of this film. Let me know what you think if you see it.

In Joy,

I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Christmas day at the Prytania Theatre. It was important to me to go see the first showing on the first day at the old Prytania Thatre and sit in the first row, balcony.

1. I wanted to support a small local business instead of the big megaplex cinemas. This wonderful old theatre has balcony seating and is a rich place to see a movie.

2. I wanted to go out and support Benjamin Button on opening day, so that I would contribute to their opening day box office intake. Reason being - this film production was so good to the city of New Orleans during the filming of B.B. Plus, with all the focus on the film, what with Golden Globe nominations and talk of Oscar nominations, it is a wonderful source to present New Orleans in a positive light and showcase all that we have to offer, culturally. And, if only for a moment, shift the nation's focus from political corruption and federal ineptitude and the harsher experiences many of our citizens are still facing in this post-2005 federal levee failure.

And the film REALLY does showcase New Orleans beautifully. It is a perfect snapshot moving picture of some of the things that we love most about our city and our citizens.

I grew up listening to the tales of my grandparents and great grandparents. My great grandma, Mammaw, would sing ragtime songs and teach me how to do the Charleston. Her son, my grandfather, would teach me Irish folk songs, and fill my head with images of his childhood growing up in the Irish Channel. Of being born in the family's business - funeral parlor - and of working as a "flower boy" in the Hearse with his grandfather at funerals. Then, pulling into the back of Del Monico's and walking thru a special back door with his grandpa and sitting at the bar in the back as his grandfather drank whiskey and talked to the men there. This, their ritual after every funeral service.

Of his working as a bellboy at age 15 at a hotel on Poydras Street and having to walk over to Saint Joseph Street (where nothing but whores lived) and acquire a lady for hotel guests and how he got a cut of the pay and actually made "made more than the whore, if you can believe that!"

His other grandmother and her sister had a place near Saint Joseph Street with a window facing the river and in the window they had a red lamp. When the sailors got off the ships and walked towards the town, they could see the red lamp glowing in my great-great grandmother's window.

So, the images I have in my mind's eye of New Orleans during the 1920's and 30's and 40's from the tales of my family, are perfectly captured in the photography of the Benjamin Button story. It is a wonderfully romantic depiction of my beloved New Orleans.

Aside: My grandfather told the story of how he learned to swim. He would go to Behrman's gym on Prytania and Washington Streets (now a personal home.) Old Man Behrman would bring the boys over the levee to the river and just throw them in! The flippin' Mighty Mississippi River! And my scrawny hooligan grandfather was just thrown in and learned to stay afloat by clinging to the pilings under the pier as the river current tried to whisk him down river. And he explained how the paddle boats have a chain to the rear of them and how, as a child, he and his friends would jump in the river and grab onto that chain behind the paddlewheel and cling for dear life as the boat ferried traffic back and forth across the river to and from the West Bank. Benjamin Buttons captures this era in my city's history very well.

It is a deeply emotional film on many, many levels. Throughout the film I heard many deep sniffles around me. When the theatre was emptied, no one was speaking, they were all wiping away tears and engrossed in their own thoughts at the experience they had just had in being a part of this story for 2 hours and 48 minutes. (bring tissue.)

It is a beautiful story. It is a celebration of life. It is incredibly insightful. It is a story that pulls you in early on and you are emotionally invested and, gladly, along for the ride throughout the duration.

I whole-heartedly recommend this film. Please let me know what you think.

2009 will be the 40th New Orleans Jazz & Heritage and they have a wonderful line up with more announcements to come! Check it out at www.nojazzfest.com.

BEN HARPER, Ladies!!!! Flippin' Ben Harper! And Dave Matthews Band (to my teens and 20 somethings.) Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger, the list is endless goodness. See for yourself and let me know when you'll be coming. I could totally get into planning a whores' weekend over Jazz Fest!

Hey, Guys!

I read this wonderful article in Sunday's Times-Picayune newspaper and thought I'd share it with you. It got a chuckle or two and a teary eye or two out of me sitting in my neighbourhood Starbuck's. Enjoy!

So what if they're not really clovers? To those who've stumbled upon them, these wondrous little weeds are a lucky omen for the Lower 9th Ward

There are a great many folks -- from here and elsewhere -- who believe nothing short of a miracle is afoot in the nation's most famous beat-down neighborhood. There, sprouting from the beleaguered soil -- from Flood Street (naturally) to Dorgenois -- are Mother Nature's very own lucky charms.
In the years since Katrina, the people of the Lower 9th Ward have been called a lot of things. Tenacious. Resilient. Obstinate. Proud.

But: Lucky? That seems a stretch, to be sure. However ...

There are a great many folks -- from here and elsewhere -- who believe nothing short of a miracle is afoot in the nation's most famous beat-down neighborhood. There, sprouting from the beleaguered soil -- from Flood Street (naturally) to Dorgenois -- are Mother Nature's very own lucky charms.

Sort of.

In the same way that sunflowers sprouted from vacant lots all over the neighborhood in the first spring after Katrina -- embodying the spirits of rebirth, regrowth and renewal -- a new horticultural phenomenon has excited the populous in recent weeks: Four-leaf clovers, they say, are coming up in vacant lots where homes were destroyed by the levee breach.

If that ain't karma, I don't know what is. Except this: The only difference between the sunflowers from three years ago and the four-leaf clovers of today is that the sunflowers were real. The four-leafed clover-like specimens, which indeed are spread far and wide across these Fields of Broken Dreams, are actually .¤.¤. weeds.

I know this because several weeks ago I reported a story for this paper about the alleged four-leaf clovers popping up in the L9 and folks going crazy over it. That story was never published because, just before press time, Louisiana State University AgCenter horticulturist and Times-Picayune gardening columnist Dan Gill took a look at the plants and corrected my naive assumption that they were, in fact, four-leaf clovers.

"I get asked about this sort of thing all the time," Gill told us then. "They see a patch of little green plants with four leaves and assume they're clovers. But four-leaf clovers are very rare."

We killed the column.

"Your editors have no sense of magic," declared Amelie Prescott, an art therapist and child trauma specialist down in the L9 and one of the first to alert me to the Miracle in the Malaise.

She and her colleague, artist Nicholas Busciglio, had noticed four-leafed, um, somethings growing in the exact location where they had previously performed an art therapy project with a couple dozen kids from the area.

This, they thought... this was BIG. They alerted the media. That is, they called me. And they introduced me to John Mullen, a retired school teacher and civic activist who tends to the many vacant lots around his home -- one of which was the site of Prescott and Busciglio's art project.

In a misty rain, he led me to the site.

"I've been looking around out here for years and it's hard as the dickens to find a four-leaf clover," he told me. "When we did find one, in the old days, we'd put it in our Bible."

Then he paused and with a gesture of his hand, beckoned my eyes to the ground. "Take a look at this. There's nothing but four-leaf clovers! My, oh my, now all we need is a leprechaun and a pot of gold!"

Indeed, they looked like four-leaf clovers to me. Then again, I grew up north of the Mason-Dixon line, where gullibility seems to run higher than in Dixie.

To wit: Chandra McCormick, proprietor of the L9 Gallery, recently accompanied a bunch of New York City culture vultures and art aficionados -- you know, the kinds of folks who actually buy art -- on a tour through the Lower 9th and when they came upon the site of the former home of famed folk artist and evangelist Sister Gertrude Morgan, all the Yankees swooned.

"Somebody looked down and said: Look at all these four-leaf clovers!" McCormick said. "They got all excited and everybody started picking them to bring back home. I had heard about the four-leaf clovers around here, but then I also heard somebody put the damper on it -- but I wasn't going to say anything to these people."

I guess that was me that put the damper on it. Because, after I told Prescott the truth about the plants -- at least, from a horticultural sense -- she told Mullen, who told someone else, who told someone else, and eventually word got out: There is no Santa Claus.

But please, don't kill the messenger. A newsman's mission is the fearless search for the truth .¤.¤. even if the truth bums everybody out.

It's all very confusing, this clover controversy. For instance, in a recent review of New Orleans' Prospect.1 art extravaganza in the New Yorker magazine, art critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote about the bizarre "installation" by German artist Katharina Grosse, who spray-painted a Lower 9 house -- and accompanying lawn -- day-glo orange to signify .¤.¤. well, something.

Schjedahl observed: "Green spears of grass -- and shamrocks! -- were starting to pierce the yard's crust of paint, stirring hope as wild as the city's despair must have been."

Shamrocks and Hope in the Lower 9! Let the people know!

Of course, this just muddied things further. First of all, it is common for folks to confuse four-leaf clovers and shamrocks but the truth is, a shamrock has three leaves. And, actually, there's no botanical species called a shamrock, which is Gaelic for "little clover" and basically refers to any strain of clover found across the globe. Including, presumably, the Lower 9th Ward.

When I called Schjeldahl to ask what, exactly, it was that he saw, he told me:

"My amateur botanical identification was that it was that it had three leaves and was very large."

"Are you sure it wasn't four?" I asked him.

He paused. Then said: "Maybe it was four. I don't remember. But I'm sure we fact-checked it."

Indeed, the New Yorker is known throughout the journalism industry as having perhaps the most rigorous fact-checking operation in the world. But they don't have Dan Gill. So they either did or did not tell the world that there are four-leaf clovers growing on Dauphine Street, thereby creating what will no doubt be a second wave of New Yorkers (the people, not the magazine) scouring empty lots for plucks of luck -- four-leaf clovers. Or shamrocks.

Blissfully unaware that they've captured a fistful of weeds.

Maintains Busciglio, in the face of evidence to the contrary: "I have researched clovers on the Internet and there are several strands around the world and some of them look very much like these."

"So, what are you saying?" I asked him. "Are these or are these not four-leaf clovers?"

"They are," he said.

He is not alone is clinging to this belief. In fact, far from it. A local named R. L. Brown put it to me in a way any New Orleanian can understand:

"They look like clover, right?" he asked.

Yes, I said.

"They have four leaves, right?" he followed.

Yes, I said.

"There you go," he said.

Case closed.

Prescott, after ruminating over the disappointing revelations for the past few weeks, put it another way.

"We are free," she said, "to determine our own magic."

Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com, or 504.826.3309, or 504.352.2535.

I befriended the New Orleans Rum Company's myspace page recently and I LOVE being their friend because I now get invitations like this:

Join Old New Orleans Rum, December 19, as we make our way through the edge of the French Quarter and into the Marigny for a night of Old New Orleans Rum cocktails at our exclusive hotspots starting at 6 PM at Molly's on Decatur where registration will take place. $2 Old New Orleans Rum cocktails at each location with wristband. You must be 21 years of age or older to participate.

In case y'all are unfamiliar with the brand, it's winning awards and has major competitors touring their facility to check out what they are doing, ahem, Captain Morgan, ahem, ahem.

So, I like totally missed this rum "saunter" thru the French Quarter, but I love that I COULD'VE if I had been available. Rum companies make great friends!

Friends,

The following article is a tribute to one of my favourite French Quarter Characters, Ruthie the Duck Lady.  In her youth, she would be seen roller skating thru the French Quarter with a line of ducks following her. 
My own interactions with her were usually at O'Flaherty's Irish Channel Pub & Cultural Center.  Ruthie would come into the Ballad Room in the late evening, already soused from a day of drinking.  She'd stand up and do a little jig as Danny O'Flaherty performed and he would, ultimately, order the bartender to offer Ruthie a complimentary pint of Guinness, "a wee little nightcap." 

Some of my favourite memories of her are watching her stand in the arch brick-lined carriageway, talking with the knights of armors for 30-40 minutes.  As per usual, some of "their" discussions became heated and she would inevitably begin arguing with the the metal statue.

She is/was one of my favourite "interesting people" and the thought of her will live with me forever.  Please enjoy this tribute. 

Rest in peace, Ruthie

Ruth Grace Moulon was laid to rest this past Monday in the pouring rain in a family plot in the stately Greenwood Cemetery, at the terminus of the Canal Street streetcar line, in what I guess you would call the New Orleans Cemetery District -- where people come from all over the world to see our Cities of the Dead majestically rise from the ground to lay their claim to what is arguably the most alive city in the world.

Perhaps due to the weather or perhaps to the timing -- a post-hurricane Monday afternoon when the world's financial stability was caught in a grave downpour (pun intended) of instability and doubt -- the gathering of family and friends was surprisingly sparse, yet expectedly diverse and passionate.

After all, Ruthie was, by any measure, a legendary character. Depending on when and if you knew her personally, or whether your familiarity with her was derived from the impressive wealth and depth of local oral history, Ms. Moulon would have been known to you as A) Ruthie the Duck Girl or B) Ruthie the Duck Lady.

Of no matter. At either stage of her maturity, she was a French Quarter character of the highest order.

It is undocumented (and not for lack of trying; Ruthie drew documentarians like, well -- like she drew ducks) at what point in her life she went from "duck girl" to "duck lady," but there was never a known period of her life when the word "duck" was not affixed to her name or introduction.

As a young, frail and eager waif -- with a physical stature no match for even a Virginia Slim 100 -- to an aging, frail and decidedly less vigorous spinster, Ruthie was in constant companionship with one or more ducks for virtually all of her life.

Admittedly, in her most recent years, living under the more austere auspices of the St. Charles Health Care nursing home -- as opposed to say, Johnny White's Sports Bar -- most of her fowl companions were restricted to that of the species manufactured in China. But for most of her 74 years -- didn't everyone think she had to be at least 100? -- she lived, dined, drank and danced with real ducks.

And so it was, that as the unceasing downpour drenched the assembled mourners, the funeral's chief celebrant, Monsignor Robert Massett of St. Mary Magdalen Church in Metairie, took note of the water pooling at and soaking through everyone's footwear and commented in rather unpriestly fashion: "Even today, she chose the damn ducks over the rest of us!"

Indeed. In a town in which funerals are near-mythic events unto themselves, and in which distinguishing oneself in the field of eccentricity is akin to entering the Baseball Hall of Fame in a Yankee uniform, Ruthie the Duck Lady's interment was fittingly both mythic and eccentric.

The small but magnificently disparate assembly of mourners -- maybe 60 in all -- comprised elder family relations, representatives sent from the New Orleans police and fire departments, assorted musicians of varying genres, Jackson Square artists, Bourbon Street bartenders, documentarians (how they loved Ruthie!), and others drawn randomly from the ranks of the business, commerce, hospitality and striptease industries, in addition to the requisite smattering of 9th Ward hipsters.

In short, Ruthie's people.

She grew up in, lived in, got drunk and arrested in and basically did everything but die in the Vieux Carre. To a lot of folks, Ruthie was the Vieux Carre -- unconventional, incorrigible, over-emotional, overly opinionated, charmingly cantankerous, generally intoxicated and to hell what you thought of her anyway. She certainly didn't care, as long as you opened your door or your wallet or preferably both.

In truth, after her status as the French Quarter's primary duck specialist (how many others there might have been remains unrecorded to this day), her most acclaimed talent was an astonishing proficiency at garnering free meals, drinks and smokes at some of the area's finest dining establishments, most of which presumably waived their right to refuse service to domesticated waterfowl to accommodate this extraordinarily beloved denizen of the night. And the afternoon. And, truth to tell, most mornings -- if the previous night's adventures allowed for it.

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At the intimate requiem Mass at the Jacob Schoen Funeral Home on Canal Street, Jo Anna Palmer, a lifelong friend of Ruthie's -- and a Jackson Square artist -- gave a brief invocation.

"She was the tiniest little thing," Palmer said. "She did not walk the stage a poor player. She was just Ruthie. She was a light that was happy and alive. This thrilling little person -- she gave just by being herself."

As several of the assembled partook of the traditional Catholic Communion service, an older, blind black man with a long white beard, wearing overalls as well as a hospital wristband, pulled out a mouth harp and began a mournful dirge, something along the lines of "Amazing Grace," but with some other, improvisational elements in it.

The mourners, already prone to tears from the service's beginning, fell further into -- what was it, exactly: Sorrow? Remembrance? Nostalgia?

In the back of the room, sitting on a folding chair, there was a second-line grand marshal on hand, a former Jackson Square artist named Jennifer Jones.

Dressed in spats and mostly black parade garb, with her long hair braided in gold bands, she had been sitting in the back of the chapel, wiping away tears throughout the service. But at the final prayer's conclusion, she stuffed her Kleenex in a sleeve and rose to perform a silent pantomime.

She approached the casket from one side, moving slowly, mournfully. She worked her way around the casket and once on the left side, she began a high-stepping dance, now fast and celebratory, spinning her umbrella with vigor.

On the top of her second-line umbrella, where a white dove of peace traditionally resides during a funeral service, she had attached a small stuffed duck for the occasion as well. Her silent movements were oddly surreal in the absence of the traditional funeral band.

" 'Sending them off right' " is what they say in the jazz business; giving someone their due respect," Jones told me. "The dance signifies a spiritual portal onto the next life. I guess you could call what I do a liturgical dance. A New Orleans jazz liturgical dance."

As six pallbearers led Ruthie down the aisle, joining the procession out of the chapel -- and seemingly from out of nowhere -- was a large brown puppet that appeared to be some kind of Muppet on the down and outs, and it made me consider where I might wind up if I were a drunk Muppet in the waning years of my career.

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Exactly! New Orleans.

At the cemetery, the crowd had dwindled to perhaps two dozen, and Massett made haste of the interment ceremony for practicality's sake.

Ruthie, it should be noted, died Sept. 6 at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, after residents of the nursing home were evacuated to that city as Hurricane Gustav approached. The official cause of death was cancer, but many speculate that the stress of the storm and relocation hastened the outcome.

My own inexpert opinion -- and this is not an implausible theory -- is simply that her time had come. Suffice to say that neither abstinence nor moderation were among her marked characteristics. A life well lived or good health thrown away, really what is the difference in New Orleans and what does it matter now?

One of the French Quarter's most revered eccentrics has passed on to the great juke joint in the sky, to a corner of the Everlasting where, no doubt, there is no repentance for cussing, the drinks are all doubles -- and on the house -- and you're still allowed to smoke.

And there's probably a lot of ducks.

In his last words of the funeral service -- acknowledging Ruthie's proclivities toward the steadfastly unholier activities of this material world -- Massett made a simple and quite appropriate request of the gathering of mourners.

"Maybe," he said, "we should say a prayer for God."

 

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Friends,
Below is an article which ran in today's Times Picayune paper, alerting us of the passing of New Orleans drumming legend, Earl Palmer.  He led an incredible life and influenced many modern-day drummers and back beat musicians.  Please enjoy the story of his life.

N.O. native helped define rock 'n' roll

Earl Palmer, the New Orleans drummer who largely defined the beat of rock 'n' roll on thousands of recordings from the late 1940s on, died Friday in Los Angeles after a long illness. He was 83.

Dapper and outspoken, Mr. Palmer may well have been the most recorded drummer in the history of popular music. He stamped his sound on everything from early Fats Domino and Little Richard hits to classic movie soundtracks to music for "The Flintstones" cartoon.

"He was my right hand," said Dave Bartholomew, the producer and co-writer of Domino's catalog. "He was a professor of music. (With Mr. Palmer's passing,) it's like I died myself."

Mr. Palmer recorded with Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Glen Campbell, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Willie Nelson, Sonny & Cher, the Supremes and the Monkees, among many others.

He was the drummer on Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep Mountain High," the Righteous Brothers' smash "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' " and Ritchie Valens' signature "La Bamba."

"He's the trunk of the tree of drumming, if not a big ol' root," said New Orleans jazz, funk and rhythm and blues drummer Johnny Vidacovich. "He's part of the basic foundation. He's something we all built on."

Mr. Palmer grew up in Treme. He entered show business as a young boy, working as a tap dancer with his mother and aunt on the black vaudeville circuit. After a stint in the Army during World War II, he returned to New Orleans and studied drumming. He joined the popular big band fronted by Bartholomew, a trumpeter and friend since childhood.

When Bartholomew became a talent scout and record producer for Imperial Records, he recruited Mr. Palmer as the drummer for recording sessions at sound engineer Cosimo Matassa's J&M Music Shop on North Rampart Street. Those sessions bore witness to the very dawn of rock 'n' roll.

Mr. Palmer's distinct back beat, built on a heavy bass kick and New Orleans second-line shuffle, was also informed by bebop jazz. He considered himself a jazz musician at heart, even though his style, a synthesis of power and subtlety, facilitated popular music's transition from rhythm and blues to rock 'n' roll.

"Earl had a melodic sense of the bass line," Matassa said. "He didn't just do the rhythm -- he played the bottom end of the tune. It fit hand in glove with what was going on. He used his knowledge and craft, his understanding of what drums could do."

Mr. Palmer provided the pulse on scores of Fats Domino singles, including his 1949 debut "The Fat Man" and his hits "I'm In Love Again," "I'm Walkin' " and "My Blue Heaven." He backed Little Richard on "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti," Smiley Lewis on "I Hear You Knocking," Lloyd Price on "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and Shirley & Lee on "Let the Good Times Roll."

"Earl was a complete musician, a complete drummer," Bartholomew said. "In the studio, I didn't have to tell him (anything). He would tell me. If it was a sweet song, he knew how to approach it. If it was rock 'n' roll, he knew how to approach that."

Matassa confirms Mr. Palmer's essential role in the earliest rock 'n' roll recordings. "He was a fabulous drummer, a great sideman, and he had a great attitude," Matassa said. "He was proactive. He didn't just sit there like a bump on a log. He'd ask, 'What about this? What about that?'

"If you don't listen beyond what is going on with the vocalist, you miss the nuances in the records. He would do things that were special, an extra roll or break. He didn't miss an opportunity to make something better."

--- Leaving town ---

Mr. Palmer frequented the Dew Drop Inn and other fabled nightclubs. "Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story," Tony Scherman's 1999 oral history-style biography, is rich with colorful tales of New Orleans nightlife and Mr. Palmer's adventures, romantic and otherwise.

But professional ambitions, coupled with frustration over Jim Crow laws in his hometown, compelled him to move to Los Angeles in 1957. "He brought his big beat to the world," Bartholomew said. "I lost my right arm when he went to California."

On the West Coast, his career as an elite, in-demand and versatile session drummer intensified. "Leaving New Orleans," Mr. Palmer said in "Backbeat," "was the best thing I ever did."

A partial list of his diverse 1960s credits includes Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Phil Spector, Paul Anka, Mel Torme, the Ronettes, Jan & Dean, Lou Rawls, James Brown, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Marvin Gaye, Sarah Vaughan and Neil Young. In the 1970s, he appeared on albums by Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits, Maria Muldaur, Little Feat and Teena Marie.

While traveling to Los Angeles in the late 1950s, Matassa dropped in on Mr. Palmer. That day, the drummer was booked at three different studios, including the famed Capitol Records studio. An assistant leap-frogged two drum kits to the three recording sessions, dismantling the kit from the first session and setting it up for the third while Mr. Palmer worked on the second. That way, Mr. Palmer saved time by only transporting his cymbals and drum sticks from one studio to the next.

His busy schedule encompassed sessions for dozens of film soundtracks during the 1960s and 1970s. They include "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World," "Cool Hand Luke," "In the Heat of the Night," "Valley of the Dolls," "Rosemary's Baby," "Kelly's Heroes," "Harold and Maude," "Lady Sings the Blues," "What's Up, Doc?," "Walking Tall," "The Longest Yard" and "The Rose."

In the 1980s, he contributed to the soundtracks of "Gremlins," "Top Gun," "Predator," "Cocktail" and "The Fabulous Baker Boys."

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He played the theme song or incidental music for such television shows as "I Dream of Jeannie," "Green Acres," "Ironside," "The Brady Bunch," "The Partridge Family," "The Odd Couple" and "M.A.S.H."

Unlike most musicians, Mr. Palmer was not required to attend rehearsals for film scores. "They knew that no matter what they put in front of him, no matter what oddball thing, he could cut it," Matassa said.

--- Influence felt by many ---

Directly and indirectly, Mr. Palmer influenced countless drummers. John Bonham's thunderous prelude to Led Zeppelin's 1971 anthem "Rock 'n' Roll" is remarkably similar to Mr. Palmer's intro on Little Richard's 1957 rave-up "Keep A Knockin'."

As a young boy in the 1950s, Vidacovich listened to Mr. Palmer's recordings on 45 rpm records. That sound filtered into Vidacovich's own playing with the likes of New Orleans rhythm and blues pianist Professor Longhair, local modern jazz ensemble Astral Project and contemporary jazz pianist Joe Sample.

Vidacovich befriended Mr. Palmer in the 1980s and remained a fervent admirer of his playing and professionalism. "He did the job," Vidacovich said. "He played the music, as opposed to his agenda. He was a musician, not just a drummer. He could play any music, and had a great touch. He played between the cracks. It is straight, but it swings."

Mr. Palmer continued to record through the 1990s, even as drummers ranging from the Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts to the E Street Band's Max Weinberg acknowledged his legacy. In 2000, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's newly created "sideman" category.

During the past decade, he occasionally returned to New Orleans to perform at the Ponderosa Stomp and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He was sometimes tethered to an oxygen tank as he struggled with emphysema and other ailments.

In 2000, San Francisco pianist Mitch Woods organized a reunion in New Orleans of surviving alumni of Bartholomew's legendary 1950s studio band, including Mr. Palmer. They recorded an album, "Big Easy Boogie."

"I haven't played this kind of stuff in 45 years or so," Mr. Palmer said at the time. "I was getting tired -- I'm a lot older now. But you don't ever forget how to do it. It's physical music, of course, but it wasn't that much of a problem. I kept telling the guys, 'There's only one more take in the old man.'

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"This wasn't complicated at all, as it shouldn't be. You don't want to complicate this kind of music. That's what made it last so long."

Mr. Palmer was married four times. His survivors include seven children.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.