What to Know Before You Go

Music

By Alex Rawls
Best of New Orleans- Gambit Weekly
November 8, 2005

Jesse Moore
6 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, Nov. 9-11,
3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 12-13
Margaritaville, 1104 Decatur St., 592-2565

While most music clubs in New Orleans feature live music only on weekends, many of the French Quarter clubs commonly thought of as catering to tourists are back with seven-day-a-week schedules. Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville is one, and the club has had a history of booking some of the city's best blues guitarists to play solo in the intimate front room. Brint Anderson and Dr. John guitarist John Fohl are just two of the many guitarists who have both enjoyed extended residencies at Margaritaville. Jesse Moore is playing there five days a week, and his new album, More Than Itself , (independent) shows why. Anders Osborne produced the album, and it features John Gros on organ, Cassandra Faulconer on bass, Kevin O'Day on drums, and John Fohl makes an appearance as well. Moore's songs don't need such celebrated assistance, though. His blues have a singer-songwriterly aspect to them, but they are uniformly plainspoken and direct — the blues as an expression of what he's thinking with almost no artifice. The performances rely on unobtrusive melodies that allow the warmth in his voice and the lyrics he sings to carry the day. The native New Yorker took an unusual route to New Orleans, spending much of his career in the Far East performing in a number of R&B outfits. Since he moved to New Orleans in 1988, he has become a fixture on Decatur and Frenchmen streets.
-- Alex Rawls