Event
Talkin' Jazz with Fred Kasten: In Concert with Helen Gillet
Fee:
Free. Free and open to the publicLocation: LAT/LONG: 29.961366, -90.057851
At New Orleans Jazz Museum - 400 Esplanade Ave, New Orleans - In the 3rd Floor Performance Space
Dates & Times
Date:
Time:
Duration:
Type of Event
2:00 to 3:15 pm Central Time
Description
The New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
in partnership with
The New Orleans Jazz Museum
presents
Talkin' Jazz with Fred Kasten: In Concert
with Helen Gillet
Thursday, 3/2 at 2:00 pm
At the New Orleans Jazz Museum - 400 Esplanade Ave, New Orleans
In the 3rd Floor Theater
Talkin' Jazz with Fred Kasten: In Concert is a captivating blend of interesting talk and great music featuring top jazz artists in New Orleans, hosted monthly by award-winning radio producer and interviewer Fred Kasten.
This event will be a mix of interview and live performance
Fred Kasten
Fred Kasten is an independent contributing radio producer/host at WWNO. After working at WWNO for over 20 years as an on-air talent, producer, and program director, Fred retired from full-time work in May of 2007. Fred is a native of Mobile, Alabama, a graduate of the University of Alabama, and a long-time resident of New Orleans. In addition to his work at WWNO, Fred develops independent audio projects from a home studio, producing radio features, commercials, and podcasts. Fred also does marketing and media consulting for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.
Helen Gillet
Helen Gillet is a singer-songwriter and surrealist-archeologist exploring synthesized sounds, texture, and rhythm using an acoustic cello. For someone with her varied background, New Orleans, with its mix of cultures and musics, seemed like a natural place to call home. She was born in Belgium, raised in Singapore from the ages of 2 to 11, and routinely shuttled between the homelands of her Belgian father and American mother. Over the years — working in New Orleans with musicians of all stripes, from avant-garde jazz and classical to pop and funk — Gillet has developed a singular polyglot style. The core of her work is solo performance with live looping, layering cello parts and vocal lines. Rhythmic figures emerge with bowed or plucked ostinatos or a variety of rubbing and slapping on the body of the cello, then enhanced with melodies played or sung in her haunting alto. Her mixed musical vocabulary is commensurate with her disparate travels — French chanson of the 1940s, Belgian folk tunes sung in Walloon, a mix of rock and punk from the likes of PJ Harvey and X-Ray Spex, and her own affecting originals, like audience favorite “Julien,” sung in a mix of French and English. Gillet’s solo performance is known for its enigmatic quality as she fabricates each song with innovative use of the cello and true mastery of live looping technology.
This program takes place inside the third-floor Performance Center of the New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Ave. Admission is free and open to the public, seating is limited and offered first come, first serve.
Join us in person or watch on New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park | Facebook.