Dreamland is a documentary by James Simons & Richard Lourie.
Filmed in New Orleans in 1979, it features singer Lady BJ and pianist Henry Butler.
There are also other appearances of New Orleans musicians, foremost:
Harold Dejan, Placide Adams, Herman Jackson, Waldren "Frog" Joseph and Germaine Bazzle.
Also appearing are: The Olympia Brassband, The Onward Brassband, The Heritage Hall Jazzband, and the Gospel Soul Children at the First Emanuel Baptist Church.
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Lady BJ was born Joanne Clayton on November 23, 1952. As vocalist and actress she gained national acclaim in the Tony-nominated production of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller.” She was also nominated as the musical’s Best Featured Actress.
Pianist/vocalist Henry Butler explains that he gave Crosby the title Lady B.J. in the early 1970s when she was working at Mason’s on South Claiborne Avenue. He was interested in taking her beyond the small, black neighborhood clubs to bigger spots on “the other side of town”.
“I talked to her about it and said I would call her Lady B.J.-and it stuck,” Butler says. The duo soon began working at Lu & Charlie’s and branched out to play French Quarter spots.
Lady B.J began singing in the Baptist church and was a featured soloist with the Gospel Soul Children. Her talents as an actress gained attention in the late 1970s for her work in Bagneris’ musical, “One Mo’ Time.”
In 1980 she also performed and sang in a musical show about Fats Waller, produced by Gretta Milochi, with Norbert Susemihl on trumpet, with shows at Tipitina's and other New Orleans venues.
She teamed up with the Ellis Marsalis Quartet on the 1988 Rounder Records release The New New Orleans Music and at shows at Snug Harbor.
In 1987, Lady B.J. headed to Los Angles to further her career, but It was her move to New York in 1995 that resulted in her greatest success. Her stage credits include the aforementioned “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” the cast album of which won a Grammy, “Dreamgirls,” “Staggerlee,” “Chicago,” and “Harlem Song.”
"She went from a little New Orleans girl to a Broadway star,” says Vernel Bagneris, her lifelong friend and musical and theatrical cohort. He calls her “hard-working” and her talent “stupendous.”
Lady B.J. returned to her hometown in 2007 and recorded her debut album as a leader, "Best of Your Heart". Often performing at Jazz Fest, her last appearance there was in 2014 at the Gospel Tent.
Lady B.J. Crosby pased away on March 27, 2015, at the age of 62.
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Henry Butler was born Sept. 21, 1948 in New Orleans. He was a prime force in the city's piano tradition - gifted with an exuberant touch and a keen, razor-sharp musicality. A pianist, singer and cornerstone of the New Orleans sound
Blind since birth, he grew up in the city's Calliope Projects, and taught himself piano by ear. He went on to study classical music at the Louisiana State School for the Blind, where he memorized scores written in Braille and at Southern University, he majored in voice and minored in piano. He also studied with such exemplars of New Orleans piano as Professor Longhair and James Booker.
Musically, Butler was the heir to his birth city's vital piano tradition, and he passed that tradition along. He taught across the United States and developed a summer camp for visually impaired teenage musicians. That program was depicted in a documentary film that aired on PBS stations in 2010. Away from the piano, Butler was an enthusiastic photographer - shooting images of scenes described by friends - and pursued that passion for more than three decades, exhibiting his work around the world.
Butler's piano and music collection, along with much of his other possessions, were ruined during Hurricane Katrina. He left his beloved city, and eventually resettled in Brooklyn. But home, in his heart and under his fingers, was always New Orleans.
When he was diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer, all through his illness, he kept playing, performed in Beijing, Melbourne and New York, with tour dates scheduled in France and Vienna.
"His approach was, 'I'm going to keep playing until this thing overtakes me,'" his agent, Maurice Montoya, tells NPR. "He was committed to the band, and to the music, and advocating for the art form. That's who Henry is."
Henry Butler, a pianist, passed away on July 2, 2018 in the Bronx, New York at the age of 69.
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From the Norbert Susemihl Jazz Archive
www.susemihl.eu - www.jazzrecording.eu