It's a pretty general rule that Cajun music uses a fiddle, a
zydeco, and a
R&B band to complement the accordion's leading role. Well,
Lawrence"Black" Ardoin must have figured rules are made to broken because fiddler
Edward Poullard is in the band here and that touch helps make
Tradition Creole one of the most distinctive
zydeco discs around, one that sounds as fresh in its expanded CD version now as the original LP did in 1984.
It almost sounds like
Poullard is playing with the band for the first time (not true) because he's all over the place, certainly far more prominent than
Sean Ardoin's sax,.
Lawrence Ardoin, the son of old-timer
Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin, and now father/manager of newcomer
Chris Ardoin, who is an appealing singer in his own right and, a solid, old-school accordion player who knows the spots to drop in his nothing-fancy fills.
The material is mainly
Ardoin originals in the classic
zydeco vein, but there are covers of the bluesy
"Haunted House" (sung in French with a
"Yakety Yak" feel),
Cookie & the Cupcakes'
swamp pop classic
"Matilda," Rockin' Sidney's
pop-rock zydeco,
"What's Good For The Gander," and a vocal feature for
Poullard in
J.B. Lenoir's
"Talk To Your Daughter." Zydeco godfather
Clifton Chenier gets three uptempo credits (
"Ay, Ai, Ai," "Nonc Edward," and
"Every Now And Then").
"I've Been There" starts upbeat with fine drumming, two-step bass and a
country-ish flavor courtesy of
Poullard before --oh, the hell with details. They do
blues, they do
2-steps, they play uptempo, they play downtempo, they sing in French, they sing in English, the playing is sometimes ragged but always right and the music flows so effortlessly it just zips right by -- and that's a compliment.
You know what the thing is about
Tradition Creole? Genuine is one of those really loaded words to use about a roots form like Cajun or
zydeco because it often implies a purist, traditionalist attitude that rejects any kind of craft or new influence as somehow unauthentic (ahh, there's another one of those words). But genuine fits here --
Ardoin and band sound like people who get together on weekends just to make the music they love for people to dance and listen to and don't care about anything but that.
Tradition Creole shouldn't replace
Rhino's "
Zydeco dynamite
Clifton Chenier anthology, or one of the
zydeco kingpin's '60s-'70s classics on
Arhoolie as the starting point for newcomers. But it should be pretty damned high up there on the list because it's a really vibrant collection of music inspired only by the joy of playing, it's a great portrait of
zydeco in its natural habitat. ~ Don Snowden