Clint Maedgen is Jazz Fest MVP?
by Dave Walker, TV columnist, The Times-Picayune Saturday May 02, 2009, 2:53 PM
Alison Fensterstock, Clint Maedgen.Lots of people could vie for the title of Hardest Working Person at Jazz Fest, but Clint Maedgen probably owns it Saturday (May 2).
He started his day with an interview on the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage (Alison Fensterstock moderating).
Then comes a 4:25 p.m. performance with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in the People's Health Economy Hall Tent.
Then a 5:50 p.m. performance with The New Orleans Bingo! Show on the Lagniappe Stage.
Saturday night, he'll play a CD release party at Preservation Hall.
Early Sunday (May 3), Maedgen and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band fly to New York to participate in Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration that night at Madison Square Garden.
How, Fensterstock asked in so many words, do you do it?
"Google Calendar," Maedgen said. "I'm a big, big fan of Google Calendar."
Maedgen's interview stop at the Miner stage was a treat for fans, who got to hear him tell stories about his many musical lives and see him perform (an amazing calliope impersonation using only a glass bottle, then a hypnotic song via toy megaphone).
He even gave tourists a tip: "I encourage everybody to ride around the French Quarter on a bike," said Maedgen, who before joining the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was a food-delivery bike messenger in the Quarter. "It's got a lot to give."
It gave him a YouTube hit, via the bicycle-born video he shot of his Preservation Hall version of The Kinks' "Complicated Life."
"Right after the storm, we did a week in London, and on a random Wednesday night, Ray Davies shows up," Maedgen. "And I'm a big fan of Ray Davies.
"Afterward I got to talk to Ray, and he was pretty cool."
Maedgen got to introduce Davies to John Brunious, the PHJB trumpeter who died in February 2008.
"John was getting off stage and he doesn't know the Kinks from anybody," said Maedgen, who explained to Brunious that Davies had written "Complicated Life."
"You wrote that song?" said Brunious, who appeared in the video. "Have you written any others?"
"And Ray was like, 'A few,'" Maedgen said.
"John leans in and says, 'Keep it up...'"
Can we see that video one more time???
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