Oct 30 2025
The closing 17+ minutes of MARYSE’s and my second Hour with ROGER LEWIS—Saxophonist, Composer, and Co-Founder of the— Dirty Dozen Brass Band 48 years ago—features five addition Tracks that feature Roger. We also play in these minutes greetings and appreciations to Roger from HERMAN LEBEAUX and DON VAPPIE and LOUIS MICHOT.
Roger turned 84 on October 5. He was on-air live over WWOZ for two hours of Maryse’s “Jazz from JAX Brewery’ show on Oct 13. These two hours were chock-a-block and warm with tributes and praises to Roger. Greetings came from GREGORY DAVIS, KEVIN HARRIS and KIRK JOSEPH, co-founders in 1977 of the still vital Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and TRAVARI HUFF-BOONE of the current, touring DDBB.
Paeans came from writers and editors and broadcasters—KEITH SPERA, JAN RAMSEY, NICK SPITZER, NICK HARRIS and MALIK IHSAAN. Musicians BENNY JONES and DONALD HARRISON JR. and DELFEAYO MARSALIS offered Roger the the DDBB fond memories and high respect. We heard from 12 Tracks by the Dirty Dozen between 1984 and 2023. KAREN DOMINO WHITE, FATS DOMINO’s daughter and a singer herself, and author and former club-owner DONNA PONIATOWSKI SIMS spoke on how special Roger sounds and is. We heard too from multiple Grammy-winners, engineer DAVID FARRELL and singer-songwriter NORAH JONES.
We had glitches. We experience that omni-present Thing of 2025 some call Tech-Heck. Pre-recorded greetings appeared outside their scripted order. We got to talking long and enjoyably. Long-story-short, we ran out of time before 7:00 in the evening, New Orleans, and the next famously fabuolous. show, that hosted by Gentilly Junior.
A subsequent gave us 17+ minutes to fill with the five Tracks we’d intended from and for Roger and for greetings from HERMAN LEBEAUX and DON VAPPIE and LOUIS MICHOT.
Enjoy, we hope!
0:00 Coming back to “where we started”— Roger’s “Spirit”. Roger speaks about It. Maryse’s introduces the Instrumental of “Little Things” from Roger’s début album as a leader, 2022’s ALRIGHT!, with him on Piano and Saxophone.
0:39 “Little Things”, Instrumental whole
4:04 DP talk about “the love that informed that session” of August 1, 2021 in RICK G. NELSON’s Marigny Studio and HERLIN RILEY’S great Drums-Set playing and Vocal and KIRK’s likewise inspired Sousaphone.
4:34 Opening minute of “Bobee (What A Spirit Walks That Way”
5:36 MARYSE: “Such a beautiful Track.”
5:57 Closing 35 seconds of “Bobee […]”
Rick G. Nelson, Roger, DP, Herlin and Kirk after recording “Bobee […]” on August 1, 2021—photo by Maryse
6:33 Greetings and Praise to Roger from HERMAN LEBEAUX and DON VAPPIE
8:10 Roger: “Music to me is a spiritual thing. I’m trying to make a connection a Power more greater than you or I … Period!”
8:18 “My Mother’s Spirit Speaks To Me, Whispering Of Eternity” with Don Vappie, Kirk Joseph, and Roger Lewis, in the album LOUISIANA STORIES, closing 75 seconds
9:51 Maryse on this “example” of Roger’s expressiveness, soulfulness, musicality and “tapping into the Spirit.”
10:08 LOUIS MICHOT on “one of the most amazing musical experiences of my life…. I just hope to be as active and collaborative as he [Roger] is at his age.
11:05 Opening 1:15 of “Our Trains Keep A-Comin’”, the second-to-last Track of the album and stage-show LOUISIANA STORIES with Roger, ANDRE MICHOT and Louis Michot, Kirk Joseph, ALEXEY MARTI, Don Vappie, and me
12:21 Introducing the “last three and a half minutes or so” of ‘Marsha’s as performed by the whole DPRAM, Herman LeBeaux included, in the New Orleans Jazz Museum’s Mint Theater on September 3, 2025.
12:51 Roger once more on music for him being “spiritual”
13:05 ‘Marsha’s’, closing instrumental improvisation 3:30
16:35 Maryse with final thanks to Roger and his music, to participants for the love they put into their pieces, to BETH ARROYO UTTERBACK and DAVE ANKERS of WWOZ and to CATHIE RUGGERIO for her “support” in the Control Room.
17:33 End
