Despite what you may have heard, New Orleans in 2009still brims with musicians. Not many are getting rich, anda large number have endured great hardship post-Katrina,but the pool of talent remains deep. And it’s a sceneconstantly restocked by up-and-coming local talent andpeople immigrating to get some New Orleans flavor intheir diet.“New Orleans Duets” features 21 of the city’s denizens,from pretty well-known to rather obscure (Satchmo andJelly Roll no longer live here, and are thrown in the mix formy amusement).I’ve worked on this album off-and-on since 2003, andlooking at it now, I am surprised by how “jokey” much ofit is. I will defend my lack of gravitas by pointing out thathumor has always been a big part of New Orleans music:Jelly Roll’s hokum, Satchmo’s mugging, Louis Prima’santics, the Boswell Sisters’ verbal and musical lunacy,Huey Piano Smith’s nonsense lyrics, and so on. Andbesides, post-K New Orleans can use more laughs.If this mix of humor and music works at all, I have to thankmy collaborators. I am blessed that many of the talentshere are good friends; others here are just acquaintancesand one-time conspirators whom I thought would work inthis format. Given the right conditions I could easily putout two more volumes, and I apologize now to friendswhom I vetted but whose duets didn’t work out.With the exception of “Some Satchmo Sampling,” theseare strict duets, with no third person involved in creating“live” sounds. Thanks for listening.-Tom McDermott, New Orleans 2009