Alex Belhaj’s Crescent City Quintet • Boodle​-​Am Shake

Guitarist Alex Belhaj is representative of the generation of musicians that have converged on New Orleans in the decade and a half since Hurricane Katrina upended the city. I've recently heard a 2007 student effort of his using the recording facilities of the University of Michigan on which the music is, as he put it "a little all over the place, but then again so was I back then!" While it may be a bit more free wheeling than the traditional jazz he has made a career out of, you can easily hear where his musical interest lay and most of our readers would enjoy the talent and unbridled youthful creativity the album highlights Like many other musicians who found their way to New Orleans he was exposed to an older generation of jazzmen. including James Dapogny, Paul Klinger, and Ray Heitger, who has led the Cakewalkin' Jazz Band for 55 years running! In 2013, while still in Michigan, he released an album of traditional jazz, Sugar Blues, with his Crescent City Quartet, accompanied by Jordan Schug, string bass, Ray Heitger, clarinet and Dave Kosmyna, cornet.  Among the golden age notables Belhaj's chordal guitar style is compared to Marty Grosz in the liner notes. This is a man who respects his elders as well as his elder's elders. This is mellow originalist New Orleans style jazz that will please any ear.  Classics include "Weary Blues", "My Bucket's Got A Hole In It", "Careles