As I’m one of the many who were born lucky enough to be able to call Louisiana our birthplace and childhood stomping grounds, the music of Bob French is as much a part of my heritage as was my grandmother’s gumbo. How could he be other? When he's a musician that took drumming lessons from Louis Barbarin and played in an R&B band during his high school years that included such musical talents as James Booker, Art Neville, Charles Neville, Kidd Jordan, and Alvin Batiste… how could he not be someone that would embrace the music of Louisiana and add to it a few spices of his own design?

Simply put, the man was born to play music. It is with no small murmur of appreciation to the heavens above, naturally, that I strive to live up to being simply born to enjoy listening to music.

It’s hard work, I tell you!

For example, the fact that I’ve had to endure listening to a recently released CD that celebrates the music of Mr. French is just excruciating hard work. When you have to open the packaging, place the disc in your stereo, and stand there and endlessly hit repeat as you sit at your desk and tap your feet to rhythms and chords that take you back to memories of days spent laughing and playing in the middle of seemingly endless rows of sugar cane — well, I’m sure you understand that’s it is not something easily done.

Right?

Oh, who am I kidding? Sitting here and listening to the Marsalis Music’s Marsalis Music Honors Bob French with only the price of having to sit down and write out a review of said album, has been a delightfully easy job. When an album opens up with a track entitled “Bourbon Street Parade” that entices you to head down to New Orleans, Louisiana, using as bait some of the more timeless jazz motifs that you’re ever liable to hear in this lifetime, it’s fair to say I’m going to have no trouble telling you to go out and buy this album immediately.

Seriously; go buy the album.

Lest you think that this is some random and canned tribute album that was slapped together only to make people pay attention to the Marsalis family’s new record label, all you have to know is that Bob French was very involved in the process. Instead of a tribute album, when you get right down to the brass tacks of it, Mr. French and the small troop of very talented musicians which perform alongside him, have crafted perhaps one of the best albums in Mr. French’s career.