"I was kicking around in the '90s in Asbury Park and nothing was hitting and I came down here on a vacation and it just struck me; I needed to live in this city. I didn't even know the music here then, it was just the way the city felt, it was perfect. I moved down here with my band at the time; it all started out as a solo project, I was starting over and that just kind of morphed into The Soul Project and over the years; it has been 24 years almost and I can't believe it but it has been 24 years of molding, growing and learning from the ground up here in New Orleans."
Jon Cristian Duque is a product of or should one say "Was" a product of Toms River, NJ who found his calling and seemingly his lifeblood in the pulse of the New Orleans, LA music scene. A guitarist and vocalist who has traversed the U.S. as a busker, street performer and roadie has a great story, a new record and will be back here in New Jersey on Thursday August 22 for an appearance with his band, The Soul Project NOLA at Tuckerton's Lizzie Rose Music Room.
So, to understand a bit more about Cristian, the band and how he came to embrace New Orleans, its inhabitants and its music; let's see how it and his relationship with Walter "Wolfman" Washington all began.
"That's a great story," he said enthusiastically,"I came to New Orleans and I realized that I knew nothing. I played guitar with a bunch of bands up in New Jersey but when I got down here I didn't know anything and the girl I moved down here with, broke up with me, the band broke up and I didn't know what to do. So, I got on a Greyhound Bus with my guitar and took off and for a straight year-and-a-half I travelled the country playing my guitar in the streets every night and trying to learn. So, a year-and-a-half of doing that, I swung back through New Orleans as I always did on my travels and a friend was staying at a house with his girl and next door was this kid Antonio who was a trumpet player and he played with Walter and he asked if I'd ever met him. I knew who Walter was but I had never met him but he mentioned that they were on their way to California to start a tour and that he, the drummer, keyboard player and the sax player were driving the van and Walter and the bass player were going to fly out and meet us but the sax players' wife went into the hospital and he couldn't drive the van. So, I said that I had some stuff to do in L.A. and was on my way out there and I said I'd drive the equipment van and I drove us out there and we had a lot of fun and everywhere we stopped because I travelled so much, I knew where to go and what to do and we got to Manhattan Beach and there was a Barbeque Blues place there and that was the first time I met Walter. I had my guitar with me, I helped load in and set everything up and I had my guitar and was going to play in the street to make some money and he saw me and said, "You think you are gonna play guitar with us just because you drove the van out?" I said, "No, No. I was going outside to play and make some money." He said, "Sit down" and I sat down and he started talking to me and I don't think I understood a word he said but yet I understood what he was talking about because I felt his energy because he looked me straight in my eyes and then he asked me; "What's your sign?" I said, "I'm an Aries" and he said, "My mama was an Aries, I'll tolerate you. Go put your amp on the stage." I had this little Crate amp and I put it up on stage and played the whole show with him and I had never played with him, I didn't know his music, like I said, I could barely tell the difference between major and minor and at the end of the night I said, "Thank you so much" and he says; "Do you want to finish the tour?" I was like, "Yeah! One hundred percent" and he took me on tour and I found out the rest of the band except the trumpet player hated me because I wasn't the level of player they were and I was an extra body and they were like, Walter, why are you letting this dude on stage? Walter was the boss so they let me do it and I got paid more money on that tour; I was used to making 30 dollars a week if I was lucky on the street and with Walter, I was getting 80 dollars a show. We went to Seattle, Colorado and Kansas City. When we got home, I had been working at Tipitina's which is the greatest music club in the world and where I saw Dr. John, The Nevilles and where I saw Walter for the first time.The first gig when we got back was at the Maple Leaf Bar which is the second greatest club (laughs) in New Orleans and I had also hung out there because everybody hung out there together so, here I am, this kid who went from working the door and security and I went on tour with Walter and then I'm on stage with him and everybody was like, "What the heck happened?" I was like, I don't know, I'm keeping my mouth shut and saying nothing so don't you say anything and here we are 21 years later and I'm trying to just keep Walter's name alive."
"One of the most important things about this new album that I'd like to talk about is that for the first time, The Soul Project as a band is doing the music of my boss and my mentor, who when I moved here I knew nothing and he took me under his wing and literally, everything I do now comes directly from learning from him and him showing me how to do New Orleans. His name was Walter "Wolfman" Washington, I don't know if you're familiar with him but I was in that band since 2003. I was part of The Roadmasters which was his band. He passed away two Decembers ago, he was 78 and it was a big deal because we're losing a lot of the greats down here but he literally taught me everything I know and that's more of the tradition that I'm talking about as well. I've always thought of it as my job to continue it and move it on and so for the first time we actually started to do his music because nobody could do the "Wolfman," when he was alive nobody would do it because he was one of a kind. Now that he has passed on, my drummer Wayne Maureau was actually Walter's drummer for 15 years and that's where I met him and from playing in Walter's band, he and I have a chemistry already and we know how to do Walter's songs so it wasn't too much of a step to try and do everything Walter did. So, this album is really the first time that we have ever successfully done it and I think it came out pretty good. We got everybody's blessing and everybody who has listened to it that knew the boss said that he's smiling if he can hear it and that's the highest praise we can expect. I played guitar for Walter and it was the hardest thing to do because his playing was stellar. He's known for many things but he played guitar like a piano and his knowledge of chords; when you talk Jazz and R&B and knowing that stuff; growing up in New Jersey I never was exposed to it and nobody that I knew was and what he grew up learning from the greats and everybody he played with, he's a direct line all the way back to the beginning of the New Orleans period when you trace the music. The way he laid things in and the way he phrased chords and he covered so much ground on the guitar was amazing. So, putting me in as a second guitar and not knowing anything and I'm telling you, I knew nothing; the first tour he took me on, I don't think I played a chord, I think I only played single notes behind him because I couldn't tell whether he was playing major or minor, all I heard was these huge piano jazz chords and I was just trying to fit in but eventually I learned how to kind of rhythmically fit in to what he was doing. He never needed another guitar player which is basically my point but he put me in there so I could play and learn with the best and get my experience."
The Soul Project NOLA has been around since Duque arrived in New Orleans and plays locally as well as nationally. So, with such a love of his adopted city; why is the new record "Live From Norway?"
"It's called, "Live From Norway" because that's exactly what it is," he laughed. "The band has been through so many changes, it basically grew up here in the city; I've tried to change the name over the years but because we became such a staple of the scene, whatever band I showed up with was called The Soul Project no matter what; I can't lose that name if I wanted to; you know? Over the pandemic, the band I had together was good, it was great but it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. After the pandemic, it was such a weird time. We were home in New Orleans, we were still working but it was obviously different and the band that I ended up putting together became the band that I have now and it's the strongest version yet; finally. Some of these players are just what I've been waiting for my whole life. So, we decided that we had to record something and we had been to Norway twice. We did two tours over there; 2022 and 2023 and I recorded all of the shows because I record everything and it was so successful and came out so good that we were like, man, we should just release these. We haven't released an album since I think 2018 and we released this as a stop gap to show people what the band sounds like and we're working on material for a new full-length album that's going to be out probably around Mardi Gras next year; it's basically showcasing the new band so, that's what this release is. We call Norway, "The Doorway" because that was our first foothold in Europe and once you get over there, everything is a train ride away and it has been opening a lot of doors for us. There is this great lady over there and she has been coming here for years and has been seeing the band for years and she was always trying to get us to come over there and she single handedly brought us over there for the first time and it was great! Everybody loved it because even if you're in the United States you don't get New Orleans unless you are in New Orleans and so to them, we were killing it. They loved us and they brought us back and it was really successful and that's what the album shows; everybody is happy and it was a really good experience for everybody."
Proving once again that European audiences thirst for American music is not lost on Duque and the band; why do they think that is?
"That's a good question and I don't know if I've thought about it other than the fact that it's American music I guess," he said, sounding somewhat perplexed himself. "Especially the music we do, it's so traditional and even though what we do is as new as it gets here in New Orleans; everything here is so tied to tradition and New Orleans is such a melting pot; people from all over the world come here to find the music and Blues and Jazz is such an American music style that you could only get here in America until the English took it and thank God they did because the Blues were disappearing until the Stones, Beatles and everybody kind of brought it back. I think it comes back to that; people thirst for the true American music style and America is the only place you can get it. So, when it comes over there it's a treat, it's a specialty; ya' know? Whereas here, you can get it anywhere I guess."
New Orleans style anything is usually defined by terms like "Zydeco" or "Cajun," maybe even "Creole" etc. but Duque says that The Soul Project is also "Funky."
"We say "Funk" because at the base of things; I'm a child of the late '70s so growing up with the Funk and Disco that was happening, it's in my blood. The way it's tied to New Orleans is the rhythm, the New Orleans rhythm is really what it comes down to. No matter what, whether you are listening to Storyville Jazz or Blues, even though Blues are different in New Orleans than it is anywhere else and of course the R&B, all the R&B from Fats Domino on; Dave Bartholomew, Louie Armstrong, all of them; it's the rhythm that makes it New Orleans. It was always the drums and the rhythms from the Caribbean, Africa, Cuba all coming together in the melting pot that is New Orleans that created the backdrop for the music. So, honestly, it's the same chords and the same things but when you play it over the rhythms of this town it becomes distinctly New Orleans and that's really what happens in my opinion."
A somewhat rare weeknight show at The Lizzie Rose Music Room is made extra special by Cristian's homecoming of sorts; what does he and the band have in store for those attending on Thursday August 22?
"I'm bringing five pieces, I'd like to bring more horns but we know when there is no money, the first thing to go is the horns. We're coming with a sax, drums, bass, guitar of course and keys. So, it's just the five piece, that's what we did the album with, so that's the sound and we're focusing on the sound. We're gonna do everything that's on the album, we're gonna do a special section for Walter of course with a couple of extra songs because we found out that our keyboard player, Mikey "B3" Burkhart can actually sing Walter's tunes; I can play them but I have a hard time singing them because he was a great singer. Mikey opens up the pallet so we added five or six Walter tunes that we can highlight and then there will be all the regular Soul Project stuff that everybody loves and wants to hear and then and excitingly to me, we're gonna be debuting some new music that has been in the working stages but the only way to get them ready to record is to play them. So, we're using this tour as kind of an incubator because when you're on stage, you find out real quick what works and what doesn't (laughs)"
To purchase tickets for August 22 please visit https://www.lizzierosemusic.com/ and to find out more about The Soul Project NOLA, please click here: https://soulprojectnola.com/epkb3
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
