Purple and green are popping up to join the ever-present gold around town. Iowa City’s Mardi Gras may never match New Orleans’s city-wide energetic extravaganza, but locals aim to please today.
Augusta, a New Orleans-theme restaurant, 630 Iowa Ave., will open for the first time in honor of the holiday. The menu boasts jambalaya, gumbo, alligator, and king cake.
After a fittingly festive feast, the Mill, 120 E. Burlington St., may be an ideal second stop.
New Orleans-style jazz troupe the Dandelion Stompers will bring the spirit of Mardi Gras to the bar at 6 p.m. today.
The octet, though all bring a variety of musical tastes and backgrounds, were united by jazz in the spring of 2014.
“I’ve been playing in bands since high school in the early ’90s, and I got into early jazz around 2001, when I moved to Austin, Texas,” said Chris Clark, the baritone saxophonist. “I had finally found my people.”
Playing alto saxophone is a family affair for Jacob Yarrow.
“My grandfather played the saxophone as a hobby, and I always thought it was the coolest thing,” Yarrow said. “He gave me a used horn when I was in fifth grade, and shortly after that, I was hooked.”
Yarrow spent 25 years making his way through several bands of varying genres — including a stint with 10-piece funk outfit “Tequila Mockingbird” — before finding his way to the Dandelion Stompers, the only group he’s been a part of since moving to Iowa City six years ago.
Despite being fans of just about all things jazz, the band specializes in covering classic tracks from the 1920s, although it does occasionally “dirty up” more contemporary songs to give it that nostalgic sound.
Katie Roche, who has sung jazz for close to 15 years, had never touched songs from the ’20s until joining the Stompers, when she realized she had a knack for that distinct style.
“This era suits my big, bawdy voice, both in subject matter and composition,” she said. “I get to sing hard and loud, and nothing feels better than that.”
She also appreciates the genre for its message, still relevant nearly 100 years later, she said.
“This music is fun and irreverent and deals heavily in the politics of those days, including sex and love, race, guns, marijuana and booze, not unlike a lot of popular music of today,” Roche said. “I love the phrases from that era, which were often coined just for a song and then became slang.”
Jazz’s popularity has waned since the turn of the century, perhaps because of the misconceptions of sophistication surrounding the genre, Roche said.
“I think jazz has gotten a bad rap over the years as something that you have to have a level of sophistication to enjoy,” Roche said.
“There is certainly jazz that is less accessible, but as a genre, it has endless variety. Everyone should be able to find some jazz that speaks to them if they just do a bit of exploring. For me, that little bit of exploring meant I was hooked for life.”
MUSIC
The Dandelion Stompers
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Mill, 120 E. Burlington
Admission: $10
