Raggin' Piano Boogie

Raggin' Piano Boogie helped to create a celebration that included food, entertainment and plantings of flowers along the main street entrance to the Old Arabi Gateway into St. Bernard's Parish on New Orleans. It was a jump-start for the community to make the area exciting and alive. The Celebration Opening Cleanup Day was supported with residents, volunteers and the Kiwanis, 4-H, Old Arabi Neighborhood Association and Chalmette Refining Oaks Club.

I met and spent time with neighbors, volunteers, FEMA and homeland security employees, demolition and construction workers, those who were feeding people, installing temporary roofing, sanitizing homes, cleaning up small businesses, caring for property safety and security needs, those offering supply distribution center and medical clinic support, providing social needs, community outreach and community center recovery projects, those taking surveys, dealing with tree removal, and with people who were providing humane society support as in animal shelter assistance and placement. This was all during onsite Raggin' Piano Boogie performances for Emergency Communities and while having meals and neighborly socialization. They had an amazing food service camp that was healthy in mind, body and spirit.

The Raggin' Piano Boogie truck was utilized to help transport supplies for various outside organizational and work needs as listed above. The piano was utilized for recreational and musical relief by the many volunteer musicians.

Raggin' Piano Boogie's on street performances were created in the areas of the 9th Ward, St. Bernard's Parish, Orleans's Parish, Chalmette, Metairie, Sidle, and in the Mississippi towns of Long Beach, Gulf Port, Pass Christian, Vancleave and Ocean Springs. These performances were for residents and included members of non-profits such as Americore, Conscious Alliance, Red Cross, Catholic Charities, United Way, Share Our Strength, Hands On USA and many non-denominational Christian organizations.

Throughout the days in Louisiana Raggin' Piano Boogie provided on-site "tickling of the ivories" for the Made With Love Cafe and Grill food center for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the Common Ground Relief food distribution and supply drop off points Raggin' Piano Boogie provided music throughout the day. Entertainment was provided for Common Ground's first night move to their new camp collective area. Raggin' Piano Boogie also pounded away with music in the night alone, on the streets to bring alive the deadness in the air to wake up and stir the energy existing below the surface of destruction. Improvisational music was created to provide nurturing love to support the life that exists. Along with entertainment for individuals working on houses and organizations working in communities, music was provided for home bound rush hour traffic.

In Mississippi, Raggin' Piano Boogie provided music for Camp Cities created by the Christians Organized for Relief Effort (C.O.R.E.) as well as for the Evangelical Free Church of America's all-volunteer "God's Kitchen", a twenty-four hour a day emergency food service center. Raggin' Piano Boogie also performed for the FEMA Tent City in Pass Christian and the Hilltop Rescue and Relief organization of Louisianna.

Mardi Gras Day was filled with a full day parading for several hundred thousand spectators through Metairie in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana in the Argus Mardi Gras Parade. Raggin' Piano Boogie also created welcome entertainment in the parking lot for the famous Drago's Seafood Restaurant and its Mardi Gras guests. Pre Mardi Gras entertainment was given to the Krewe of Argus for their Mardi Gras Galaxy Ball outside the Lake Pontchatrain Center entrance.

Raggin' Piano Boogie provided television footage for New Orleans station WGNO26's Mardi Gras news coverage and in Mississippi for WLOX210 "The News for South Mississippi", both affiliates for ABC. Several television segments were filmed with Bea Harrison for her weekly television show "What I Like About the South" on WXXV TV Fox 25.

To contribute to the local economy Raggin' Piano Boogie donated to every street musician found in the French Quarter. A portrait was commissioned for Boner and myself from a local artist. If anyone hears of this commission, I am anxiously waiting as I lost her contact info. In addition, a donation of $100 was given to Cory Richardson towards the purchase of non-evasive bamboo plants for the development of an educational camp on the grounds of the Sebastopol Plantation in St. Bernard's Parish. Jim and Alberta Lewis are working to restore the grounds.

After having had the totally joyful experience of listening to eighty-one year old Dorothy Antoine perform some of her "Boogie Gospel Piano" on the Raggin' Piano Boogie pickup truck, I was grateful for the opportunity to be spontaneous in purchasing a new piano to give to her from a local music store in Biloxi, Mississippi. We loaded the new piano on the Raggin' Piano Boogie truck and I was able to present it to her on the same day we met. Dorothy is a local retired schoolteacher who I learned from a friend is one of Pass Christians most loved and respected residents. While she played the Raggin' Piano Boogie piano she said, "I used to play day and night. When I woke up in the middle of the night with a tune in my head, I would go to the piano to play it but now I can't because my piano got washed away." In the moment I said, "you need to have a new piano and nothing but the best I can get". Mississippi Music Inc. gave me a generous discount resulting in the selling price of $1000.

Raggin' Piano Boogie donated approximately eighteen hundred pounds of food delivered from my home garage in seven gallon, forty pound containers to the Emergency Communities Kitchen Food Bank to New Orleans. Food list included ... 5 Quick Oats ... 9 Hard Red Wheat ... 4 Soy Bean ... 4 Pinto Bean ... 6 Hard White Wheat ... 4 Small White Bean ... 2 Instant Milk ... 5 Germade ... 1 White Rice ... 1 Small Red Bean ... 1 White Sugar ... 4 Yellow Corn. The delivery also included two sixty-gallon plastic bags of new bath towels and bed sheets.

A personal desire to respond and the need to be pro-active resulting from the Hurricane disaster in the South last year resulted in a Raggin' Piano Boogie project that is still on the move. As in the beginning, I have no idea where it all will take me. The original concept and motives can be found under the Archived Pages in the column to the left. Raggin' Piano Boogie's Disaster Tour of Synchronistic Wonder lasted from February 19, 2006 to March 12, 2006. It was almost three weeks long and the first venture of this kind for Raggin' Piano Boogie. I treated it like an experiment. I told myself I could fail and return the same day if that was to be. Well that did not happen and I can say that the experiment was a one hundred percent success. The goals I had set were to meet with people one-on-one, residents and volunteers, and to convey a personal message of worth and a feeling of being cared for. I wanted to lift spirits and give people a jolt of Raggin' Piano Boogie's novel music and energy. I wanted to contribute to the economy and to present the opportunity to "tickle the ivories" for piano players who were "jonsin" to play or who lost their instruments to the storm. I wanted to perform for anyone who wanted to listen. I would play for individuals, groups, the sun and moon, even the mosquitoes. I wanted people to partake in the venture with me. Five people donated on the site. It's a start. You can still donate. A few others donated in-kind. Along with over twenty donated performances, (out of my pocket) and the purchase of a piano for a deserving boogie gospel piano lady, I was able to send eighteen hundred pounds of food, yes that's eighteen hundred pounds of food to the area along with two, sixty gallon bags of sheets and towels.

Having lived in and experienced the devastation first hand for the short period that was, I can clearly say there is no sense of normalcy in the affected areas. That will not exist for some time to come. This tragedy will be playing out for many years. These are our neighbors and I hope everyone keeps a presence of mind for them. It is deserving of everyone to be respected with love and care and that can work physically as well as spiritually. For those who live in my area just imagine driving the entire length of the New Jersey coastline and seeing it destroyed. The emotional toll for most has not begun to surface as people are still coping with basic survival needs. I stayed with people who have no water, heat, electricity, or stores to buy any necessities. They are totally dependent on handouts because they have no other choice. Their entire life's security is based in their hometown. Much of the area is completely trashed and everyone survives in that trash everyday. I had to block out the disgust I felt in the 9th ward area of New Orleans. I had to catch myself to keep from sinking into a depression as I drove daily along the coast of Mississippi. Throughout the ache, I reminded myself that I was leaving. People living in the areas with minor damage have been affected just as psychologically as anyone else. For those who call this home, they live in it everyday and will continue to do so. God help them.

The blog is full of detail. I could not stop myself from writing every single thing that has been in my head. I had so much life experience in such short periods of time that I am still trying to digest it all. For those who know me this trip has been a real "danny kean experience" It was as big as it gets for me. For those who do not know me I have had several biggie's as far as life experiences. I want more and even bigger. Hear that Oprah?

I had no time to take pictures. The ones on the site were sent to me by the people who took them. They are my new friends and I appreciate them very much. Please, please, please if anyone has video or a picture of Boner, the truck, or myself no matter how bad it is, please send it to me. I will be posting new material to this website site and revising what I write for shorter and easier reading daily. Create a link for me or spread it for me if you can. Thanks ahead of time.

Until we meet hopefully again, and again,

Danny Kean

Go to ragginpianoboogie.com splash page