Gumbo & Jazz
Menu:
Schedule:
Dec 20 Wess Warmdaddy w/ Rodney Whitaker
Pictures:
Catering Always Swing All Ages Welcome
Warmdaddy Southern Hospitality
Recent Guests:
Wynton Marsalis Branford Marsalis Marcus Printup & Riza
Frank Stewert Diego Rivera Rodney Whitaker
Reviews:
Gumbo and Jazz delivers one-two punch
Gumbo and Jazz owner Desi Anderson and her husband, Wessell, heft a combo plate of gumbo, jambalaya, salad and garlic bread. (Lawrence Cosentino/City Pulse)
What do you mean, “like?”
A woman in red with a big red smile serves authentic Louisiana food in a tiny red room full of jazz. A smiling mountain of a man in a velour shirt runs matching arpeggios on the cash register keys.
“Hi, I'm Wes,” he says, carrying drinks to a table of three. “Is this your first time here?”
The Monday before, Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson played alto sax with Wynton Marsalis for a holiday jazz concert on PBS's “Live at Lincoln Center.” Back in East Lasing Friday, Dec. 14, one of the world's premier jazzmen is playing sideman in his wife's dream business.
“We've always cooked together,” Desi says. “We never get to sit down and eat. This place is just an extension of our kitchen.” {mosimage}
Anderson hesitates to state what gumbo is, but she knows for sure what it isn't. “Soup is soup,” she declares. “ Gumbo is gumbo.”
For one thing, most soups don't begin with a roux — a touchy, earthy lava flow of oil and flour that must be patiently simmered until dark, yet not burned.
“It has to be pecan colored,” Desi says. “My gauge is my skin complexion.”
Anderson's gumbo is delicately seasoned, generously laden with shrimp and freighted with earthy andouille sausage — “my family's secret,” she says.
Anderson has the sausage shipped from her native southeast Louisiana. “If we don't have it, I take gumbo off the menu,” she says.
There's no okra or tomatoes to unbalance this surprisingly delicate blend. Okra, Anderson says, is a North Louisiana wrinkle. “After you pass Mississippi, tomatoes get in some kind of way,” she says.
Another feature dish here, red beans and rice, slams the palate like a high “C” from Louis Armstrong. Hearty and spicy, it's gritted up with “dirty rice” (rice cooked with ground beef and seasonings) and shreds of smoked ham called tasso.
“That's an uppercut and a knockdown,” Desi says.
“Lord, that's a mix,” Wes adds.
Most diners order up a combo of salad, garlic bread and a main dish or either gumbo, beans and rice or a flavorful jambalaya.
Anderson learned to cook from her grandfather and father.
“I've been cutting seasonings since I was 7,” she says.
And then there's the impossibly nice guy handing out the ice water.
In the mid-'90s, Wes toured the planet with one of the greatest combos in jazz history, the Wynton Marsalis Septet. Later, Anderson wove his sinuous alto sax lines into the fabric of the world's flagship big band, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Last year, weary of life on the road, he joined the MSU Jazz Studies faculty.
The Andersons met 18 years ago at a small club in Baton Rouge, where Wes played with a small combo and Desi came each week to hang with “a support group for recently divorced women.”
When Desi told Wes she liked jazz, he insisted on going to her car and checking out her tunes. She pulled out a David Sanborn cassette — smooth stuff you might hear on hold at a brokerage firm.
“That's not jazz,” Wes told Desi.
“Then what is it?” she replied. “You need to start teaching me.”
Desi is still soaking in Wes's jazz collection, hundreds of tunes programmed into his iPod, playing all day long at Gumbo and Jazz.
When the Andersons moved to Michigan last year, their massive gumbo parties quickly became legend.
The move alone was a leap of faith for Desi, but fate had more in store. In July 2007, Wes suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and temporarily scrambled his memory of faces and names.
Desi bombarded her husband with his own collection of jazz CDs. In two weeks, he was playing again.
Wes has recovered spectacularly and expects to return to the classroom in the fall. Meanwhile, he hangs out at the home away from home his wife has built. Business is good so far, and the Andersons are in a mood to be grateful.
“After what happened with Wes, I've learned to laugh every day and not sweat the small stuff,” Desi says.
Gumbo and Jazz
1138 E. Grand River Ave., East Lansing
Monday-Friday: 11 a.m-8 p.m.
Saturday: Noon-7 p.m.
(517) 664-8626
