Photograph: Brayden Janice playing at the St. Landry Parish Tourist Center for monthly Capitol City Jam Session. (Photograph by Bobby Ardoin.)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
Brayden Janice is fashioning a whimsical notion into an on-stage presence that is attracting notice from several generations of Zydeco and Cajun musicians.
Although he is 18, Janice is singing in colloquial French, mastering the accordion and learning the Cajun fiddle, while creating eclectic compositions that stretch across several generations.
Still recovering from serious November head-on vehicle collision injuries, Janice performed on Saturday with his New Gen Zydeco Band at the monthly Capitol City Jam session at the St. Landry Parish Tourist Center.
At this stage of his career, Janice feels that he and his band are still emerging, but perhaps reaching the precipice of a break-out year.
Janice is now writing and performing some of his original songs and constructing a catalog that he thinks could soon lead to an eventual album release.
On Saturday Janice played to a familiar audience from the Arnaudville area, as well as others who came to listen and dance to traditional Cajun and Zydeco songs as well as original compositions that he has introduced.
“Right now my plan is to do music full time. I’ve written six or seven songs and I’m still working on completing several more. I want to get out there and continue performing. I guess you could say that I’m at a break-out stage right now,” Janice said following the two-hour event that featured several supporting musicians of various ages.
Janice thinks it’s difficult to accurately define the totality of the music that he and his band deliver.
“I guess you could say it’s Zydeco, Creole and Cajun. With the fiddle, I’m just starting. I’m teaching myself and working with Cedric Watson,” Janice said.
Janice said he began to embrace the thought of a musical career at 14, listening to KRVS old-time Zydeco programs that featured Horace Trahan and others. Occasionally Janice remembers he would drop by other Cajun jam sessions at the tourist center.
“I would come here (to the Tourist Center) and listen to other musicians. I thought I might like to do something like that,” Janice said.
Band members include drummer Ethan Lemelle, guitarist Landon Lemelle, Daniel Ford on the keyboard and Jailon Bryant playing washboard.
Cajun musician Don Fontenot, who performed on the accordion on Saturday, said he’s been impressed at how quickly Janice and his band have progressed.
“I think Brayden has come a long way. Everytime I hear him, he has improved and now he’s essentially teaching himself the fiddle,” Fontenot added.
Fontenot said the New Gen Zydeco sound infiltrates a number of musical genres.
“They play authentic Zydeco, but I’d say there is a lot of rhythm and blues that I am hearing in their sound,” said Fontenot who has played professionally since 1992.
Alvin Mallet said there’s probably a genetic component that is providing influence.
“His great uncle had a band (Kenny And The Rhythm Makers), so there’s some of what he does in the blood,” said Mallet, the grandfather of Brayden Janice.
Candy Palumbo said she often wondered several years ago what exactly her son was doing in his room.
“He was supposed to be cleaning up in there, but he started playing the harmonica and then the accordion and now the fiddle. I know he’s worked with Steve Riley, Jeffrey Broussard and Cedric Watson,” Palumbo said.
What has been impressive, Palumbo noted, is the assistance her son and his band members have received from older musicians.
Fontenot and several musicians decades older joined in and performed traditional music that has been performed for nearly a century..
Now New Zydeco is keeping those iconic songs relevant, she said.
“They are kids in the band that are just 12 or 14 and it started with them as a neighborhood thing. They have played at the new Prejean’s in Broussard and getting gigs here and there and doing things like these jam sessions and house parties,” said Palumbo before she turned to dance along to the accordion notes produced by her.
