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Sanchez travels from New Orleans to perform at Provincetown Jazz Festival

By Melora B. North

If you think it’s hot on the Cape this summer, try living in New Orleans where 100 degrees is considered a cool day. Phew. That in mind, vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Paul Sanchez, who grew up and still lives in the delta, plans to pack a few unlikely items that may not see daylight until fall for those of us who live here.

“I’ll be wearing a jacket and a sweater while I’m there,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve never been to the Cape, but I’ve been to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and it’s cool there. I can’t wait to come.”

He’ll also be packing his guitar to perform at the Sixth Annual Provincetown Jazz Festival, taking place Friday and Saturday at Provincetown High School to celebrate the survival and revival of New Orleans from the flood caused by Hurricane Katrina. A portion of the proceeds of the festival will benefit the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, which provides a health clinic for the uninsured musicians and artists in New Orleans, founded and directed by Bethany and Johann Bultman of Provincetown and New Orleans.

I grew up as a jazz singer,” says Sanchez. “My brother Andrew taught me to play guitar when I was 14. I play a decent guitar, but I mostly sing” – which he’ll do when he teams up with trumpet player Steve Ahern on Saturday at 8 p.m. in a tribute to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz.

“We’ve never met, we’ve talked on the phone,” he says. “He played with Al Hirt. I’m a song and dance man – I’ll represent New Orleans. I’m a little nervous, though, because it’s a jazz festival. I have primitive jazz skills,” he adds modestly.

The singer grew up in the Irish section of New Orleans with his 10 siblings and mother. His father died when Sanchez was five.

“It wasn’t unusual to have so many kids where I was brought up,” he says. “It was a Catholic neighborhood. My mother worked very hard. Music is the thing that saves the poor. That’s what we had. I started singing when I was five. It’s better than a house full of tears.

Sanchez has been married to his wife Shelly for 14 years. They have no children, but he says, “I have my songs, I tend to them like children. We get to travel, snow ski, water raft, it’s not bad.”

Sanchez was named New Orleans Songwriter of the Year, 2000, by the Gambit Weekly readers’ poll, and was named Songwriter of the Year by OffBeat Magazine. He has nearly a dozen solo albums to his name as well as several he recorded with Cowboy Mouth, the band he founded in 1990 and toured with for 16 years. His songs have appeared in various movies and documentaries, and in April of 2009 his book “Pieces of Me,” a collection of essays on life, music and love in New Orleans, was published.

Opening for Sanchez will be the Berklee Rising Stars, featuring sax player Clay Lyons and trumpet player Matt Joseph, from Cape Cod. They will be accompanied by Berklee faculty musicians, Suzanne Davis, bass player John Lockwood and drummer Bob Kaufman.

On Friday at 8 p.m., wjazz saxophonist Greg Abate, jazz vocalist Dane Vannatter, pianist-vocalist Janice Friedman, bass player Chris Rathbun and drummer Bart Weisman will perform.