The Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts has provided free, outdoor entertainment for the past 33 summers in Westport. From mid-June through August, the musical offerings encompass big-band, children's, classical, jazz, pop, rock, showtunes, and world music. There is always something on the calendar for everyone's taste.
The Crawdaddies, a young, eclectic band, whose music derives from Louisiana's Blues, Cajun, and Zydeco as well as the Northeast's Roots and Rock, will perform on Saturday night July 28, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. This group has appeared with such notable artists as Etta James, Charlie Daniels, Buddy Guy, C. J. Chenier, Joan Jett, The Spinners, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Buckwheat Zydeco, etc. and is a regular fixture on the national college and festival circuits.
Cajun is the traditional folk music of the French-speaking Acadians who migrated to Louisiana after 1755 from what is now known as Nova Scotia. These French ballads and drinking songs soon took on the musical characteristics, expressions and instruments from various immigrant and native peoples including Indians, Blacks, British, Caribbean, Spanish and German Americans. As Cajun music absorbed other traditions, it spread throughout Louisiana and into Texas.
Zydeco, a popular music genre of Louisiana, features the accordion, drums, electric bass, and guitar, and may include brass instruments and the frottoir (metal washboard). Zydeco developed after World War II and is an amalgam of other American genres like blues and jazz.
Rick Koster's Louisiana Music: A Journey from R & B to Zydeco, Jazz to Country, Blues to Gospel, Cajun Music to Swamp Pop to Carnival Music and Beyond, provides a comprehensive overview of the disparate nature of Louisiana's music. The video Let the Good times Roll: A Celebration of New Orleans Music and Its Heritage Festival has a wide array of performers from the 1990's. Clifton Chenier's Zydeco Dynamite, Michael Doucet's Le Hoogie Boogie: Louisiana French Music for Children, and Buckwheat Zydeco's Menagerie demonstrate the diversity and uniqueness of these various styles of music.