This was one of those rare days when something happened I’ll probably always remember-this was the day that Neil Young tore up and spit out the Jazz Festival like a feeding shark. This old man single-handedly owned the Jazz Fest—probably the only time a Neville Brothers Jazz Festival performance has been rendered anti-climactic. So if you’re not prepared to read about this in detail, turn back now.
The day started off with a touch of cynicism, however. Passing by the Holy Rosary church at about 10:45 on a Sunday morning, I noticed they were using their parking lot to charge Festival-goers $30 for parking, as they had throughout the weekend. A small sign out front instructed those wanting to attend mass that they needed to park down the street. I assume this meant the disabled and elderly as well. Now, its understandable why they do this—it’s a tremendous fundraising opportunity that falls into this church’s lap every year by the happy coincidence of its location so close to the Fair Grounds. Let’s say they can accommodate 150 cars at $30 a car, they’re probably looking at around $4,500/day. If they used the lot for church parking on Sunday, instead of festival parking, they let slip a $9,000 fundraising opportunity that has almost no cost attached to it. That’s hard money to turn down for any non-profit. Still, it presents a distasteful image for a Christian church, and especially for a Catholic church (with all those priceless Vatican works of art stored away in Rome and with the Church’s vast property world-wide property holdings) to so symbolically put money before worship. I wonder if that’s not money best left on the table, as it were.
Shrugging it off, I managed to arrive once again exactly as the Gospel Tent’s morning prayer was getting underway. Although no wedding party seemed in attendance, Rev. Mark and the Gospel All-Stars were, and they took the stage first. This consisted of three male singers and a basic backing band, singing typical gospel songs.
As it was pretty standard fare (only at the Jazz Festival Gospel Tent could what would otherwise come off as amazing and inspirational singing seem hum-drum, sort of like your fourth hour of driving on the Pacific Coast Highway...“oh, another nice view”), I ventured over to the Fais-Do-Do stage. Predictably, that’s become my standard rally point when there’s no one playing that I’ve scheduled. Can’t get enough of that chanky-chank music and dancing. On stage was the Red Stick Ramblers. The Ramblers are fairly young players, and they play traditional Cajun but with western swing and jazz touches. Sort of a Cajun Hot Club of Cowtown. During their performance, Acadiana legend D.L. Menard, scheduled to appear next, sort of wandered into the crowd to say hi to some people he knew. Not that many people recognized him, but a steady stream of people did come over to say hello, have their picture made with him, get something signed. He seemed to love it.
From there I went to the Acura stage to see local legend Jonathan Batiste. Although I’ve heard of him many years, I thought he was strictly a pure jazz pianist. Wrong. In fact, he is a piano virtuoso of all styles, working nearly all of them into his music. Classical, jazz, blues, R&B, funk, soul, and even rock find their way into Batiste’s eclectic music. He had a full band and together they had the rapidly filling crowd dancing. Imagine Harry Connick, Jr., but with less shtick.
But I cut it a bit short as it was time for D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces. I wrote extensively about him last year, so will just say this guy is the Real Cajun. I’ve heard countless numbers of Cajuns, but could barely understand his English. Musically, he’s also traditional Cajun, but with more of an old country edge (for example, one of his band members plays pedal steel guitar). He must be well over 70, yet had no trouble getting around and appeared quite feisty, complaining to the stage hands about amp settings and so forth. At one point, he said that he’s suffering from an “epidemic of Chris” because three members of his band are named Chris. “Epidemic of Chris” would have been a good name for this blog, or if I ever form a band. When introducing his steel guitar player, he said “he’s a professor over at U.L. but he ain’t got nothin’ on me, I garawntee!” Menard had a fairly full house, and the dance area was pretty full the entire time.
From there it was back to the Acura stage for local legend Allen Toussaint. Toussaint is one of those many New Orleans musicians who’ve been around forever, have played with nearly everyone of any consequence, and no matter what the prevailing styles of the day just keep practicing their craft without much fanfare. Toussaint is also another one of those players whose style is a musical gumbo—just call it New Orleans R&B. Wearing a canary yellow jacket (surely it wasn’t the same one Tony Bennett wore Friday night?), cream slacks, crisp white dress shirt and a gold tie, and fronting a full band with horns, rhythm section and backup singers, Toussaint got the crowd on his side at the beginning and kept them as he worked through a litany of old school, Dew Drop Inn New Orleans standards: “Mother in Law,” “Certain Girl,” "Fortune Teller," and many others.
Between that and Neil Young, it was time to squeeze in a little bit of time for the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra and Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers. The Orchestra, appearing at the Economy Hall tent, basically was like the ship orchestra on the Titanic. Everyone dressed like Capt. Steubing on Love Boat, which was a little weird (which one was Julie?), but the tent and its dance floor were completely packed and the crowd loved it. The Harmonizers came out about 20 minutes before Neil Young, so this year I only caught a couple of their songs. I’ve also written previously about this legendary group, still fronted after more than 50 years by founder Sherman Washington. Washington appeared in a wheelchair again this year, and although it was announced that he wouldn’t be able to perform due to not feeling well, he took the mike after the first song and belted out the emotional “I Want to Be at the Meeting” that got him choked up last year when he got to the line “when I get to Heaven, I'll meet my mother there.” That was a special moment last year, and a special moment this year as well.
Although I would normally have stayed for much more of their show, it was time to try to secure the best possible viewing spot for Neil Young so I left early.
I managed to squeeze myself fairly close to the stage, getting some really great pictures you can see on flickr.
If you don’t know who Neil Young is, I’m not sure where you’ve been the last 40 years but run, don’t walk, to buy Live Rust, Harvest, and Year of the Horse. There’s at least four Neil Youngs: country troubadour, folk poet, hippie hero of Woodstock, and the Godfather of Grunge. All four Neil Youngs showed up in New Orleans today. The stage crew set up enormous floodlights and an oversized amp. Neil came on stage with his usual Gibson Les Paul (“Old Black”), with the same peace sign/dove sign strap as he wore in Live Rust, launching into a blistering “Love and Only Love.” For the next two hours, he wreaked total devastation on the Jazz Festival. Moving on to “Hey, Hey, My, My,” Neil played that wretchedly excessive paint peeling guitar typical of the old Crazy Horse songs. From there, he took to the piano for a quieter “Are You Ready for the Country,” returning back into the melting chords of 1969’s “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere,” (ironically, as he sang the lyric, “every time I think about back home, its cool and breezy,” a cool breeze began to blow through the Fair Grounds), an equally vicious and surprisingly reworked “Pocohontas” (originally a quiet acoustic song from Rust Never Sleeps), “Change Your Mind,” and culminating with the timeless “Cinnamon Girl.” These songs really showcased Young as the spiritual demi-god of the 1990s grunge scene. As if straight from the garage, Young coaxed heavily distorted power chords from his 1960s Gibson Les Paul, which he played “like a relic from a different age.” Not for nothing did Nirvana and Pearl Jam revere Young—Pearl Jam played with him at Young’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. This may just as well have been 1980’s Rust Never Sleeps. At that point, folkie Young made an appearance with “Mother Earth,” played on a small pipe organ, the classic “Needle and the Damage Done,” and “Light a Candle,” then into country Neil, with Harvest’s classic “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man.” After “Speakin’ Out” from Tonight’s the Night, Young launched into an extended, version of “Down By the River,” featuring multiple solo turns. Heading towards the end, he charged into the rock and roller “Get Behind the Wheels,” to conclude with a proudly distorted version of the now anthemic “Keep On Rockin’ In the Free World.” For the inevitable encore, the band played a surprisingly straight version of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” John’s concluding song on Sgt. Pepper, complete with the audience belting out the famous “ahhh” section at the end of the bridge. At the very end, Young wrestled the last few chords out of Old Black, shaking, punching, bashing it, dragging it across the stage, ripping at the strings, finally placing it next to the amp for it to explode in a glorious last piercing jolt of feedback. To punctuate the ending, Neil climbed to the top of the riser, took a pair of mallets, and played one single note on a marimba to bring the show to an end. This was an all-timer. Easily this incandescent performance has made my personal top five of any musical performance ever. There’s nothing like watching a master practice his craft. In this case, there’s nothing like watching someone from the old school stand his ground and refuse to concede on his art. And as if the heavens were busy watching the show too, a torrential downpour began seconds after the show concluded.
As I arrived at Dash Rip Rock, soaked and getting colder by the minute but still on a high after the Neil Young show, I noticed the Lagniappe Stage appeared to have been crowded even before the rains. Dash is New Orleans’ other great party band, out of the Cowboy Mouth tradition (not surprising, because former Cowboy Mouth personnel founded Dash Rip Rock). I was able to catch about the last 20 minutes of the show, and was especially happy about that as I hadn’t seen them since I lived in New Orleans in 1991. I think only the lead guitar player is the same from that era, but that’s typical. The small crowd was loving the show, and what I did not remember was the college-age girl admiration and fandom. Apparently Dash Rip Rock has become the Pat Green of New Orleans in that respect. The song “New Orleans Needs Stronger Dikes,” whose lyrics basically consisted of a list of famous lesbians, was pretty funny.
After Dash concluded, I debated ending it right there, thinking anyone else’s performance would be downhill. It turned out I was right, but there was an hour left and at $40/ticket, I was going to get all of my money’s worth.
So, as previously planned, I soldiered on to the Neville Brothers. The rain had mostly stopped, having slowed to just a very slight drizzle, but it had driven away a lot of the normally elbow-to-elbow crowd that packs in to hear the Neville Brothers at Jazz Festival. I have to say, after Neil, this show just seemed like a footnote. They also seemed to just mail it in. Last year was quite an emotional show, it being the first time the Nevilles had performed in New Orleans since Katrina. They pulled out all the stops last year, complete with numerous guests, and a show that pushed at least a half hour past the scheduled 7:00 conclusion. This year, however, had no such highlights, energy, or stamina. It even started late thanks to the rain.
So I briefly detoured to check out Buddy Guy. Again, another technically competent blues player, another packed house, another time I just couldn't really enjoy the blues. Its not him, its me. Guess I'm too happy a person. Guy did have some pretty great licks, and even went into the crowd at one point.
So I returned and finished Jazz Festival with the conclusion of the shortened Neville Brothers set, ending yet another year at the Festival.
Thanks for reading. Back to all the sarcasm in the next post.
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