Jazz Festival 2009-Thursday: Cry to Me!

The woman shown above, who appears to be every bit of 80 years old, was on stage with Solomon Burke this evening at the Jazz Festival, getting DOWN. This is why I come to this thing-little moments like this.

This Jazz Festival I’m using the nice pocket notebook that Theresa gave me for a Christmas present to take the notes which eventually become these posts, so shout out to you Theresa.

I’ve decided that to shorten these posts a little bit, I’ll spare you most of my non-festival New Orleans activities. One thing, however, deserves mention. On the way to the festival I passed a huge Home Depot, and various “day labor” types were hanging around outside the parking lot fence. This represents a huge leap forward in the home improvement industry. Now, not only can you go to one store for all your supply needs, you can also pick up the workers to perform the actual work. This reminds me of the South Park episode (I realize I’m getting repetitive with the South Park references-hey, shoot me) where Cartman gets day laborers to do his book report on “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Today driving out to the festival it looked pretty cloudy, and I was scared for awhile we’d get rain. It had, in fact, rained last night, but it didn’t look like enough fell to start the mud bath I went through last year. Besides, the mud is always worst the day after the rains, not the day it actually does rain. Sure enough, that proved right. It stayed cloudy and breezy all day, making for one of the best Jazz Fest weather days ever. Unfortunately, it was musically only kind of “meh.” No one outside of the Mississippi Mass Choir managed to hold my attention long, so I saw lots of bands for only a short time today, although there were a few finds.

Thirty seconds into the walk to the Fair Grounds, I ran into “Festival Guy.” Festival Guy is World Traveler Guy’s poor step-brother that he doesn’t like to discuss publicly. Festival Guy is anywhere from 35 to 50, white, generally over 250 pounds, balding, sporting a gray-specked goatee with peanut butter and cheese cracker crumbs, straw hat, tye-dye or Hawaiian shirt, glasses, enormous cargo shorts, high white socks and some sort of deluxe hiking/walking shoes, 37 separate pieces of flair, and a man-danna. This Guy generally is either unemployed and living with his parents, or a part-time computer industry worker between gigs. I never noticed this Guy until recently, probably because until now, he’s been occupied full-time with following first the Grateful Dead, then any or all of their “jam band” followers (Pfish, Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler). Now that those bands have crumbled, he’s been freed to roam the summer festival circuit. Look for him at your local music festival, just back from the beer tent, telling you about seeing Coldplay last May at Red Rocks.

In true New Orleans style, Festival-goers are hitting the beer and daiquiri booths right at 11 a.m. Ready to party in style! I start the day with my new custom of going to the Gospel Tent right at its opening, for the day’s opening prayer, which was preceded by a chorus of “Let’s Stand Up for Jesus!” First up was the McMain High School Gospel Choir. I’m not exactly sure how a public high school can have a gospel choir. I know the local school system has changed radically into some hybrid of charter schools and a few public schools; apparently they’re able to support gospel choirs, which is excellent. The Gospel Tent has installed a misting system, like at many Austin outdoor bars. So along with the shade and breeze, it was quite cool.

Then it was on to the Jazz Tent for the Tulane University Jazz Ensemble. All their songs were comfortable and familiar. Sort of a jazzier version of Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show Orchestra. Notably, women were playing bass and drums, something you don’t usually see except in a “girl group.” The one non-white person in the group played a really nice tenor solo…while wearing Terminator shades. The rest of the group looked like they’d be working on their MBAs at Harvard in a couple of years. You know, chaches. Hey, it was the Thursday at 11:15 slot. What do you expect?

But looking around the Jazz Tent throughout the day revealed something alarming, which Wynton Marsalis has been railing about for years-the lack of black interest in jazz. The Jazz Tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is, and has for some time been, mostly white. Although most of the players are black, they generally play to affluent white, older audiences. As is fitting, no one race or immigrant group can lay claim to having invented jazz, but black performers featured prominently, if not overwhelmingly, in its development into the only truly authentic American art form. This is occurring in major league baseball as well, despite the fact that the business and athletic success of the Negro Leagues played such a historic and important role in refuting many of the rationales for segregation. These trends are alarming. Perhaps hip-hop is killing jazz, just like it is rock and roll.

But what’s one irritable Texas lawyer to do?

Off I went to have some white beans and rice, “poulee fricassee” (chicken on a stick-basically a chicken-cicle) and “jama-jama” (spiced spinach). Then I took in a blacksmithing demonstration (no, really, I did), followed by the North Carolina Tuscarora Indian Stomp. I’d seen this last year, but its still kind of interesting.

Next it was on to the Blues Tent for Freddie King. The place was packed—nowhere to sit. I’m not much for the blues, at least not this slow, depressing kind (I can go for the more up tempo John Lee Hooker-style blues). King seemed a bit less dirge-like than other blues players, and the crowd loved it.

Then I noticed a 2009 Festival atrocity. They replaced Coke with Pepsi. Really? Pepsi is swill. Its like someone decided to put fizz in creosote and bottle it. Having to go nearly eight hours a day without Diet Coke is seriously going to harsh my mellow.

Having quit Freddie King early, I drifted instead back to the Jazz Tent for the remainder of Sharon Martin’s set. Kind of like Charmaine Neville, but more subtle, and sexier. Martin definitely was channeling Eartha Kitt, which is something we could all use a lot more of. Definitely a “chanteuse” who really sold it and worked the audience.

En route to the Acura stage, I began to notice kids…everywhere. All in their school uniforms. What’s the deal? Did they let school out today so the kids could all come to Jazz Fest and get their swine flu exposure sooner? They seemed to be in groups of about a classroom size, all escorted by teachers or some other authority looking adults. Very jarring site.

At the said Acura stage, I caught the tail end of something known as Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. This was an Average White Band knock off, led by a poseur bass-playing singer. These guys are local. They’re the kind of band you’d hire to play at your barbecue or chili cook-off, or at the Fiji Texas-OU mixer. Somehow they got to play the main stage at Jazz Festival. Must have some pictures of someone important. Oh, and they all called themselves "Johnny." Uh, you aren't the Ramones, kids. Go away.

OK, here I planned to have some diatribe on women wearing bikini tops that, well, shouldn’t. It would have been really spectacular; someone for sure would have quit talking to me over it. But once again, its too late and this is too long, so lets just move on. Consider this a warning.

Where was I? After making brief stops at the Fais-Do-Do stage for the Creole Zydeco Farmers (and seeing a guy wearing the flower-top hat dancing up a storm I’d seen at many festivals past), it was on to Anders Osborne (no relation to Ozzy). This was a real disappointment. I’d last seen Osborne in 1991 when I first went to the festival. At the time, he was a guitar virtuoso, with jazz and fusion influences. Sort of a New Orleans Eric Johnson. This guy, nearly 20 years later, was anything but that. Osborne today was more Kenny Wayne Shepherd—white blues player with chops but without the soul. Think Johnny Winter without rhythm. Oh, and looking like Bret Favre with tattoos. I missed Theresa Andersson for this? Big mistake.

Next it was a stop at Congo Square for the New Birth Brass Band. What was new? Probably the use of an electric guitar. Not exactly “brass” now is that? They were a lot like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, except faster and funkier. But still with second line influences, unlike Rebirth Brass Band, which now seems to want to become the first brass band hip-hop act.

So it was on to the subdudes (lower case spelling intentional on their part, ‘cause they’re, you know, “subdued”). The subdudes are no strangers to Jazz Fest or Louisiana, having been based here for over 30 years. Nothing was truly standout about their set today, other than they seemed to be having more fun than usual. Pretty much the standard set list, and the swelling crowd enjoyed dancing to the Louisiana Little Feat.

While en route to the Mississippi Mass Choir at the Gospel Tent, I finally went “off diet” and had some crawfish bread. This contains different melted cheeses, crawfish, and a little peppers, inside a toasted French bread baguette. Baiscally, this is the food of the gods. That and Popeye’s biscuits and Valian’s pizza. Mississippi Mass Choir then hit it out of the building. Clearly the performance of the day. Phenomenal soloists, stout backing, dynamic leadership, and driving instrumentalists. Very energetic and moving preaching as well. Very moving performance in an otherwise lackluster day.

Next, on recommendation of a guy I met at Johnny Sketch, was Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials at the Blues Tent. Now this was blues I could enjoy. Lil’ Ed, pictured above, was indeed little, but had a really big, tall hat. I should check into that by the way. But he played fat blues, very loud, distorted, nasty, but musical. It was sort of like Chuck Berry using Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar to play the blues.

Last up for the day was New Orleans stalwart Solomon Burke (“Cry to Me,” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”) with a brief detour for Bonsoir, Catin. Last time I saw Burke was 1991, and he was still walking around the stage, channeling James Brown, complete with a 15 year old boy in a suit standing beside him as his “valet.” This year, however, he was wheeled out in a wheelchair, wearing a purple sequin three piece suit, with a red velvet cape wrapped around the wheelchair, and weighing about 500 pounds. He still had pipes though, and amazingly could still hold an audience even without moving around the stage. He played to a full house at the Congo Square stage for about an hour and 15 minutes, albeit with several guests. Burke was obviously Old School for sure. It made me think how the stars of years ago made their bones, as it were, on stage. They almost always had played live for years, to all kinds of crowds at all kinds of venues, before achieving fame. The Beatles played the Cavern Club. The Stones played the Crawdaddy. Before they ever had their first hit, they had played hundreds of shows. Today’s popular artists don’t necessarily go through that. They get popular on the internet, or some TV show, or by being a Mouseketeer. So they lack the experience of playing in front of audiences and finding what works and what doesn’t work. When they get out on stage, they don’t know how to handle it. You can definitely see this at Jazz Festival. The older performers who’ve been in the business for a long time have a way with the crowds that the newer ones lack. Burke is definitely a music professional, who can command an audience. It was entertaining to see just that element of the show. Plus the fact that he had a song in Dirty Dancing. Yeah, I said it. I like Dirty Dancing. Actually, I liked that guy who was Johnny's cousin, the one carrying the watermelons, whose only function was to provide exposition that filled in key scenes' necessary background. That's kind of how I see my place in life.

Bonsoir, Catin (don't forget the comma!) is a four-woman quartet from Lafayette playing old-style Cajun music. I “discovered” them last year at the Festival, and when I saw they overlapped with Solomon Burke, I just had to ditch Burke for a bit and check out some of their act. They introduce the songs by telling the stories each song relates (in Cajun french, which most of us don't know so well). This time, I found out one of the members is a former Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival Queen, which makes me even more their stalker. They drew a small but enthusiastic and respectable crowd (and a stalker), in light of being matched in the closing time slot against Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper, Solomon Burke, and Nicholas Payton.

Well, this was a lot longer than I imagined (that’s what she said), so I’ll dispense with the rest of my night and see you tomorrow.

Tomorrow-Beausoleil, Marcia Ball, and Tony Bennett