I primarily started this blog to let people know how I spent my vacations, while actually on vacation. It’s a way to bring you along with me, but without us having to talk, disagree on how to spend the day, or make me wait on you in the morning while you take twice as long as I do to get ready. After it evolved a bit (if writing about Star Trek episodes, Dirty Dancing and Top Gun constitutes “evolution”), the nearly equally secondary purpose became to report on my now annual trips to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This has become one of my main annual events, and each year provides a renewal and another chapter in the story.
Affirmers (see previous post…you people are now “affirmers” and you’d just better get used to it), its that time again. Jazz Fest is underway, and The Captain is on his way.
“Preview” is a misnomer. Jazz Fest has already started. Last weekend, the Fest got underway. I missed some outstanding acts, including Jeff Beck, Tom Jones, Irma Thomas (Soul Queen of New Orleans), the Zion Harmonizers Tribute to Bro. Sherman Washington, the Avitt Brothers, and a lot more. But that’s only three days. Hell, Woodstock was three days. I like to attend the second weekend, which includes “Slacker Thursday.” Adding Thursday turns it into a four-day weekend, which gives you more bang for your tourism buck if you can only make one of the weekends.
I arrived yesterday and as per my established routine, attended the YLC “Wednesday in the Square” performance. As discussed in last year’s preview post, this is a new tradition, in which the Young Leadership Council hosts free concerts each Wednesday in Lafayette Square Park, downtown across from the federal courthouse. This week its perennial Jazz Fest favorite Marcia Ball, along with Gal Holiday and her Honky Tonk Review. The crowd is a mix of local CBD workers just leaving the office, and Festers like me, eager to get into the swing of things. Its co-sponsored by the New Orleans Saints, which means the Saint-Sations are in attendance. How can you go wrong?
If you don’t know about Jazz Fest, stay tuned. Or check previous posts from around this time of year. Jazz Festival is part music festival, part street fair, part food festival, and part Louisiana celebration. Its held at the New Orleans Fair Grounds, which basically is their horse track. That means its all contained in one spot. There’s roughly seven or eight stages, with music being played on staggered schedules between roughly 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. The Fest features all different kinds of music, but for the most part its Louisiana-themed, or has some arguable connection with Louisiana’s musical heritage. That takes in a wide swath-blues, jazz, gospel, country, rock, rockabilly, reggae, even rap. About the only styles I can’t imagine would play at Jazz Fest would be electronica, new age (although idiot Kenny G played the first weekend this year), or metal. Roaming around the grounds, one can fill up on really excellent Louisiana foods, sold by local vendors. Favorites include crawfish monica, crawfish bread, po boys of all varieties, gumbos, etouffees, boiled shrimp and crawfish, and other Cajun and creole delicacies. The infield also features “heritage” including various art and craft displays, blacksmithing, glassblowing, woodworking, and other demonstrations, native dances, second line parades, and various other mirth and merry. The grandstands host cooking lessons, musician interviews, and Festival history displays. You could spend an entire day at Jazz Fest without listening to a single band and still get your money’s worth just from the food, the demonstrations, and the people-watching. Of course, you’d be foolish to do that.
This year’s second weekend lineup looks ok. Maybe not quite as exciting as some past years. Here’s the bands I’m currently focused on, by day:
Thursday: Cyndi Lauper (that’s right, THAT Cyndi Lauper), Gregg Allman, Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Delfeayo Marsalis, and Wilco.
Friday: Ingrid Lucia, Edie Brickell (i.e. Mrs. Paul Simon), Bonerama, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Better than Ezra.
Saturday: Marcia Ball, DL Menard, Trombone Shorty, Allen Toussaint, Beasoleil, The Strokes, Aaron Neville (solo gospel performance), and Bobby Blue Bland.
Sunday: Anders Osborne, Feufollet, Cowboy Mouth, Ellis Marsalis, Rebirth Brass Band (“ain’t no party like a Rebirth party…”), Kid Rock (yes, I’m going to go, just for the spectacle of it all…hopefully hepatitis isn’t airborne transmitted), Sonny Landreth, the Radiators’ farewell show, the Neville Brothers, and Sonny Rollins.
Of course, Jazz Fest is most fun when you discover a new (or previously unknown) artist, as I have through the years. Before Jazz Fest, I had no idea about performers such as the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, DL Menard, Feufollet, Bonsoir Catain, Charmaine Neville Dash Rip Rock, Anders Osborne, Theresa Andersson, or many other local acts of whom I’m now an avid fan. One example, last year I blew off about 2/3 of the Pearl Jam show to listen to long-time guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck, whom I’d never heard live. That risk proved well worth it, as Beck gave a stunning performance, earning him a repeat performance this year (which unfortunately was the first Festival weekend).
And Jazz Fest serves as one of two real New Orleans “gathering of the tribes”…a shared local experience, like a huge block party. Having lived here for about a year, I still feel like an outsider but can appreciate it more than those who have only traveled here.
One can hardly think of an upcoming Festival without recalling past Fest experiences. Like the first time I had crawfish monica, or the Prejean’s oyster, pheasant and andouille gumbo. At the risk of conflicting with prior posts, here’s my current Top 5 ranking of past Jazz Festival shows (at least, of the ones I’ve seen):
1. Al Green, 1993. Rev. Al was not performing much those days, and when he did, it was nearly always gospel music. He didn’t perform his old 1970s hits very much. So this performance was something of a coming out party. Ed Bradley from 60 Minutes introduced him, reminding us that this was a man who lived his faith, and his attendance here should in no way be taken to mean he had forsaken it. He came out wearing a white suit, and handed out red roses to women in the crowd. He performed a good number of religious tunes, but included all the hits, starting with “L-O-V-E,” and including Love and Happiness, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Still In Love With You, For the Good Times, and Let’s Stay Together. I saw not one, not a few, but several black ladies “of a certain age” swoon. Literally swoon. That was one soul party.
2. Isaac Hayes, 2005. This was about a year before he passed away. Hayes had been part of the Stax Records team, with a hand in writing many of the old 1960s favorites of Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, and the Staples Singers before he started his solo career. He came out late, the last act of the last day in Congo Square on a beautiful, San Diego-like Sunday evening, wearing some sort of Sun Ra sparkling orange caftan, and proceeded to play all his 1970s hits. He even played Chocolate Salty Balls, a song he sang as Chef on South Park. Someone had a flag in the audience with the likeness of Chef, which Hayes acknowledged. As the sun set, and the show moved on well past the required 7 p.m. ending time, the cymbals struck the opening rhythm for one of the coolest songs ever written, Shaft. He extended it and played it a little more slowly than the recorded version. As the song picked up and the lyrics began, the crowd energy started to build. All through the lyric section, that energy grew and grew and grew, until the song reached the break near the end. Hayes extended that break, prolonging the ecstatic feeling that he’d brought about. At the conclusion, the bubble burst, and rapturous cheering began. No encores were necessary as the sun set over 2005 Jazz Festival. “Who’s the black private dick that’s the sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft.”
3. Solomon Burke, 1992. This was at my first Jazz Festival. Burke was a master of New Orleans soul and rhythm and blues. He had huge hits with Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (covered by the Blues Brothers in the movie), Cry to Me (featured in Dirty Dancing) and Got to Get You Off My Mind. I saw him very late in his career, when he was so obese he had to spend much of the show sitting down. But he still wore a velvet suit, and had a personal attendant (a la James Brown) covering him with a cape as he feigned fainting from being overcome with emotion. Burke could absolutely belt out a song, just standing or sitting on a chair, with a microphone. He absolutely held the crowd with his voice, energy, magnetism, and style. One of the greatest showmen I’ve ever seen.
4. Randy Newman 1992, and then 2008. Most of you know him as either this generation’s premier American soundtrack composer, or as the guy who writes odd but witty pop songs (like Short People, I Love LA, or You Can Leave Your Hat On). But he has a serious side, and as a native New Orleanian, has written one of the great Louisiana songs, Louisiana 1927. Its about the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, which literally washed away thousands of south Louisianians, causing widespread migration and displacement. Newman’s song laments their plight: “Louisiana, Louisiana, they’re trying to wash us away….” When he played the song at the 1992 Festival, the skies literally opened up during the song, as if by some sort of divine intervention. Festival goers listened to lyrics like “six feet of water in the streets of Plaquemines” as the torrents broke from the skies. After Hurricane Katrina, “Louisiana 1927” became something of an unofficial Louisiana anthem, symbolizing their resilience and pride, and determination to triumph over the floods that overwhelmed the city. When Randy Newman performed the song in his 2008 return to the Festival, it was an emotional, cathartic moment for the city, and for those who had finally returned from their temporary exile.
5. The Neville Brothers return to New Orleans. I wrote about this in 2008. Without rehashing all that, the Nevilles didn’t come back after Katrina for what seemed to some an excessive amount of time. Long-time resentments surfaced, and some of the Nevilles made negative statements about the city. The Nevilles had long played the last show at Jazz Festival, but skipped 2006 and 2007, the first two years after the storm. But they finally returned in 2008. The Times-Picayune writers wondered how the crowds would greet them. Festival President Quint Davis, who had many run-ins with them through the years, personally introduced them, calling them New Orleans’ first family of music, and saying everyone returned to New Orleans in their own time, and the Neville Brothers were no different. They then played a stellar set, replete with the Wild Magnolias and Carlos Santana guesting, going at least half an hour after the scheduled 7 p.m. finish time.
Honorable Mention: Tony Bennett, Neil Young, Earth, Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, and Carole King (with special guest Slash, yeah, that’s right, “Slash”).
Finally, if you decide to follow these posts, know that the point is just to have some fun. I am not a music expert or a music critic. I’m just a fan. I’m telling you what I thought. I don’t spend all my time researching or checking facts, or listening to every recording of every performer. I don’t go to 500 shows a year. These posts just share what I liked and didn’t like, and explain why. I try to make them fun. The idea is to write what I would tell you in person if you asked me what I thought about the Festival. Your mileage may vary. The last two years, rabid Sugarland and Amanda Shaw fans flooded me with insulting, threatening, and misspelled comments in response to some fairly mild negative posts about their heroes. I didn’t post any of them. Now, I welcome comments. I want you to send comments. If you disagree with my opinions, please, by all means, comment and I’ll post it. Readers can decide who’s right. But I will not have my name associated with vulgar, threatening, or insulting posting. If you wouldn’t say it to my face, don’t expect to see your comment posted. You are more than welcome to start your own blog and post all the insipid, sycophantic, lunatic ravings in support of your favorite acts that you want, and can say anything you like. Just don’t expect that you can bring that cheese over to Daily Affirmations. After all, this blog is all about dignity…always dignity….
Signed, post on the 25 ways girls are like fish.
Next-Thursday at the Festival
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