Jazz Festival 2012-Sunday: Do These Come In "Cold"?

Soul is the music people understand. Sure it's basic and it's simple. But it's something else 'cause, 'cause, 'cause it's honest, that's it. Its honest. There's no fuckin' bullshit. It sticks its neck out and says it straight from the heart. Sure there's a lot of different music you can get off on but soul is more than that. It takes you somewhere else. It grabs you by the balls and lifts you above the shite.

--The Commitments

I was totally prepared to focus this last post on the Foo Fighters' absolute napalming of the Jazz Festival, as compared to the Neville Brothers' now sadly usual "mail it in one more time, send my check to the same address" show. That plan lasted until about 6:45 p.m. on Sunday, when I poked my head in the Blues Tent after my friend Katherine posted that she was having a great time there.

When I did, I enjoyed for almost half an hour the best show of the entire Festival, and maybe the best Festival show EVER. "No name" Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings were busily burning the Blues Tent to the ground with the most intense soul show I've ever seen. And I've seen Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin, Ike Turner, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the O'Jays, and Sam Moore. She's from Augusta, Georgia, and according to the web site, the band has been touring for years with appearance all over the world. How have I not heard of them until just now? Even past 7, when they were supposed to shut down, the tent was still packed with people dancing like a death rattle. It kind of resembled that weird scene in the second Matrix movie where they're all doing some super intense tribal dance as the machines are burrowing through the defenses to come kill them all. Sidebar: Monica Bellucci. That is all. Ok, getting back. About the only way I can describe it is to compare it to old videos of Ike and Tina Turner, with Tina shimmying all over the stage in a sequin dress, howling like an animal devouring its prey as the band keeps laying down a brutal vibe. The music kept on flowing, Jones commanded the stage, and the whole show just destroyed. She was moving so fast I couldn't get any pictures that weren't blurry. In short, those 30 some odd minutes were the highlight of entire Festival.

Ok, lets get back to the regular chronological order. No sense getting all fahklempt unless we absolutely have to.

This last day of the Festival, my friend Carrie and I tried a new breakfast place over by the Camellia Grill called Refuel. Its a couple of blocks down from the Maple Leaf. Its a really nice room with counter service, and they focus on fresh, natural ingredients and healthy dishes (something of a premium in the Big Easy).  I had a "runner's breakfast," which was a whole grain bagel with spinach, eggs, and jack cheese, with a side of fresh fruit. Really good. Once again, we arrived around 9, just before the rush, and left as people were milling about outside waiting for our table. Vultures.

Once we made it out to the Fest, it was time for the morning prayer and then I remained in the Gospel Tent to enjoy the Rocks of Harmony. This is one of the oldest continuing gospel groups in the city, but they still pack a tremendous punch. These guys continuously got off the stage and into the crowd, holding hands with audience members, dancing to the music, and generally whipping the Tent into a genuine old-time religious fervor. Try finding that kind of passion in your new age, Joel Osteen, "everything is beautiful" churches. As with many other gospel groups, I dug the matching suits.

From there I slid over to the Jazz Tent to hear the UNO Jazz All Stars. This was pretty much just killing time until some name acts came on, but these grad students played really well. Its amazing just how many talented musicians live in New Orleans. They played some fairly straightforward contemporary jazz, soothing to the soul though musically challenging. In no way did this resemble Kenny G. These guys have spent several years in school perfecting their talents. Think about that when I get to the Foo Fighters.

I then headed to the Fais Do Do tent, where the Red Stick Ramblers, from Eunice, briefly doubled as Annie Tee and the Bayou Cadillacs for a filming of the HBO series, Treme. Its kind of bizarre, but I've never seen this show, set and filmed in New Orleans. Its about the Treme neighborhood, set in the aftermath of Katrina. The show features local musicians in guest spots, and wanted to film an episode at the Jazz Fest. One of the stars, Lucia Micarelli, played a couple of songs in character with the Ramblers backing her as a fictional band, and the HBO cameras recorded it. They took extensive crowd shots, and the area seemed a little unusually packed for that time of day. After she finished her two songs, about a quarter of the crowd left, which struck me as odd. Why would anyone show up just to see a TV show filming? Ever noticed those mutants lined up outside the Today show studio windows? Exactly. Once that was over though, the Ramblers settled in for an excellent set that was more Willie's Roadhouse country than zydeco or Cajun. I'd call it more "Cajun influenced" than Cajun. I found a little spot of shade just under a light tower, and enjoyed that small little oasis of tranquility amid the surface of the sun temperatures otherwise prevailing around me.

But all good things must end, or at least give way to other good things. So I quickly beat it over to the Gospel Tent to renew my appreciation of the Zion Harmonizers. I've written before about Brother Sherman Washington, who founded and led the Harmonizers for over 60 years. Bro. Sherman founded the Gospel Tent, which provides the "soul" of the Jazz Fest and allows people from all over the world to appreciate the gospel music of the black church. Here, unfortunately, is one of the few areas where blacks and whites come together and enjoy the same music at Jazz Fest. His image is literally the symbol of the Tent. Even in his declining years, from a wheelchair, probably suffering mentally as well, his booming voice and presence could still move the crowd to its feet or to its knees. He sang "I Want to Be At the Meeting" at his last Jazz Fest and I'll always remember it. This was the first time I'd seen the Harmonizers without Bro. Sherman on stage. They seemed a lot more subdued. More dignified and less relentless. They had a great show, but maybe they didn't quite reach the old magical heights. Or maybe its just unfair to compare anyone to Bro. Sherman Washington, who had enough energy to power about 10 gospel groups.

I left the sacred and headed straight for the secular, in the form of another New Orleans institution, the Funky Meters.  This requires a bit of explanation. The Meters were one of New Orleans' most famous R&B and soul acts, charting with several hits like Hey Pocky Way, Mardi Gras Mambo, and Cissy Strut. They sort of didn't get along after awhile, or just decided they had better things to do, and broke up in the 1970s. But about 10 years later, three of the original four members (including Art Neville), formed the Funky Meters, which basically was a dirtier, funkier version of the original Meters. I enjoyed it, and the crowd really got into it, but it just seemed a little too down and dirty for me. At times it sounded like a porno soundtrack, actually (well, just based on what I've heard....). Just a bit too chunky for my taste. But they won't miss me; the Gentilly Stage crowd seemed totally packed.

Then it was time for the Main Event. No, not Sinatra at the Garden. The Foo Fighters. Wow. This was without question the hardest rocking show I've ever seen at Jazz Fest. The previous winner, the Strokes, looked like a Bon Jovi cover band or "Scrantonicity" compared to the Foo Fighters. The performance was earth shaking. Literally. I was standing about 30 feet from the speakers and the ground was vibrating under me. I'm not a long time, obsessed, proto-stalker Foo Fighters fan the way many in the packed crowd were, so I unfortunately can't take you through the set list and describe every version of every song. I did recognize many songs, so I'm pretty sure they played all the "hits." About the best I can do is to compare it to Nirvana on steroids, force fed espresso for about 30 days' straight, and then cycled through a course of ADHD drugs. Having seen almost all the "rock gods" in concert, though, several things stood out to me. Most obviously, the band's incredible stamina. They played a full two hours, in oppressive heat and humidity, with Dave Grohl screaming as loudly for the last word of the last song as the first word of the first song and running non-stop from one side of the stage to the other. He even played drums on one song, and as my friend Carrie pointed out, looked like Animal from the Muppets in doing so. No ballads, no songs where one guy played the guitar while everyone else took a break. They were into every song, full tilt, the whole time. That's hard to do for one show, but almost unimaginable they can sustain that for an entire tour, year after year. Another thing that stands out immediately is Dave Grohl's sincerity and showmanship. The witty, down to earth guy you see on the talk shows? That's who shows up in concert too. No phony exhortations to the crowd to start rocking, or extended self-congratulatory drivel. Its like the most interesting guy in your circle of friends invited you over to his place to hang out for a couple of hours, and you listened to some great music as you did. Really funny one-liners never stopped. After they played a cover of Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh," he said, "we wrote that one last week." He told parents who pay $30 a lesson for their kids to have guitar lessons, that only one band member can read music, and he never had any lessons "and look who's on the big stage at Jazz Fest."  When he drank from his beer, he looked to the stagehands and asked "do these come in 'cold'?"  He busted the audience's unbidden attempt to sing the chorus of one song as a "noble effort," but said "you don't get to the big stage singing like that." He chastised the drummer for using bad language, when nearly every other word out of Grohl's mouth was dirty. When guitarist Pat Smear's wife brought out a birthday cake to celebrate his 41st birthday on stage, Grohl led the crowd in singing Happy Birthday, then referred to him as "Auxiliary Guitarist." He even begged the crowd at one point not to cheer so much because it made them nervous. So Grohl displayed outstanding showmanship and band fronting ability, of a type rarely seen from today's mumbling, inarticulate musicians who can scarcely muster up much in the way of the spoken word beyond "please buy my new CD." I guess the final, related thing that stood out was these guys play. At one point Grohl congratulated all the bands at Jazz Fest who don't "have computers play their instruments." Three guitars, a drummer, and a keyboardist comprise the Foo Fighters attack, and they just laid the wood to it for two hours. Contrast that with the Eagles or other famous names, whom hired hands playing the actual instruments often outnumber the name members on stage by about two to one, as the name members just kind of strum along on a wooden guitar or shake a tamborine. [cough, the Neville Brothers, cough]. So, I give the Foo Fighters two thumbs up.

Then we come to the Neville Brothers. What are we going to do with you? I've said before, I've tried, I've really tried, to like these guys for over 20 years. It just hasn't taken. I've written before about the friction and general "bad mojo" between the band members and the city, and lately that has colored my reaction to their music. Its like they're mad at us that we don't hold them in even greater honor and kiss their backside even more than we already do, 'cause, you know, they're so awesome and everything. My God, they get the closing slot at Jazz Fest every year (even after they blow off the Festival for a few years), they're universally called "New Orleans First Family of Music" (which is ridiculous in a town that gave birth to the Marsalis family), and their mere mention is always in hushed tones normally reserved for Jesus. Or Obama. The point is, I can hardly think of the Neville Brothers any more without thinking "entitlement." Apparently a lot of other people think that too, because the Acura Stage crowd had thinned considerably after the Foo Fighters' show. It looked like mid-day density, with plenty of open space to throw frisbees, hold a pilates class, build a sundial, or graze cattle. I didn't stay beyond three or four songs, each of which (like "Hey Pocky Way") were pretty tired old staples, played with a seemingly tired, "we're here so mail us our check now, ok" attitude. If the Foo Fighters' energy and passion was a 10, the Nevilles were at a 2 (just ahead of guy fixing his clogged kitchen sink).

So I bailed on the Nevilles and decided to duck in to the Blues Tent on the way out, and then, well, you know the rest of the story.

Thus closes another Jazz Fest. Now, to close, I want to take you behind the curtain.  Its getting harder and harder to stand out in the field each year. Its like that scene in Bridge on the River Kwai, where the camp Commandant makes the British officers stand at attention all day in the broiling sun. Except its four days and I do get occasional water breaks. Its becoming more and more expensive, I'm pretty physically beat down when I leave and it takes about a week or so to recover, the crowds are getting progressively worse, and so too is the attitude of those who work at the Festival. Honestly, if any of them had tasers or guns I think we'd have had a body count.

So I may need to rethink this annual tradition. One possibility is that it becomes a TCM Classic Movie Festival tradition from here on out. Its in Los Angeles, and held in some classic movie venues like Graumann's Chinese Theatre. A star from the movie often appears and discusses it before it starts, as did Eva Marie Saint before North By Northwest one year. And its around the same time of year. Beats the skin cancer exposure and cholesterol assault that Jazz Fest entails. We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, thanks for struggling along with me. See you soon!