The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: I'm Not Going

Isaac Hayes

"Nobody goes there anymore. Its too crowded."

--Yogi Berra

Yogi must have been talking about the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. As the five of you who routinely read my posts know, I've attended Jazz Fest every year for many years now. And each night I write a book on the people I've seen, the acts I've heard, the food I've eaten, and any other little uniquely odd New Orleans experiences that happened. But not this year.

The Jazz Festival began in 1970 in Beauregard Square off of Decatur Street, in what, roughly a hundred years before, was the famous (or infamous) Storyville section where Congo Square had been located, and where local musicians later invented this new kind of music called "jass."  It competed against the likes of the venerable Newport Jazz Festival. The first Festival must have been unimaginably amazing. It featured absolute legends like Mahalia Jackson, the Meters, Fats Domino, and Clifton Chenier. 350 people attended, and most of them were musicians.

Solomon Burke

But it quickly grew, and in two years moved to the New Orleans Fair Grounds, the local horse racing track. Through the years, the New Orleans festival became "the" music festival, after which all the Johnny Come Latelys would model themselves. While it would feature enormously popular "name" acts (Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Tony Bennett, BB King, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, James Brown, and SRV are just a drop in the bucket), it also featured, and introduced millions to Louisiana musical greats (Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, Solomon Burke, Ernie K-Doe, the Neville Brothers, the Radiators, Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Marcia Ball, Randy Newman, and hundreds of others). The Fest, maybe uniquely, also features a Gospel Tent, which showcases the rich tradition of local and regional gospel acts. Brother Sherman Washington, leader of the world famous Zion Harmonizers, started the Gospel Tent at the first Festival, and it has featured luminaries like Mahalia Jackson, And at the "Economy Hall" tent, they feature music you might have heard on the deck of the Titanic. Here you'll see your grandmother second lining across the floor as a band dressed like they were Love Boat crew members plays instruments like the clarinet or the theramin, to get that authentic 1910 sound. And the Fais-Do-Do tent is just a two week long Cajun dance party.


Bro. Sherman Washington

Neil Young

Also uniquely, the Festival features not only music, but "heritage." One could spend an entire Festival day and not listen to any music. Cooking demonstrations, art and photography exhibitions, local craft workers demonstrating their arts, extensive shopping booths, second line parades, Native American dances, and some of the most amazing, artery-clogging, nirvana-inspiring food ever made all beckon Jazz Fest fans to peel away from the stages and enjoy the gumbo that is Louisiana. There's even a Kids' Tent with a wide variety of musicians and other performers to entertain the kiddoes.

Sound fun? I know, right? That's the problem. Where Austin's ACL Festival limits the number of tickets sold, the Jazz Festival does not. As the Festival attracts more and more famous acts with huge followings (e.g. Pearl Jam, Jimmy Buffett, Widespread Panic, Eric Clapton), each of these acts attracts their huge following to the Festival, who have to spend their remaining hours crowding other stages. So through the years, like a great lawn that trampling hordes have ruined, Jazz Festival has become, in my opinion, a victim of its own success. The crowds are stultifying. Its gotten to where the Festival attracts so many people it makes Tokyo rush hour look like a country picnic. Jostling, squeezing past, stepping in precise spots, waiting in lines and timing one's port-o-let visits all become essential Festival skills. The crowds essentially keep one from entering the relatively enclosed Blues, Gospel, and Jazz Tents when anyone of any note performs there. To see acts play those tents, you basically have to arrive early, stake out a spot, and stay the whole day. That means you must miss any other acts performing at one of the ten or so other stages. The crowds have also prompted the Festival to hire "security" personnel with absolutely no interest in the music or other happenings, and who take it as their mission to yell and scream at their slightest inconvenience level.

But for the crowds, the other manifold practical Jazz Fest problems might not present such a challenge. These exist aplenty. The Festival occurs the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. That's right around the time that the heat comes back to New Orleans. For office workers like myself, who've just endured the winter, standing for up to seven hours in that heat and humidity really takes a toll. Sometimes though, it rains. Hard. And long. And turns the place into pretty much a Woodstock-style mud pit where one feels like a soggy rag most of the day. Then there's the cost. Jazz Fest has gotten quite expensive for out of towners. Air fare, near-gouging hotel rates, Festival tickets, food and drinks inside the Fair Grounds, and local restaurants all roll up into an incredibly expensive mini-vacation. Finally, there's the challenge of getting to and from the Festival. I've mastered the super secret parking spot within about a 10 minute walk of the Fair Grounds. But to claim it, I have to arrive before the gates open, at around 11:00 a.m. Meaning that I have to get up relatively early to eat, exercise, do any daily errands, and get all my necessaries together to get out to the venue. It has presented more and more of a challenge each year.


Richie Havens

I know, I know. "What you're really saying is, 'I'm old.'" Well, maybe. Or at least too old to keep Festing the way I have (standing the whole time, darting from stage to stage, staying in the sun for seven hours). I hope not.

But this year seemed like the right time to take a break. Instead, I went Hollywood. I attended the TCM Classic Movie Festival, blogging about it just below. It had all the things that Jazz Festival didn't: air conditioning, comfortable seats, guaranteed entry, and above all, no Parrot Heads.

Patti Smith

I'll go to Jazz Fest again. Maybe even next year. Though I have to tell you, the TCM Festival sure was a lot less damaging on my back, knees, and hydration levels. But as you five followers may have discerned, I do enjoy music, and certain Jazz Fest performance have been among the highlights of my life: Randy Newman singing Louisiana 1927 just as the skies began to pour, the Foo Fighters, Solomon Burke, the Rev. Al Green, the Zion Harmonizers, catching Willie Nelson's bandana, Jeff Beck, Isaac Hayes playing the "Theme from Shaft" at Congo Square, Richie Havens singing "Freedom," Ike Turner, Stevie Wonder, Ernie K-Doe, and many others. I'll go back. But I have to figure out some way not to have a near death experience in doing so. Ideas please?

So to this year's Festers, enjoy! Hope to see you again soon.

NEXT-Why they don't make 'em like that anymore