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COMMON GROUND - 5/7/2008
(by Anita Yarossi - OpEd Columnist - May 07, 2008)
If you can’t stay up at night…
I have just returned from The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazzfest), which commences the last week in April and goes through the first weekend in May. It has gone on every year for over 35 years. I’ve attended seven years in a row. It just keeps getting better, if that’s possible.
Now that the focus is back to the raucous celebration of the incredible lineup of local musical talent, this year’s festival shed much of the sadness and anger from Katrina; but the rebirth from that hellhole has made the blues and gospel more poignant, the brass more exuberant and the voices of the each and every performer sing out to fill our hearts with such joy and harmony. I am still wearing a smile.
For seven days, there are 12 venues of music going on consecutively from around 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Something for everyone – a virtual smorgasbord of music and food spread out and around the historic oval racecourse in the Gentilly section of New Orleans, also known as the Fairgrounds. To give you a taste, here is what I saw and ate just on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Henry Butler, the blind blues and jazz pianist and composer, had an audience of 30,000 people jumping and dancing at the Gentilly stage. From there I caught the end of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band set at the Heritage Stage, grabbed some of John Mooney’s steel guitar and his Bluesiana Band in the Blues tent, then some of Marcia Ball’s jubilant piano and ended the day with Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas at the Fais Do Do Stage, where the dirt is tamped down from constant dancing. I started with some café au lait and beignets and in between sets I ate some cochon du lait and finished with mango sorbet. The words roll off your tongue but the tastes linger in sublime memory. Most things cost $4 or $5. There are literally more than 100 different choices of food, beverages and desserts to choose from.
On Sunday, I saw Jonathan Batiste’s jazz piano, Rebirth Brass Band, Snooks Eglin, a tribute to the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson with Irma Thomas, Marva Wright and Raychell Richard, which filled and spilled out of the Gospel tent, then Big Chief Bo Dollis & the Wild Magnolias and the Mardi Gras Indians in full regalia jumping to crazy funk on the Heritage stage, got caught up in the crowd for a while listening to Santana at the Acura stage and finished with one of my favorite New Orleans rock and roll bands – The Radiators – going strong after 30 years together. While I was doing that I missed the Neville Brothers, The Derek Trucks Band, Galactic and Dianne Reeves and Keb Mo. I ate trout baquet, crawfish strudel, a taste of red beans and rice and finished on line at the taxi stand with just-baked warm homemade sweet potato pie.
That was just my daytime activities. After we came back into the French Quarter and showered and relaxed, it was time for the evening to commence. A nice bowl of creole gumbo and a shrimp remoulade salad – nothing too much ‘cause I still had some walking and dancing to do. One night I caught the massively talented Papa John Gros playing solo piano at the Carousel Bar in the Montelone Hotel while I sipped a couple of their famous Sazeracs. Another, I went down to Frenchmen Street to hear Trombone Shorty and Orleans Ave. and Big Sam’s Funky Nation, and then to the Jazz Emporium to jump up and down to Rocking Jake’s Blues Harmonica. I never hit the sheets before 3 a.m. and sometimes it was close to dawn be-fore I finally shut my eyes.
The mantra in New Orleans is, you can sleep when you go home.
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