Some musical notes from an extended weekend visit to Jazz Fest and New Orleans

Spent about five days in New Orleans, hearing bands at Jazz and Heritage Fest (first weekend) and around the city. It’s an annual trip for me and a chance to hear lots of different bands both on festival stages, but also on smaller stages around the city.

 

Weather was overcast with some showers – particularly bad ones on Saturday – but I managed to see a lot and stay relatively dry.  A lot of the acts I really wanted to see at the festival were playing in the tents.

 

Here are some random notes:

 

 

Friday, April 24 at the Festival:

 

Arrived in NOLA around 2 and was sitting in the Gospel Tent by 3. The weather was threatening, but the rain held off until late in the afternoon.

 

I was able to hear the entire Tedeschi Trucks show on the main stage.  The sound is built around Derek Trucks’ guitar and Susan Tedeschi’s vocals (and her also-impressive guitar playing)   but all the players – horn section, B3, bass and two drumemrs, along with backup singers get plenty of feature opportunities.

 

That said, all the tunes left room for Trucks – who emerged playing shows at Skipper’s Smokehouse when he was 14 – to show his grown-up skills. To his credit, he was never at a loss for something inventive. Most guitar-heavy bands can bore me after a while, but not this one.

 

I loved all the tunes but Keep On Growing from Derek and the Dominos was the highlight for me.

 

Later, I caught about 45 minutes of Wilco’s inspired set on the Gentilly Stage before the threatening lightning sent me toward the safety of the jazz tent.

 

Leader Jeff Tweedy could see the approaching storm too.

 

 

“We’re going to get as much of this in as we can, so no chitchat,” Tweedy told the audience.

 

Wilco managed to squeeze in Handshake Drugs, Kamera, Walken, I’m The Man Who Love You, Secrets Of The Sea, Heavy Metal Drummer, Hummingbird, Red-Eyed And Blue, I Got You (At The End of The Century) and Impossible Germany before calling it quits at approximately 6 p.m. as the storm hit.

 

By that point, I was dry inside the jazz tent listening to what I’d have to call a jam-band jazz collective – Snarky Puppy. Sadly, the lightning storm forced the festival to shut down and they pulled the plug on the Pups after two songs and sent us all home in the rain.

 

Can’t wait to hear more from this band which made a stop last year at the State Theater.

 

My friends had braved the weather for the Keith Urban set that was closing out the big stage. Urban refused to stop and moved out into the audience, laying for a half-hour after the rest of the fest had shut down.

 

Saturday, April 25 – Jazz Fest:

 

Arrived early to catch the opening set in the traditional jazz tent by The New Leviathan Oriental Fox Trot Orchestra…The18-piece band, which originated at Tulane in the early ‘70s, plays obscure tunes from the era when Valentino was a star and the world was enthralled by the “Thousand And One Nights” image of the Middle East.

 

The most famous of these tunes is Shiek of Araby, but there are plenty more and this band delivered tunes like Egyptian Ella, Lena from Palestina…Rebecca Came Back From Mecca.

 

This great novelty act – they all play in old sailor suits – has been featured on NPR and always puts a smile on my face.

 

Rain limited my travels around the festival, but most of the acts I had come to see where in the Jazz Tent, where I had seats far from the raindrops.

 

I heard inspired sets by Jeremy Davenport and the great jazz patriarch – Ellis Marsalis.

 

The highlight was Cassandra Wilson, doing her tribute to Billie Holiday.

 

For her album – Coming Forth By Day – and this set – Wilson performed songs made famous by Billie Holiday, but reinvented them on her own terms with a band that is far from a standard jazz lineup.

 

 

Dressed in gold lame, Wilson held center stage with her dark-hued voice and her club-honed manner. But, among her musicians, she was an equal, trading harmonic ideas with master bassist Lonnie Plaxico, keeping pace with the down-bowed aggression of violinist Charles Burnham, twining her voice with the bass clarinet and tenor lines of Robby Marshall and egging on guitarist Kevin Breit, who mixed Delta crossroad blues and psychedelic sound effects into convincing solos. Drummer Davide DiRenzo and pianist Henry Hey added to this convincing package.

 

Some highlights – Don’t Explain, All of Me, which she turns in the direction of a lament like St. James Infirmary. Her set also included Crazy He Calls Me, What a Little Moonlight Can Do, Good Morning Heartache, These Foolish Things, and Don’t Explain.

 

Monday and Tuesday, April 27-28

 

I love the week between the two jazz fest weekends. I spent most of Monday and Tuesday on Frenchman Street, catching the free, in-store shows by bands like Little Freddie King, Funk Monkey, some Big Chief Juan Pardo and the Golden Comanche (Mardi Gras Indians), and the great picker and storyteller, Spencer Bohren. We’re talking to Spencer about a gig in early 2016.

 

Also caught Joe Krown and Walter Wolfman Washington at the Maple Leaf. Tab Benoit was playing all weekend with different opening acts at the Rock ‘n Bowl. I didn’t go because I still had his amazing blues festival show at the Palladium in my head.

 

Second weekend weather was supposed to be fabulous, but I had to get back to work.

 

If you have some stories from jazz fest, please share your comments.