Uh oh. We awoke to the sound of rain on the window. This could complicate things. From everything we had read, the Fairgrounds gets pretty sloppy in the rain. But if you look to the right side of the picture above, in the general direction of Gentilly and the Fairgrounds, the sky is noticeably brighter. We held out hope that it wouldn’t be too bad. And we did have our trusty umbrella, which could convert from sunshade to rain protection if needed. So we dutifully got up, got ready to go, even slathered on the sunblock, and got our stuff together as if nothing was happening. When we arrived at PJ’s, it was still raining, so we both got coffee and Laurie got something to eat on the bus. I was hoping to find breakfast and sunshine at Jazz Fest.
On the bus, the host knew we all knew the drill, and everybody knew it was the last day, and nobody was happy about it, so it was pretty quiet. Because we didn’t eat at PJ’s, we arrived at the Fairgrounds right at 11. The whole place was quiet as people poured in from all over. It was damp, but not raining. There would be occasional brief showers through the early afternoon, but these were actually welcome, because the sun that burned through the clouds on this day was brutal, the kind of sun that when it hits your skin it gives you chills!
I was ready for my breakfast right away, so we headed to Congo Square, where a sweet potato turnover from Marie's Sugar Dumplings of Marrero, Louisiana, had my name on it. I think I got the first batch of the day because I had to wait a minute for the frosting to heat. Wow, was it good. Perfect to munch on as we made our way to the Blues Tent. An iced cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde added to the enjoyment.
The Sunday cubes contained a dizzying array of music, and the choices were as hard as if not harder than yesterday’s. Just to give you an idea, in the next-to-last performance block, the choices were Foo Fighters, Bonnie Raitt, David Sanborn, Asleep at the Wheel, and the Rebirth Brass Band, among others!
However, the opening slot was pretty easy to decide upon. Dege Legg, also known as Brother Dege (pronounced 'Deej'), was going to do some down-in-the-bayou blues, accompanying himself on the Dobro and a bass drum. Born and raised in the swamplands of Louisiana, Dege pushes the slide guitar into the 21st century by mixing the traditional slide of the Mississippi Delta blues masters with the post-modern expressionism of Sonic Youth. His songs take you from the south’s haunted past on to the great unknown of its future. The clip above is 30 minutes but you will be mesmerized, I guarantee.
Dege is one of those artists that you hear one day and the next day you start listening to everything of his you can get your hands on. Listen to this improvisation and also House of the Dying Sun and you’ll probably do the same. His performance twisted and turned and wailed and moaned until it finished with The Battle of New Orleans:
Hold now, the water rising.
Coming as the storm arrives.
Katrina come to sink the city,
Bust the levee a hundred wide.
Hold now,
Don’t break the levee down.
Some come to save the city,
Ruin and rage keep pouring down,
Flood born of blood and pity.
The Angel of Death soon hear me now.
Hold now,
Don’t break the levee down.
Who now will take
The Battle of New Orleans?
Climb toward the roofs and shelter,
Raise your arms to the sky
Women, children, mothers, daughters
Fathers, sons - done left behind.
Hold now,
Don’t break the levee down.
War between God and man.
Man and man with world no end.
Oh, man he chose to build a city
Of sinful mind.
God pulled it in.
Hold now,
Don’t break the levee down.
Who now will take
The Battle of New Orleans?
After 10 minutes of this powerful song, during which he actually finds a way to loop himself, Dege morphed it into The Star Spangled Banner à la Jimi Hendrix (and on the Dobro it sounded gorgeous) and then just left the stage while the Dobro feedback-resonated. The irony in this was just mind-blowing, although I must say I don’t think half of the audience got it. This was a tremendous start to the day, a performance after which you wanted to just sit and let it soak in for awhile. However, we had to move on ...
... Because Kermit Ruffins and the Barbeque Swingers were about to light up the Gentilly Stage! Kermit Ruffins is one of the younger generation of New Orleans musicians who are channeling the old school with touches of hip hop and funk. He’s doing what Louis Armstrong would be doing if he was born 80 years later. Ruffins’ music is as easy as the Big Easy, deceptively great. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun, too. The clip above is an hour long, from the same people who did the Pedrito Martinez clip on yesterday’s report, so crank it up and enjoy.
As you can see, Ruffins personifies the laid-back vibe of New Orleans. But he did not come by his gifts easily. He developed his stage persona and musical act by studying artists who came before him. He watched video of Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway until the tape wore out and apprenticed on stages with local legends “Uncle” Lionel Batiste and Danny Barker. While still in high school, he co-founded the Rebirth Brass Band – a group that revolutionized the brass band community in New Orleans with songs like “Do Watcha Wanna” that have become anthems.
When he went solo, few young musicians were playing traditional jazz. Now, Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers are a beloved institution – a must-see for every New Orleans visitor and a favorite of local critics and music lovers. Dozens of young musicians and bands are essentially playing the same music Ruffins has pioneered. And Ruffins is a star on the HBO series Tremé, playing himself, and still really enjoys playing his laid back, under the influence of whatever, good time music.
We had a blast at this show, but had to dance away a bit before it was over because we had an appointment to get some heavy duty funk from Galactic over at the Acura Stage and had to get some lunch on the way to the other side of the Fairgrounds. For me, that would be a fried catfish filet po’boy from Galley Seafood Restaurant, the same people who did Laurie’s soft-shell crab yesterday. Laurie had crawfish strudel from Coffee Cottage of River Ridge, Louisiana.
At the Acura Stage, the Neville Brothers have always closed Jazz Fest, thus they get the last cube of the day there. So on Sunday, the big-name headliner is next-to-last. Today that would be Foo Fighters. The crowd at the festival by this time today was immense, especially in the area of the Acura Stage. I can only imagine how it must have been last week with Bruce Springsteen there. We approached the huge stage from the track side because the infield walkway was already jammed. But once again, we found a good spot fairly close in and with a congenial group of people around us. As the last day of Jazz Fest progresses, the party atmosphere really ramps up.
The Jazz Fest organizers make a point of leading into the big national acts with New Orleans acts. Today they chose to send Galactic out in front of Foo Fighters.
They chose well.
Galactic is a collaborative band with a unique format. It’s a stable quintet (Ben Ellman on harps and horns, Robert Mercurio on bass, Stanton Moore on drums and percussion, Jeff Raines on guitar, and Rich Vogel on keyboards) that has been together for 18 years ... so long that they are telepathic when they perform.
What is unique about Galactic is that for all that time they have never had a lead singer, yet they are not purely an instrumental group. Rather, because they self-produce, and because they are part of a diverse community of musicians, they have the luxury of experimenting. So they create something that’s a little like a funkified revue, a virtual show featuring different vocalists (mostly from New Orleans) and instrumental soloists each taking their turn on stage in the Galactic sound universe.
Here are three good quality clips from Jazz Fest 2011 (one two three) with Corey Glover from Living Colour singing lead and Corey Henry from the Rebirth Brass Band on trombone that will give the uninitiated a good idea of what Galactic is all about.
If you listen to Galactic’s recordings you’ll hear the most complete cross-section of what’s happening in contemporary New Orleans anywhere – all of it featuring a hard grooving beat behind a range of styles that glides from one surprise to the next.
So during this show, not only did we get Galactic, we also got Glover (left) handling vocals on a number of songs, including Living Colour's Cult of Personality. He was all over the place, as you can see, on the speakers in front of the stage, running from one end of the giant stage to the other, and even diving into the crowd.
Other guests included Trombone Shorty, Shamarr Allen, Pedrito Martinez, Casa Samba, and even War Chief Juan Pardo (below, with Trombone Shorty). Wow. And for your information, I got a pretty good hit on that beach ball that was bouncing around the crowd. This show was another highlight of the weekend.
No time to linger, though, after this great show ended, because we had to squeeze our way out of the crowd and get back to the Gentilly Stage for the last half of the Funky Meters performance. More liquid refreshment was found along the way. And guess what, even the beer concessions have a vibe at Jazz Fest. Almost all of them are run by local organizations and all of the proceeds go to those groups.
History lesson: The Meters originally formed in the late 60s. While not all that successful in the mainstream, they are considered a major contributor to the funk genre. During their heyday, they played with acts as big as McCartney and the Stones. The original group consisted of Art Neville (one of THE Neville Brothers), George Porter Jr., Joseph Modeliste, and Leo Nocentelli. Though The Meters broke up in the late 70s, Neville (keyboards) and Porter (bass) reformed in the late 80‘s with Brian Stoltz (guitar) and Russell Batiste Jr. (drums) under the name Funky Meters. All of the band’s members individually enjoy flourishing careers, which makes the sum of their respective creative abilities mind-boggling. They tap into the roots of The Meters musical heritage while taking the sound well into the future, blending funk, blues, and dance grooves with a New Orleans vibe.
More great music for a hot afternoon at the Gentilly Stage, interrupted by a very brief, actually cooling rain shower. Like Friday, it would have been easy to camp out here for the rest of the day, especially with Bonnie Raitt and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to come. However, we had other plans. But first here are one, two, three, more excerpts from the Funky Meters performance.
The master plan was to eat first and then try to fit in at least parts of two more shows before Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings took the stage in the Blues Tent to close out the festival. The food we landed on was to share the Super Combo from Chef Pat Gallagher’s Catering of Mandeville, Louisiana. What is the Super Combo, you ask? Well it is Pecan Catfish Meunière, Seafood Mirliton Casserole, and a Fried Crab Cake with Smoked Tomato and Jalapeño Tartar.
The crabcake speaks for itself, although the menu doesn’t tell you it’s panko crusted. The meunière sauce for the catfish is prepared with lemons, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and whipping cream and that’s over the pecans and cajun spices used to cook the catfish. Seafood mirliton casserole is like a stuffing, with crab, shrimp and crayfish with mirlitons, also known as chayote, a pear-sized squash that native to Louisiana. This was a rich earthy meal, perfect for our last stop of the weekend at the food vendors. It was really starting to sink in that this experience was almost over, and it won’t surprise anyone to hear that we were already talking about “next year!”
At the food area where we were eating, you could hear the roar of Foo Fighters coming from the Acura Stage, and some of Asleep at the Wheel coming from Fais Do Do and Los Hombres Calientes from the Jazz and Heritage Stage. Incredible. We made our way into Congo Square, where the Rebirth Brass Band was about to add to that mix. The crowd here was larger than at any time in the previous days, even spilling out onto the track, the attraction being Frankie Beverly and Maze in the traditional final cube at this stage.
Rebirth is another of the young brass bands taking the music of the traditional New Orleans second line into the 21st century with no holds barred, only they have been doing it longer than all the others, since 1982 when they were founded by brothers Phillip and Keith Frazier and the aforementioned Kermit Ruffins with fellow members of Tremé’s Joseph S. Clark High School marching band. Their blend of funk, jazz, soul, and hip hop led to a Grammy award in 2012 for Best Regional Roots Music Album. The Grammy goes with them everywhere. Here is a two-part performance by Rebirth at the Louisiana Music Factory (part one,part two).
The combination of the heat and the crowd at Congo Square caused us to leave for the Jazz Tent a little sooner than we had planned, but the end result was good, because we got to see more of David Sanborn and Joey DeFrancesco. Sanborn and his alto sax have been associated with smooth jazz, but he disavows that genre (hey, I read Downbeat), and Joey D. is one of the best B3 players around, so I knew this would be a solid set of straight-ahead jazz. It built and built to a great finish - a B3 combo can do that, especially when it has players of this caliber. Bryan Landham was on the drums.
One more cube to go. I don’t think it had hit us, that this was the end, because we were so busy trying to juggle the schedule for maximum music. I thought we did a masterful job of it today, indeed all weekend, considering we were new at this. So we grabbed a last beer and headed off to the Blues Tent for the Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings revue. When I saw that Sharon Jones was going to be at Jazz Fest, that pretty much sealed the deal. I’d been wanting to see her show for a couple of years now.
Except that the Blues Tent was already packed to the rafters. And it doesn’t even have rafters. As a guy I was talking to while Laurie stepped out agreed, the secret of Sharon Jones is definitely out. We did find chairs way off to the side toward the front, obstructed view at best. But we gave those up because (a) we couldn’t see the whole stage and (2) the chairs are so packed in that you couldn’t stand to dance if your life depended on it. So now we’re standing at the side of the tent, with a view that’s still not that good, with the late afternoon sun beating down on us. Then the show started ... and the sound in that location was horrible, too. So we quickly decided to cut and run.
We high-tailed it over to the Gentilly Stage, where we wedged our way into a pretty good spot for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s celebration of its 50th anniversary - with a host of guest artists. This may have been our best move of the whole weekend. A New Orleans institution was the perfect way to end four days of music in New Orleans.
The band derives its name from Preservation Hall, the venerable music venue located in the heart of the French Quarter. Founded in 1961, the band has traveled worldwide, spreading their mission to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz. The intimate venue, whose weathered exterior has been untouched over its history, is a living embodiment of its original vision. To this day, Preservation Hall has no drinks, air conditioning, or other typical accoutrements (not even bathrooms!), strictly welcoming people of all ages interested only in having one of the last pure music experiences left on the earth.
During this show we got to see glimpse of Bonnie Raitt and Jim James (of My Morning Jacket), two of our biggest “misses” of the weekend. Not to mention Allen Toussaint, Trombone Shorty again, the Rebirth Brass Band again, Ani DeFranco, and Steve Earle. There were flirty dancers
, and at the end they welcomed 100-year-old trumpeter Lionel Ferbos and the Preservation Hall Junior Jazz Band, thus crossing three generations.
Trombone Shorty did a killer version of It Ain’t My Fault with the Hall’s trumpet player, Mark Braud. DeFranco did a spirited version of Freight Train. Rebirth did their Do What You Wanna and Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. James was stupefying with his take of the old chestnut St. James Infirmary.
Raitt and Toussaint did an original homage to Preservation Hall, and Earle did Tain’t Nobody’s Business, after which he said, "I have the best @$%# job in the world!" Everybody was on the stage for the finale, a rousing take on When the Saints Go Marching In and then my personal New Orleans favorite, I’ll Fly Away.
When it was over, you just felt too good to feel bad that it was over. That is, until you were taking the long bus ride back to Canal Street and realized there wouldn’t be a bus tomorrow.
There was one more stop to make today, and that was a quiet late dinner at the Aron Sanchez Crossroads Restaurant at the House of Blues. Like the music hall, the place was covered with folk art. Laurie had pan-seared jumbo shrimp simmered in chipotle garlic cream sauce layered over a crispy grit cake and served with sweet tear drop tomatoes, while I had braised short ribs brushed with a chile glaze served with an andouille corn pudding and fresh vegetables. Desert was a very decadent bread pudding cooked with bananas and white chocolate, finished with a bourbon caramel sauce topped with fresh whipped cream. Hey, we earned it today!
Over dinner we looked at the cubes and once again marveled at the diversity of music that one can indulge in here. Part of our vow for "next year" is to get out into the clubs and get a feel for that scene. The last word today is: we now know what it means to miss New Orleans.
