[Dixielandjazz] The Music Goes Round & Round

[Steve barbone]

Asa this review says, "One result of Hurricane Katrina has been a renewed
interest worldwide in the music from New Orleans."

Any question about that?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


New Orleans Jazzfest: A Weekend of Reunion and Rebirth

NY TIMES - By JON PARELES - May 1, 2006

NEW ORLEANS, April 30 ‹ The first weekend of the 37th annual New Orleans
Jazz and Heritage Festival ended with a rendition of "When the Saints Go
Marching In." When the familiar chorus arrived, the white handkerchiefs New
Orleanians seem to keep handy on all occasions were waved high. Yet it
wasn't the jaunty, clichéd jazz version. Bruce Springsteen played "Saints"
as nothing less than a hymn, and he sang a rarely noticed final verse: "Some
say this world of trouble is the only world we'll ever see/But I'm waiting
for that morning when the new world is revealed."

It was the fitting wrap-up for a weekend that found hope, and solace, in the
continuity of tradition. Jazzfest, as everyone calls it, is itself a
tradition after nearly four decades, and like Mardi Gras, it is not only a
tourist magnet but a defining event for the city. "It's bigger than just the
music," said George Wein, the chief executive of Festival Productions and
the executive producer of Jazzfest. "This is people's lives."

Music in New Orleans has always been entertaining, but never just
entertainment. It held on to cultural memories; negotiated between Old World
and New World aesthetics; and bound together neighborhoods, communities and
families that still pervade New Orleans music.

One result of Hurricane Katrina has been a renewed interest worldwide in
music from New Orleans. Another has been proof that New Orleanians are
determined not to let it go, even with much of the city's population
displaced and scattered. Mardi Gras Indians, who usually take a year to
hand-sew their elaborate feathered and beaded suits, were resplendent.
Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, the neighborhood associations that sponsor
parades and funerals, may not have had their old neighborhoods to return to,
but they showed up at Jazzfest to parade in brand new suits.

Although Jazzfest does not compile attendance figures until after the
festival ends, it was clearly well attended, with more than 100,000 tickets
sold in advance for its six days. Sets by headliners had sprawling and
tightly packed audiences. The festival's first weekend included stars from
outside New Orleans, like Mr. Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Herbie Hancock and
Elvis Costello, along with New Orleans's own multimillion-selling rapper,
Juvenile. Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Lionel Ritchie and the country hitmaker
Keith Urban are booked for its second half, May 5 to 7. Some were working
for nothing more than expenses to show support for the festival and for New
Orleans. 

Mr. Springsteen led his large but never unwieldy Seeger Sessions Band ‹ with
horns, fiddles, banjo and more ‹ in a set featuring folk songs from Pete
Seeger's repertory, with arrangements that gleefully veered toward south
Louisiana Cajun music and New Orleans traditional jazz. Mr. Springsteen
wrote new verses about New Orleans for Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor
Man Stand Such Times and Live," and he dedicated it to "President
Bystander." Introducing it, he said, "This is what happens when people play
political games with other people's lives."

Mr. Costello was there because he had recorded an album with Allen
Toussaint, the prolific New Orleans songwriter, in November. "The River in
Reverse" is due for June release, and the songs from it that they performed
together touched on mourning, anger and resolute optimism. But the heart of
the festival wasn't in the visiting stars: not in Mr. Springsteen's set, or
in having the Edge, U2's guitarist, jamming with the Dave Matthews Band, as
he did on Saturday.

Jazzfest's essence was in the gathering of a 50-woman choir from the
Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, which sustained $9 million in damage and now
holds services for part of its congregation in Houston, part in Baton Rouge
and part in New Orleans. Some choir members had not seen one another since
the hurricane. They, and other performers at the festival, kept saying,
"It's like a reunion."

The Mahogany Brass Band was playing for its first time since the storm, and
it was the first time all its members ‹ dispersed as far as Phoenix and San
Francisco ‹ had seen one another. He started a strikingly emotional "St.
James Infirmary" alone as a tearful solo trumpet dirge; when he sang the
lyrics, about seeing a lover's dead body, he interjected, "My baby's New
Orleans!" 

Musicians aren't the only ones reconvened by the festival. Vaucresson's
Sausage Company, founded in New Orleans in 1899, had served its Cajun
sausages at every Jazzfest, and it wasn't about to miss this one. Its
factory was lost in the hurricane; to serve food at this year's festival, it
restarted production in nearby Kenner, La., while rebuilding its old place.
Vendors reported some of their best Jazzfest sales ever; it seemed everyone
wanted a piece of New Orleans.

There were songs about the hurricane and songs that had been transfigured by
it. The accordionist Dwayne Dopsie and his band, the Zydeco Hellraisers,
performed a song he had written and recorded before Katrina ‹ "My Name Is
Hurricane" ‹ as a frenzied two-step that had become prophetic. Gospel
performers like Yolanda Adams sang about getting through storms. Juvenile's
"Get Ya Hustle On" had a verse about using checks from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to buy drugs.

The good times in the music were more treasured at this Jazzfest, and
rightly so. Behind the scenes, each band had to recreate itself after the
evacuation: to find its place in New Orleans or to reconstitute it somewhere
else. The New Birth Brass Band, originally from New Orleans, wore new
T-shirts depicting both Louisiana and Texas.

Still, New Orleans music hasn't stopped putting pleasure first. Jazzfest is,
as always, a festival of good-time dance music, whether it's traditional
jazz, bayou zydeco, brass-band struts, Mardi Gras Indian chants or fiercely
complex electric funk. A superb jazz pianist, Jonathan Batiste, grounded his
jubilant, splashy harmonies in Caribbean and New Orleans rhythms. Brass
bands like the Soul Rebirth, New Birth and the Soul Rebels spanned classic
second-line swing and hip-hop-influenced funk, with the Soul Rebels also
pushing toward Latin beats. And there was plenty of straightforward funk
from New Orleans elders like the Meters and Dr. John, as well as
next-generation funk bands like Galactic and Papa Grows Funk.

The destruction in New Orleans is bound to change the city's culture. (For
one thing, an influx of Mexican labor for construction is bound to add yet
another ingredient to New Orleans music.) And whether a majority of the
city's population can ever return will be decided by large political and
economic decisions, not by who's playing in the clubs. But this Jazzfest was
a symbol of how eager the city's culture is to rebuild itself, and how
resourceful New Orleans' inhabitants ‹ current and former ‹ can be. If the
New Orleans of deep local traditions does not renew itself, it won't be for
lack of desire. 

The triumph of this year's Jazzfest was that on the surface, it was a normal
Jazzfest: crowded, sweaty, ebullient and full of homegrown New Orleans
spirit. "Normal is an incredible word to use down here," said Quint Davis,
the producer and director of Jazzfest. "Normalcy is a nonexistent term."