[Dixielandjazz] JAZZ FEST IS JUMPIN' - A cause for jubilation

[Steve barbone]

Jazz Fest points to the future

By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

NEW ORLEANS ‹ Mother Nature, so pitiless eight months ago when Katrina
stomped ashore, smiled on the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival's first
weekend, even holding back Saturday's rains until the Fair Grounds emptied.
Attendees and organizers interpreted the mild weather as a sunny sign of the
city's emergence from the hurricane's shadow and as an excuse to cut loose
and celebrate the Crescent City's abundant sounds.

A Neville daughter returns:

Singer Charmaine Neville, inciting crowd frenzy with a Satchmo-styled What a
Wonderful World, says her appearance was cathartic.

"Jazz Fest is necessary," she says, "We're resilient people. We make things
happen. People said we shouldn't have a Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest, but we need
to feel normal again. That's our peace. And music is the biggest part of the
equation here. It's my heart, my soul, my gift from God."

Stranded in the Ninth Ward for days after the storm, Neville is slowly
repairing her flood-ruined house while living in LaPlace, La.

"God saved me," she says. "Being at Jazz Fest gave me the chance to touch
people and let them feel what I feel, even if some of it is anger. Things
are moving slow, but this city is on the rise. It'll be a good 10 or 12
years before she returns to her full majesty, but the music will continue to
roll in every festival, street and church."

Rebirth reborn:

Rebirth Brass Band, an institution since 1983 that plays Tuesdays at Maple
Leaf, just returned from a three-week tour and popped up Friday as Ole Skool
despite having splintered to points in Texas, Mississippi and New York.

"This is our passion, and nothing is going to stop us," says founder Byron
Bernard, 43, who stayed and subsisted for two weeks on bottled water and
MREs. "People embraced us prior to Katrina. Since then, it's triple love.
They wanted to help us bring the music back right. It gave us incentive."

Hard-headed, big hearted:

After a sweaty display of dancing, chanting and singing, the Hard Head
Hunters Mardi Gras Indians pose for photos backstage and then air out their
elaborate costumes on the grass.

"We had to come back and rock it!" says Callie Harness, 23. Displaced by
Katrina, he still travels back and forth from Houston.

Eddie "Big Easy" Vanison, whose home was flooded, jokes, "I had to come
back. They named the city after me. A storm could hit 20 more times, and
I'll keep coming back."

All that jazz: 

Irvin Mayfield & the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra are breaking into a wild,
rollicking jazz stomp, drawing plenty of passersby into the jazz tent. As
Mayfield's 3-year-old son slaps a tambourine, Donald Harrison joins in on
saxophone. New Yorker Margaret Thomas was on her way to see Dr. John but got
waylaid by the clamor. "I came to Jazz Fest out of curiosity, basically, but
I'll be back for the education. I'm just staggered by the quality and
variety of the music. I want to be six places at once."

The Fest gets an Edge:

U2 guitarist The Edge rolled through Jazz Fest after attending Thursday's
re-opening of Preservation Hall.

The hall's veterans "did Vertigo in a New Orleans Dixieland version, which
was quite strange," he says, "I played along as best I could."

Edge, enjoying fresh beignets before joining the Dave Matthews Band on the
Acura stage, also sat in with the New Birth Brass Band.

In town to further his Music Rising initiative, which has replaced
instruments and gear of 1,400 musicians affected by Katrina and Rita, Edge
was greeted by appreciative recipients at Jazz Fest. "People came up to me
and said, 'Thanks for the guitar, man,' or 'Thanks for the amp.' It's
gratifying."

Fats the pin-up:

Fans sweating in the line waited an hour or more to pluck down $59 for the
official 2006 Jazz Fest poster depicting Fats Domino.

Says Dane Boue, 39, a native now living in Washington, D.C.: "It's an
important year for locals and for big Jazz Fest fans to show support and
respect and inject some money into the economy."

He's the man:

Jazz Fest producer/director Quint Davis is zipping from stage to stage in a
golf cart, parking to catch snippets of Etta James, Juvenile and C.J.
Chenier as well-wishers thank and congratulate him for his uphill battle to
stage this big not-so-easy comeback.

"People still think we're under water, that we've grown horns and glow in
the dark. We've got our Dresden and Nagasaki parts, but people will work
themselves to death to rebuild New Orleans, and you can't underestimate that
focus.

"As much as the festival is an act of celebration, it's an act of defiance.
We're saying that we matter. ... We're the culture capital of America, but
in America, culture doesn't have much capital. In the government's way of
thinking, we're that poor little dark town in the swamp. The festival says
there's something invaluable and irreplaceable here. New Orleans gave
America a soul. Let's give culture a seat at the table."