[Dixielandjazz] N.O. J & H Festival

[Stephen G Barbone]

Dixieland did get a mention, however scant, in the 4th paragraph.
Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


NY TIMES - May 4, 2009 - By JON PARELES
 From Shaky Start to Enduring Tradition

NEW ORLEANS — Gospel singers were harmonizing and brass-band horns  
were pumping out a parade oompah. Between them, Glen David Andrews was  
dressed like an R&B star in shades and a heavily sequined T-shirt,  
shouting to the rafters, singing about the Lord. It was Friday  
afternoon in the gospel tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage  
Festival. In typical New Orleans style, traditions were getting all  
mixed together.

This was the 40th annual Jazzfest, which ended on Sunday. Quint Davis,  
who produced them all, often describes it as the “world’s biggest  
backyard barbecue”: a giant New Orleans house party with food, drinks  
and live music, plenty of it. This year, on 12 stages during two long  
weekends, Jazzfest presented more than 400 acts, the great majority of  
them from Louisiana.

To draw pop fans, there were visiting hitmakers — Kings of Leon,  
Bonnie Raitt, Tony Bennett, the Dave Matthews Band, Erykah Badu, Neil  
Young, Bon Jovi and Sugarland. But the core of the festival is the  
music and food that New Orleanians used to take for granted and  
visitors are overjoyed to discover.

The festival marked its milestone largely by sticking to business as  
usual. That meant Cajun fiddle tunes floating across the grass from  
bands like BeauSoleil, Feufollet and Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys.  
That meant people with parasols stepping to traditional jazz from the  
Treme Brass Band and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. It meant brass- 
band parades through the crowd. It meant the aromas of jambalaya and  
etouffe, and countless “Oh yeah!” singalongs and dancing feet.

To mark the festival’s 40th year, an exhibition about its history was  
erected inside the grandstand of the Fair Grounds Race Course, where  
Jazzfest has been held since 1972. On the schedule, stars had been  
quietly placed next to the names of musicians who had appeared at the  
first festival in 1970. Meanwhile performers onstage offered  
congratulations. But there wasn’t that much anniversary hoopla. Like  
the traditions it has exposed and celebrated, the festival delivers  
the comforts of familiarity and continuity — something the city, and  
music fans from beyond its borders, have come to depend on. “We  
started as an indigenous party,” Mr. Davis said. “Now, we are the  
tradition too.”

In its 40 years, the festival has established a giant positive  
feedback loop for Louisiana culture. Promoters and agents come to  
Jazzfest to pick bands for gigs worldwide and festival goers spread  
the reputations of bands they see here. The festival’s New Orleans  
Jazz and Heritage Foundation runs the listener-supported radio station  
WWOZ, which keeps the sounds of old and recent New Orleans on the air  
(and online at wwoz.org) year-round.

“Jazzfest brought more people and more attention” to New Orleans  
music, said George Porter Jr., the bassist for the Meters, who played  
the first festival in 1970. He appeared at this one with the Meter  
Men, three of the four original Meters. “It put a magnifying lens on  
the situation.”

Jazzfest is a one-stop gathering of nearly every ranking local act.  
This year there were brass bands like the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth, who  
massed together onstage. There was funk-charged blues from Walter  
Wolfman Washington. There was brawny, clattering bayou zydeco from  
Rosie Ledet and C. J. Chenier. There were songwriters like Theresa  
Andersson, who multiplied her voice through electronics; Anders  
Osborne, whose bluesy songs hinted at grunge; and Alex McMurray, a  
droll, raspy singer playing nimble jazz guitar.

There was tumultuous avant-garde jazz from the saxophonist Kidd Jordan  
and creamy-toned ballad playing from James Rivers, who had performed  
at the first festival. There was R&B in slow, percolating grooves from  
Dr. John and there was philosophizing and two-fisted barrelhouse piano  
from the prolific New Orleans songwriter Allen Toussaint. Some local  
musicians were ubiquitous: Troy Andrews, known as Trombone Shorty,  
turned up onstage (playing trumpet) with Glen David Andrews (his  
cousin), Bonnie Raitt, the Dirty Dozen and the Midnite Runners, a  
local brass-band supergroup. His own band, Orleans Avenue, performed  
on April 24, the festival’s opening day.

In 1970, the festival had a shaky start. City officials offered George  
Wein, who had produced the Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Folk  
Festival (and whose Festival Productions now produces events  
worldwide), the chance to create a festival in New Orleans. “If I’ve  
done anything in my life I’m proud of, it’s planting the seeds for  
this,” he said on Friday.

Instead of simply bringing in touring musicians he turned to the music  
in the streets, clubs, parties and churches of Louisiana. The only act  
in 1970 that wasn’t from Louisiana was Duke Ellington, who was  
commissioned to write his New Orleans Suite.

The first New Orleans Jazz Festival and Louisiana Heritage Fair took  
place in Beauregard Square, on the site of what was Congo Square,  
where slaves in the 18th century were allowed to sing, dance and play  
drums. The festival lost money, and continued to do so for the next  
two years; Mr. Davis’s father co-signed a $50,000 bank loan. But Mr.  
Wein clung to the original idea: celebrating local music. After the  
festival moved to the Fair Grounds in 1972, it broke even and  
continued to grow — bringing in outsiders as long as their music fit in.

Its peak year was 2001, before the Sept. 11 attack. Its worst in  
recent memory was a rainy 2004, when it sustained million-dollar  
losses and an entire day of performances was canceled. After Hurricane  
Katrina its survival was in question, but corporate sponsors and big  
draws like Bruce Springsteen carried it through 2006, a festival that  
became a hugely emotional reunion for fans and musicians, some  
returning to New Orleans for the first time since the storm.

This year, there was carping about acts considered too commercial and  
lacking Jazzfest flavor, especially Bon Jovi. But Saturday’s lineup,  
with Bon Jovi and the Kings of Leon, brought the festival’s largest  
attendance since Hurricane Katrina, including a rare (for Jazzfest)  
contingent of teenage girls, who squealed and sang along as Kings of  
Leon melded Southern rock with U2-style anthems.

Yet what makes Jazzfest unique takes place on a smaller scale: moments  
like the parades of Mardi Gras Indians and the Social Aid and Pleasure  
Club. They used to reveal their feathered outfits and fancy suits on  
only a few days a year in certain neighborhoods; Jazzfest determinedly  
introduced them to outsiders. On Saturday afternoon, the Undefeated  
Divas Social Aid & Pleasure Club was parading in front of the Pin  
Stripe Brass Band, waving feathers and carrying placards that said  
“Swagger Like Us.” Jazzfest has let the rest of the world see how.