[Dixielandjazz] Any Listmates attend this Crawfish festival?

[Don Robertson]

No I didn't know about this Long Beach gig, but I WAS just down the road 
at Costa Mesa for the Orange County Classic Jazz Festival, where I saw 
among others Tom Rigney and Flambeau, a Cajun group.  The festival was 
great with many bands from "trad" to big band swing.

Don Robertson, Napa, CA

On 8/10/2010 8:06 AM, Stephen G Barbone wrote:
> Any left coasters attend this Crawfish Festival? Sounds like a fun 
> event with 1000+ attendees, cajun food, parasols and Dixieland.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband.
>
>
> More than 1,000 attended the Long beach Crawfish Festival to celebrate 
> Cajun culture on Aug. 7-8, 2010 in Long Beach, Calif.
>
> LONG BEACH - Celebrating crawfish Cajun style, more than 1,000 people 
> came out to the 17th Annual
> Crawfish Festival on Saturday and Sunday at Rainbow Lagoon.
>
> Chef Que Purdy and her staff served beignets, fried doughnuts with a 
> thin crispy shell smothered in
> powdered sugar. Staff members sang improvised tunes about beignets as 
> they kneaded dough or heaped
> powdered sugar over finished pastries.
>
> “Real Cajun, real love, that’s what it’s all about,” Purdy said. “You 
> gotta have real love when you’re
> cooking Cajun food. You know we have fun with your food so that way 
> you don’t have to know whether
> it’s bad or not. Because if it’s like this, it’s always gotta be good."
>
> Servers at a food booth nearby spilled the secret to Cajun food goodness.
>
> “It’s all in the spices,” said one worker as he and a partner emptied 
> seafood from gigantic steel vats.
>
> “It’ll clear your sinuses,” said Kevin Justice.
>
> Even though Kevin Pierre, a Louisiana transplant who lives in Redondo 
> Beach, cleaned his plate of
> crawfish, he sensed something was not quite right.
>
> Pierre, in his purple and gold hat, was hoping that the Long Beach 
> event would give him a bit more comfort.
>
> He hoped it would remind him of home with the street bands, the Mardi 
> Gras parade, the bayou, the catfish,
> and strangers waving hello. He missed the feeling of Grandma and her 
> presence in the cooking and family
> togetherness. “It’s the feeling that everything is family," he said. 
> "I don’t know how to explain it. It is what it is.”
>
> A procession of masked dancers wearing funeral attire and sporting 
> parasols with fringes crowded onto the
> parquet floor and danced to live Dixieland music.
>
> Clotte Allochuku, 58, of Sherman Oaks, and her husband, J.C. 
> Albritton, came to the event to hear musician Leroy Thomas. “I see 
> people really love their culture,” said Allochuku, who was wearing a 
> cherry red Mardi Gras hat  covered in yellow and green spikes. “You 
> don’t want other people to water down your culture. You want to keep 
> it alive, especially for the next generation.”
>
> A dance floor beckoned.
>
> But Albritton was satisfied tapping his toe to the Dixieland band 
> playing nearby. He had a bad back and
> wasn't about to get up and move around.
>
> His wife wouldn’t let him off that easy. “I’m gonna pull him up out of 
> this chair,” said Allochuku. “I’m gonna drag him out 
> there!”_______________________________________________
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