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She could sing (bright and strong and high, a rock-and-roll Brenda Lee or Dolly Parton? a post-rockabilly Wanda Jackson?), she could play (rhythmic riffs and digital dexterity that made her low-register chords growl and her high notes sing and howl in long arcs of melody). Photo: Jacqueline Marque.įish lived up to the hype. Tuba Skinny at the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell. Fish had been highly touted, and the Blues Tent was packed to overflowing. Indeed the dancing second line in the trad-jazz Economy Hall tent, their parasols held high, began to suggest nothing less than the closing shot of “The Seventh Seal.” A bad trip, indeed.īut at 4:15, salvation arrived in the form of Samantha Fish, a young Kansas City singer and guitarist, recently moved to New Orleans. In times like these, a seasoned and cranky festival-goer, navigating the fluctuating crush of as many as 70,000 other humans, can start to feel dark. (The security-check problem was solved by day two, and the entrance line moved quickly.) And, then, for good measure, there were a couple of flyovers of fighter jets.
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It was enough to sour the mood from the get-go. And if not, you’re still required to partake of as much pheasant-quail-andouille gumbo (or crawfish bread or cochon du lait or countless other regional delicacies) as your stomach can bare.Īdding to this frustration, the Festival had instituted new security measures: a metal detector that slowed entry into the Fair Grounds to a crawl. After all, maybe Irma Thomas or even the mighty Rod Stewart is playing a few hundred feet away. But there’s too much going on at JazzFest to indulge any weakness from a performer. Unfair judgments based on 5 or 15 minutes of listening to an hour-long set? Maybe. At the open-air Gentilly Stage, the overamplified boom did no favors for the British-born NOLA adopted son Jon Cleary, who is otherwise a charismatic pianist and singer. Across the Fair Grounds, Harrison’s nephew, trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, struggled with blurry electronics in the reverb-heavy Jazz Tent. Mardi Gras Indian royalty and jazz eminence - was introduced as combining elements of “soul music, jazz music, funk music, and New Orleans music,” but the overall effect was of generic funk. On the Congo Square Stage, Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. Famed Cajun-music revivalist and fiddle virtuoso Michael Doucet and his band Beausoleil made some interesting forays into Arabic-tinged scales over the traditional country two-steps and then brought on a so-so female vocalist as a guest for a couple of tunes. But after the Indians, and our requisite breakfast of crawfish bread (that is, if you didn’t count the beignets at Café Du Monde a couple of hours earlier), the day seemed to deflate. (The festival, presented by Shell, continues May 3-6.) Yes the sun was shining over the Fair Grounds Race Course, with its 13 separate stages and copious options for excellent food. Inspiring as they are, the Indians are but a prelude to each day of this two-weekend event, now celebrating its 49th anniversary, an appetizer, not the whole meal. In the front row of the standing audience were the gang’s family members, with at least one toddler dozing in his mother’s arms. As the Chief or another gang member rapped, the Wildman, carrying a skull-topped staff and wearing his own bull’s-horn crown, glowered at the crowd. There was barely a wisp of melody except for “Battleground” everything else was contained in the roll of percussion and those chanting proto-raps. Summoning the spirits, that’s what we were here for!Īnd so this masked African-American crew did: “I got a pretty Big Chief, dressed to kill! …Hoo-nah-ney!” … “Sew Sew Sew” (about making those suits), “Shallow Water” (invoking slave days), “Hold ’Em Joe” and “Meet the Boys on the Battleground” (the ritualized tribal face-offs), accompanied by the popping cross-rhythms of that percussion section. Granted, the Semolian Warriors Mardi Gras Indian gang had kicked things off with the necessary invocation: the Big Chief, Spyboy, Flagboy, Wildman, and their retinue in feathered, beaded suits of green, blue, orange, red, and white, and a ferocious backlines of percussion - hand drums, bass drums, trap set, tambourines, and clanking cowbells. I had just about given up on day one of this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (through May 6). New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell. Mostly the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival ends up being about the multiplicity and infinite variety of cultures and traditions, including generic funk.