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New Orleans notes (continued)




OF COURSE, the very overload of Jazzfest can also make it exhausting. With 10 stages going full tilt from 11:15 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Fair Grounds Race Track, and upward of 70,000 people swarming the place on a given day (a mere 40,000 on April 25, when a good seven inches of rain dropped on the area), it gets difficult to pace yourself — not to mention pacing yourself with the abundance of local delicacies like jambalaya and oyster po’ boys served at food stalls spread across the grounds. The swirl of musical styles and the thump of overamplified bass mix with the cross-section of the tattoo’d and the gray-haired, the Foster’s drinkers (beer is served all day at the Fair Grounds) and the iced-tea drinkers, all of which contributes to a kind of cognitive dissonance that once led one of my colleagues to describe Bourbon Street as "Disneyland for drunks." Sometimes it can be difficult to make a connection that works on either the social-communal or the personal level. Give Emmylou Harris credit for daring to perform a good portion of her set on the huge open-air Acura Stage (where all the big names appear) with only guitarist Buddy Miller to accompany her.

But where else can you hear former Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli funking it up on the big stage while not more than a few hundred yards away Don Vappie and his Creole Jazz Serenaders are playing a crackling version of the circa 1920s number by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, "Plain Dirt" — a piece you’re not likely to hear performed live anywhere, never mind in a sweltering tent on a racetrack. A disjunction like this is one of the reasons my wife and I have an affection for Bourbon Street — where the shlocky and the sublime exist side by side, and where we always pay a late-night visit to Fritzel’s, the "European Jazz Pub" that augments the local Ryan Burrage & His Rhythmmakers with visiting bands from the continent (this week it was a couple of students from the Borg Band of Krems, Austria, and their teacher), and where a full-color portrait of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel hangs in the back room.

NOTHING SPEAKS more of the New Orleans neighborhoods than their brass bands and their Mardi Gras Indian "gangs." The brass parade bands are as old a tradition as New Orleans jazz itself. At the Music Heritage interview stage, in the respite of the air-conditioned grandstand, blues singer Corey Harris told WWOZ’s Tom Morgan that the city’s past-two-decades resurgence owes a lot to the late Anthony "Tuba Fats" Lacen, who as performer and teacher inspired many of these young players (he died in January). And to judge by the appearance of the venerated Rebirth Brass Band, the tradition is now proudly "street" — the band all wore matching football jerseys and headbands, and they punctuated their second-line rhythms with profanity-laced raps that nonetheless focused on uplift and self-determination. One Rebirth verse began, "To thine own self be true."

Rebirth are always parade-ready, consisting only of horns and a rhythm section of sousaphone and snare and bass drums. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, now 27 years old, stick to the parade grooves of their origins, but they appeared on the Acura Stage with guitar and a trap-drum set. Their arrangements also long ago left the street — their version of "I’ll Fly Away" (from the new Ropeadope release Funeral for a Friend, which is dedicated to Fats, who was an original member) interpolated references to a Charlie Parker bebop tune and John Coltrane’s "A Love Supreme."

Occasionally, Northern audiences get to see touring versions of the Wild Magnolias (named for a street in their neighborhood), with R&B singer Big Chief Bo Dollis fronting a line-up that includes electric guitar and bass. But the real deal tends to be a kind of street rap supported only by bass drum and other hand percussion. On Saturday at the Fair Grounds, the Young Cheyennes delved into the coded language of the Mardi Gras Indians, where "Shallow Water" tends to refer to pre–Civil War tales of slave escape routes. There are also references to street rivalries that these days are more ritualized than violent. But when the Young Cheyennes, resplendent in orange and purple and pink feathers and headdresses, sing, "My whole gang’s pretty, they’re dressed to kill," the origins of the lyric aren’t in metaphor alone.

THE NEW ORLEANS–BRED Hazard County Girls, on the stage where Irma Thomas was to appear at the opposite end of the day, played good songs and good arrangements that recalled lamented grunge-metal girls of yore like L7 (sniff) and Malachite (sniff, sniff) and Hole-era Courtney Love (boo-hoo). Christy Kane sang with an affectless delivery over Sharon Heather’s big-league beats. She dedicated a song called "Lucy" to her mother (who was in the crowd) and added, "This is our polka." Well, not really, more of a fast ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two punkabilly that recalled the Gun Club and Social Distortion and seemed to be about jealous lovers and murder. Something of a murder polka, then.

There were other surprises. Bonnie Raitt can still sing her beautiful, gliding blue notes, and she manages to be both feminist and political without posturing ("This is a song about a time when women didn’t have as many choices as we do," she said in introducing John Prine’s "Make Me an Angel.") Johnny Clegg, as part of the ongoing 10th anniversary of South African Freedom celebration at the Congo Stage, delivered shapely melodies, uplifting harmonies, and Afropop guitar grooves that didn’t assault with overamplifed bass. And Steve Winwood proved that his current jam-band vogue is based on virtuoso playing (guitar and organ) and enduring songwriting ("Mr. Fantasy," "Can’t Find My Way Back Home," "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys").

When the fest is at its best, everything seems to fit. And nothing interrupts that personal connection between audience and performer. You take it all in as part of a whole, Irma singing a fast "You Can Have My Husband But Please Don’t Mess with My Man," pushing her voice with a series of church-ified upper-register "Oh yeah" exclamations while those mountainous Southwest Louisiana cumulus clouds hang in a big sky and a little prop plane flies by trailing its Bourbon Street hype: "Hand Grenade at Tropical Isle."

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Issue Date: May 7 - 13, 2004
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