I didn’t have time to write over the weekend about Saturday and Sunday at Jazz Fest. Sometimes there’s so much living going on that you can’t find time to stop and write about it.
Saturday
On Saturday morning, I spotted a little feature about J.D. Hill, who would be opening the Blues Tent at 11:15 a.m. So I decided to check him out. He’s a superb blues harmonica player. But the guy in his trio who caught my eye and ear was St. Louis Slim, who accompanied J.D. on metal resonator guitars, playing slide in the traditional delta style. This is the kind of guitar playing that I want to learn.
Next up for me was Zachary Richard (pronounced REEshard) at the Acura stage. I remember Zach from the 1980s as a Cajun playing a sort of Cajun-rock fusion. Back then, he played mostly accordion. Today he played mostly acoustic guitar. He’s still fusing Cajun with more contemporary sounds—for instance, some French rap. Very cool.
A little while later, I witnessed a guy’s mind get blown. It happened in front of the Gentilly stage, during Bonerama’s set. Bonerama likes to take rock-and-roll songs (e.g. Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix) and re-arrange them for a bunch of trombones. Today they finished their fine set with “When the Levee Breaks,” a la Led Zeppelin, rearranged for trombones. That’s when the guy standing next to me got his mind blown. I know the feeling; I remember when my own mind was blown listening to Bonerama play Led Zeppelin’s “Ocean.” It’s like somebody puts a trombone bell up against your ear and blows your mind out of the other side. People who experience this brand of mind-blowing react the same way: “I must buy these guys’s CDs!” It was most cool to see Bonerama make another fanatic.
After Bonerama, I caught some traditional jazz in Economy Hall, courtesy of the Treme Brass Band. People went their in search of second-line music. They were not disappointed.
I left TBB’s set a little early to catch a taste of Cowboy Mouth at the Gentilly stage, before heading to the Lagniappe stage for Bobby Lounge. The bit I saw of Cowboy Mouth was great. Bobby Lounge was good, but I wish I’d seen more of him. But he ceded some of his time to Sarah Quintana, a cute up-and-coming singer-songwriter with a lovely voice, who really deserves her own time slot. She was good; I would have liked to hear more of her. And Bobby—or I should say, Mr. Lounge—was himself, which is exactly what I wanted—a musical version of Flannery O’Connor, with a lot of humor thrown in. The trouble is that these two performers each need their own time slots. But as it was, I left wishing I had heard more of Bobby.
To close the day, I opted for John Mayall. Good call. He and his band play high-energy blues, and they love their job. Elsewhere Bon Jovi was playing the Acura stage, and I hope their fans got what they wanted. Me, I was in the right place.
Sunday
My first top today was the Lagniappe Stage, where St. Louis Slim (whom I’d seen yesterday) presented his own set. He lived up to expectations, playing old-school blues in old-school delta style.
Next up for me were Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm. These guys are carrying on the tradition of north Mississippi hill-country blues. Cedric comes by this music naturally; he’s the grandson of R.L. Burnside.
After Cedric Burnside & Lighnin’ Hopkins, I went outside to my new favorite food spot: the Vietnamese booth. Yesterday I went there and got the new contender for the best Jazz Fest food buy: two good-sized shrimp spring rolls for a mere $5. Today I got grilled shrimp on vermicelli for $7. Good stuff, and a nice alternative to the numerous varieties of crawfish-whatever sold at the other food booths.
I took my little shrimp-on-vermicelli bowl back to the blues tent, where I found a nice spot on the bleachers in the back. There, I caught most of Eric Lindell’s set. The best way I can describe Eric is this: Imagine Delbert McClinton with a less raspy voice and with considerable guitar skills.
Suddenly during Eric Lindell’s set, I felt this sudden cool breeze. The sudden change of temperature signaled downdraft from a nearby thunderstorm.
At this point, I had a nice spot under the Blues tent, listening to a fine musician (Eric Lindell). Nearby, Neil Young had been playing the first half of his two-hour set at the Acura stage. What to do? What to do?
For me, the answer was obvious: leave the safety of the Blues tent, squeeze into the crowd in front of the Acura stage, and listen to Neil Young. I decided that if the heavens opens and the monsoons hit, I’d rather be in the world’s largest mud-mosh pot in front of the Acura stage, listening to Neil Young, then to be high and dry under the Blues tent listening to someone else. I figured that an afternoon in this gigantic mud pit would be more memorable than an afternoon high and dry someplace else. Some people spend their lives avoiding memorable moments like these. Me, I seek them out.
So I went to the Acura stage, which was mobbed. I squeezed in to a spot a bit over 100 yards from the front middle of the stage. There, I caught the second half of Neil’s performance.
Now a set like Neil’s isn’t what you might expect. Physically he looks like an aging rocker. Balding, with longish wispy hair, middle-aged weight gain, and some jowls, he looks like a Bloom County version of Neil Young. But intellectually, emotionally, and musically, he has conceded nothing to time. He sang the songs that everyone knows by heart, and he performed them like his life depended on the applause. Most important: He had fun. He closed with “Keep on Rocking in the Free World,” For an encore, he did the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” He damn near destroyed his guitar on that encore number; as it was, all he did was break all the strings. The tens of thousands jammed in front of the stage responded in unrestrained joy. A fitting way to end Jazz Fest.
Only the day wasn’t over. Neil ended his two-hour set a little before 5:00 p.m. to make way for the Neville Brothers, who traditionally close Jazz Fest on the Acura stage. Me, I had other plans: Buddy Guy, Blues tent, 5:45–7:00 p.m.
During Neil Young’s set, a few raindrops fell here and there. But the real rain didn’t start until a few minutes after Neil wrapped up. Then the clouds opened. This wasn’t good for my plans. The rain caused many people to seek any available shelter. Result: the Blues tent was mobbed, and I had a lot of trouble squeezing in—and I mean literally squeezing in). Still, I figured that, if I could just get under the tent and work my way to the left side of the stage, I’d find a pocket of standing room. So I did, and my spot was there.
Buddy Guy’s set left me breathless. He had an odd way of pacing the set, throwing in interludes between the songs, so that the audience rarely got a chance to applaud. Despite the quirky pace, the set left the audience (included me) awestruck. If you’ve ever seen Buddy live before, you probably know what I’m talking about. He’s figured out that his purpose on stage is not to play one hot guitar lick after another. His purpose is to engage the audience. He does that in a number of ways, including playing a guitar in ways that I guarantee you’ve never seen before (unless you’ve seen Buddy live before).
When the stage crew set things up for Buddy’s set, they placed this odd looking object on the right side. It looked like a weird sort of satellite dish, with a big coil projecting from the dish, the whole rig mounted on something like a microphone stand. “What is that thing?” I wondered. The answer came about two-thirds of the way through Buddy’s set when, while playing a guitar with a remote link to the amp, he descended from the stage into the audience, while a member of the stage crew kept the coil-thing pointed at him. “Ah, it’s an antenna for Buddy’s guitar!” So Buddy was able to walk down the aisle, mobbed by a joyous audience, all the while playing and singing, with guitar and voice picked up by the weird-looking antenna and played over the sound system.
By the end of Buddy’s set, the audience was drained. Or at least I was.
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