Authentic Jazz—And More—Still Thrive in New Orleans
by Paul Ruden /Photo: Mark Shim
You have arrived early for the 2016 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the skies are seriously darkening. Yesterday was “rained out” so you are beginning to wonder if this trip on the shuttle bus to the New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course, the third-oldest racetrack in America (opened 1872) was a good idea.
While you’re waiting to enter the infield, the rain starts, lightly at first. You’re here, so you go in. Halfway into the venue, the torrent comes—ripping wind, drenching rain, and lightning with frequent blasts of thunder. You run under a small tent and huddle in your poncho to wait it out, but there is no end to it.
Welcome to New Orleans. It rains…sometimes. When it does, it can actually lower the humidity.
One thing is certain. The locals do not let rain interfere with their music. The show goes on. All day. The rains come but the performers in the multiple-tented venues play every type of music you can imagine—jazz, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin, Caribbean, folk, and more. Attendees scurry from one venue to another, often getting soaked. Who cares? The ground is a mud pit in many places. So what? The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is ON!
And the music is so fine. Traditional jazz in one tent—Ellis Marsalis, father of the family jazz dynasty that includes Wynton, Jason, and Delfayo. In another tent, the Brass-A-Holics. In another, the Kumbuka African Dance and Drum Collective. Take your pick from a dozen music venues: Chris Botti, Trombone Shorty, Mavis Staples. The list includes major national stars and stunningly talented acts known mainly to locals. This is New Orleans; you had better be good or be gone.
After a day of this, chased down with food from local vendors of native foods (no chains here—crawfish pie, andouille gumbo, softshell crab po-boys and more—it’s time to return to your hotel. It’s still pouring. But what’s that big crowd doing over there? They’re standing in a field, in the rain, listening to Bonnie Raitt belt out the tunes that made her famous.
The love of music is palpable in New Orleans and it’s everywhere. The city holds 129 music festivals each year, attracting four million visitors. Then there’s the French Quarter. Bourbon Street has largely been overtaken by rock-and-roll and for people who treasure the classical New Orleans music, dating back to the time of Louis Armstrong and beyond, there are relatively few venues. But those that remain are spectacular and should not be missed: Fritzel’s, an informal beer pub with over-the-top music; Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse in the Royal Sonesta Hotel, elegant but lively, with a different band each night, and often Mayfield himself; Preservation Hall, a singular vestige of old New Orleans where most guests stand through the sets of old-time New Orleans and Dixieland tunes cooled only by a few overhead fans; and, in the area known as Frenchman’s Street, Snug Harbor, where Ellis Marsalis and other local and national jazz nobility perform regularly.
Just experiencing these venues is enough to warrant a trip to New Orleans, but there is more. As you walk around the French Quarter in the afternoon and early evening, you can’t help but encounter the magic of the street musicians. These extraordinary ensembles of brass and Cajun instruments can usually be found in Jackson Square—but the queen of the street performers, a clarinet prodigy who goes by Doreen, is typically on Royal Street in the late afternoon. Her small band includes her husband on tuba and daughter on drums, with one or more “guest” artists sitting in. Doreen always attracts a crowd and holds them spellbound with her extraordinary music. Tip all the street performers generously. You will not find better musicians anywhere.
Travel agents thinking about client interest in New Orleans should be aware of a major airport improvement, with the construction of the $826-million North Terminal by 2018. That year should also bring the completed conversion of the NOLA World Trade Center into a Four Seasons hotel, and the celebration of the Tricentennial of New Orleans.
New Orleans is nearing pre-Katrina records for visitation and set a record for visitor spending in 2015. In addition to the music scene, the city is justly famous for its food and its “atmosphere.” The reaction last May to the formation of a sinkhole downtown is typical of the vibe. In true New Orleans fashion, a group of people proclaimed it Sink Hole de Mayo and planned a celebration in Woldenberg Park to draw attention to the need to fix it as quickly as possible.