Wet Jazz Fest

Yesterday's opening of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival was a splendid day for sun and fun, but today's performances were dampened by the heavy rains that poured throughout the latter portion of the day. With the ground already soaked and mud in abundance on the infield, tomorrow's expected heavy rains suggest, perhaps, alternative plans should be made. For the diehard Jazz Fest enthusiasts, no amount of drizzle, downpour, inundation, thunderstorm, squall, or cyclonic disturbance will prevent them from attending. And the same could be said for the performers. One of the highest paid professionals was Billy Joel, whose rain-soaked and thunderstorm-filled set was cut short by a half hour due to the floodgates that had opened up in the skies. Joel was quoted as having shouted out at the sky "Is that the best you got? C'mon, bring it on!" While this is all in keeping with the spirit of the Jazz Fest that emphasizes fun, great music, delicious food, creative crafts and pride in the local culture, to experience the festival in the rain takes a lot of stamina and mind over matter. As Satchel Paige once said, "If you don't mind, it don't matter." I recall going to one of the early Jazz Festivals with none other than Leigh Harris, known to her fans as L'il Queenie. The downpour was so bad and the mud was so thick that the half boots I wore were caked with mud through and through. After the Fest was over, I remember walking over to a nearby home and using their water hose to hose off most of the mud. The shoes had been worn only a few times before and had been soft and pliant. After the festival, they changed colors and were stiff as a board. No amount of saddle soap or store bought treatment could save them from the garbage heap. In the end the performances and the time were reckoned easily worth the price of one pair of shoes. However, with today's walk-up $50 price tag to see the Jazz Fest and the cost of good shoes up at least 200% from what they were 29 years ago, one may question if it's all worth the trip. My favorite way to see the festival is to ride a bicycle into the front gate. You dispense with the cost of parking and the time involved in finding a safe spot and pretty much can leave whenever you want, squirting through tight spaces and blasting past the worst of the traffic. However, there is nothing more dangerous than riding a bicycle on the rain slick streets of this city when Jazz Fest, Mardi Gras or some other celebration is ongoing. It is an accident waiting to happen and I loathe pedaling in the rain. Of course sitting and sloshing through the mud is not all that enticing either. Frankly, I will miss not seeing my hero Elvis Costello as he sings with our great performer Allen Toussaint, but the opportunity to stay warm, dry and mud free is too enticing for me to pass up. Lastly, I console myself with the knowledge that there still is another weekend of Jazz Fest upcoming. As Billy Joel sang yesterday, that's why I'll be "Keeping the Faith."

Big Easy Music Awards

In many ways the New Orleans recovery scene looks bleak. The progress being made in the Ninth Ward can be measured not by blocks, but by the erection of single houses. Lakeview looks a lot better today, but imagine that one or two houses stand on a single block, while the rest is empty space, sandlots and grass growing where beautiful houses and mansions once stood. The bulldozers and wrecking cranes have had their final say on a conservative 60% of the housing there. While FEMA trailers are for the most part gone from the scene, the homes that were so severely damaged that their tenants have permanently relocated cry out for lack of attention and upkeep in areas like Broadmoor and Mid City. But if the physical progress can be measured at a crawl, the mental return from survival mode to exuberant cheerleaders can best be seen in the arts scene. Last night while President Bush dined at Commander's Palace, the New Orleans arts community feasted on two major events. At Le Chat Noir a packed house enjoyed the Storer Boone Awards that are nominated, voted on and passed out annually by the theatre community. I was not in attendance there as I headed over to Harrah's Theatre for the 20th annual Big Easy Music Awards. The music community honored its own last night with a celebration involving live performances and mixed media. In the end 29 awards were passed out to a widely divergent set of musicians, singers, and promoters of various things having to do with musical New Orleans. Top award recipients included Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, who received the 2008 Music Heritage Award. Johnson still spends much of his time away from the city living in Houston, the city to which he evacuated just prior to Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. WWOZ passed out several honors to volunteers who had helped their radio station survive the terrible times following Hurricane Katrina. Station manager David Freedman was on hand to reveal that Rolling Stone Magazine had tabbed the quirky radio station with worldwide web listernership in addition to local devotees as the Number Two Radio Station in the country. (Only subscribers and you know about this information because the magazine has yet to hit newsstands.) Jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison, Jr. received the 2008 Big Easy Ambassador of Music Award, while his former partner, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, got the nod as the 2008 Entertainer of the Year, largely based on his Grammy Award winning "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina). Rhythm and blues pianist Eddie Bo received the 2008 Lifetime Achievement in Music Award from local legend Allen Toussaint and Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu. The droll Harry Shearer served as master of ceremonies and much of his banter reflected on his dissatisfaction with the Bush administration's response to the Hurricane Katrina relief on a local level. Newcomer Troy Andrews and veteran performer Irma Thomas received top male and female performer honors for 2007. But it was the live performances that captured the indomitable spirit of New Orleans and Louisiana. For me one of the best was the Big Easy Awards Funky All Star Band directed by Donald Harrison, Jr. and featuring Shamarr Allen, Troy Andrews, "Big" Sam Williams, Matt Perrine, Stanton Moore and Jon Cleary (who won the Best Rhythm and Blues Artist for 2007 as well) that really made me feel that I had arrived back home. There's simply no other way to describe the feeling I had as they churned out "Hey Pocky Way," a Mardi Gras Indian funk classic first popularized by the Meters. The evening ended with Lafayette native hip hopper Cupid singing his popular "Cupid Shuffle" and the entire hall standing up and moving to the directions from the singer ("to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right; to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left; now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick; now walk it by yourself, walk it by yourself.") It was a great night for New Orleans music and an even better night for the city to once again feel proud of all that it has achieved since the storm. My hats off to Awards organizer Gloria Powers and Margo and Clancy Dubos of Gambit Magazine who have sponsored this incredible local awards ceremony for the past two decades!

The last time there was this much media attention in Pennsylvania, it was Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil was looking for his shadow. Whether the Clinton campaign continues or grinds to a halt, only the voters of Pennsylvania can tell. For you Clinton supporters who are not voting in Pennsylvania's primary today, perhaps you will consider voting in our poll at right.