New Orleans JazzFest

Going to JazzFest in New Orleans has been a "bucket list" item for me. I had plans to go in 2020 which were thwarted by the pandemic. Then they scheduled and cancelled twice in 2021. When they announced that the Fest was back for 2022, I made plans right away.

Wednesday

Let me start with the surprising observation that there’s a Jazzfest style. Most of the music festivals I’ve attended have been largely int the jam band genre, featuring bands like Dead & Co., Tedeschi Trucks, and Greensky Bluegrass. Attendees of such events have a generally hippie-ish vibe. You’ll see plenty of  tie-dye, peasant skirts and other hippie-signaling garb, both among the greying Boomers and the younger “wooks”. Also, these festivals have a somewhat counter-culture flavor which means there’ll always be a good supply of freaky people – from the Bluegrass Chicken Man to folks in outrageous multi-colored garb.

JazzFest is different. There are fewer eccentric dressers, and very little tie-dye. While this isn’t a country music festival, it is located in the south and I saw far more women than I’m used to in the full Daisy Duke outfit of jean shorts, boots, and cowboy hats. That, and women in wide-brimmed straw hats and sundresses, often with cute shoes not completely sensible for walking around what is normally a horse track. For guys, the Jazzfest look is these boldly colorful Hawaiian shirts – not the traditional kind with palm trees, but more sort of pop-art figurative representations in bright colors. Here and there, guys even wore matching tops and shorts in that kind of print. And once again, straw hats – fedoras, porkpies, and large sun hats. Plenty of festival-goers were dressed for comfort in basic t-shirts and shorts, but overall the crowd looked a little more “dressed” than I’m used to at festivals. I think that’s in part because this is a Southern event, and people in the South are a little more proper about dress than we Yankees. Secondly, the mainstream pop nature of the artists – Stevie Nicks, Kool and the Gang, for example – means that the Fest draws a more mainstream and less counter-cultural crowd. Last, the fact that it’s not a camping festival means that people can dress a little more for style rather than for crawling around a dusty campsite.

A couple sporting JazzFest style

I knew none of this when I headed for the airport wearing my straw porkpie. A guy at the gate looked at me and said, “I know where you’re going, with that hat.” I had no idea what he was talking about. Given we were at the gate for a flight to New Orleans it was obvious he was referring to Jazzfest, but this is a hat I wear all the time. I had only accidentally adopted what turned out to be stereotypical Jazzfest garb.

I didn’t even wear my apparently festival-appropriate porkpie to the event – I had other hats for that purpose. I recently received a call from my dermatologist confirming that the funny red area on my shoulder was indeed skin cancer, so my Jazzfest daytime wardrobe was long pants, sun shirt or t-shirt with sun guard sleeves (borrowed from my cycling kit), and a really big hat. Plus goopy zinc-based sunscreen which goes on like Elmer’s Glue.

Anyway, I got to New Orleans without incident –it did feel weird traveling after two years of sticking pretty close to home. My AirBnB was a lovely little suite upstairs in a restored 1840’s house, reached by an exterior spiral staircase. The owners live downstairs. It’s actually quite a property, with a separate building which serves as a woodshop, and a lushly landscaped garden. I was staying in the Seventh Ward neighborhood, which sits midway between the French Quarter and the Fairgrounds, where Jazzfest is held – a little over a mile from each. It’s a funky local neighborhood filled with pretty antebellum homes. However you might feel about gentrification, it definitely has the feel of a hipster gentrifiying neighborhood, though perhaps without quite the pretentiousness which would accompany such a thing in New York or DC. It was really nice to stay in a neighborhood a little bit away from the touristy areas. It felt more like “real” New Orleans, and yet both the Fairgrounds and the French Quarter were close bay.

Entrance to my AirBnB

Houses in the neighborhood

Another house on Esplanade Street

My Air BnB hosts lent me a beat-up old single speed cruiser bike which was perfect for local transportation (though it was adjusted for someone much shorter than me). I took it for a spin over to Canseco’s, the local market, and bought some basic supplies – cereal, coffee and soy milk for breakfast, some water bottles for the festival, etc.

My ride

Canseco's has foods not available at supermarkets back home

That first evening I had plans to see a Baltimore musician named Cris Jacobs, who was scheduled to give a solo performance at a club called Carrolton Station across town. Cris is a great musician and songwriter who is a fairly big name on the festival circuit (note – he sat in with my band for a song once), and I figured some of the DC/Baltimore locals in town would show up for this performance. Sure enough I ran into Cornelius there. Good show, though I was the only one in the entire place wearing a mask. My introduction to the idea that in Louisiana, the pandemic is over (n.b. Cris Jacobs came down with COVID a few days after this show).

Towards the end of Cris’ show I made my exit and grabbed dinner at a Mediterranean place a couple of blocks up. I ate outside and had a pretty good eggplant sandwich. I had taken an Uber to the club (too far to bike - particularly on my first night when I hadn't gotten my bearings), but I’m pretty cheap and a believer in mass transit so while I was eating I got out my phone and figured how to get home by bus. I was a little concerned about COVID on mass transit, but I needn’t have been in this case, as I was the only passenger on the bus for most of the ride (a few other people got on and off along the way).

Cris Jacobs at Carrolton Station. Apparently I was visible in the live stream

Thursday

Thursday was my first day of JazzFest. I packed up my day’s supplies – sealed frozen water bottles, my collapsible camping chair, sunscreen, and snacks, and headed off to the festival by bike. Let me say that bicycle is *so much* the perfect way to get to JazzFest. While everyone else is scrambling for scarce parking, waiting on insanely long lines for shuttle buses, or waiting and waiting for an Uber, I would roll right in an out on my bike. The festival has a designated bike parking area with plenty of racks, which is even staffed all day.

I was sort of by myself and sort of with other people at the Fest. I was traveling alone, but I knew various people at the Fest. My drummer friend Brian and his wife were my sort-of traveling companions. We flew down on the same flight, and I hung out with them a bunch, but they were staying over in the French Quarter and so we didn’t see each other outside the festival.

I quickly discovered that JazzFest is a very friendly place. I set up my chair at one of the main stages near a group of eight or so people who had established quite an encampment. I got to talking with them and when they heard this was my first JazzFest they “adopted” me and said I was totally welcome to hang out with them. The group was made up of people who for the most part knew each other from having all lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands decades earlier – Nancy and Ron, Rudy, and a bunch of other people whose names I’ve already forgotten. Now they live all around the country, and they reunite every year at JazzFest. I hung with them for a while, but JazzFest has a dozen stages and so I set out wandering to explore the immensity of the place.

With some of my adoptive family 

It's a little overwhelming at first. The Fairgrounds is pretty big – at least a mile long. The two headlining stages are at opposite ends. In between there are stages which focus on jazz, blues, gospel, local culture and local music, as well as several other large-scale stages. There are also two large areas of food vendors, villages of craft vendors, brass band parades, Louisiana culture exhibits, and, spread throughout this massive event, two – count ‘em – two – places where you could refill your water bottle for free.

Billy Strings performs

Brian and I kept meeting up then splitting up again all day. His wife, not being interested in as many days in the hot sun as we were, had stayed back at the hotel to relax and enjoy the amenities – pool, and so on. Thursday was the only day I ate a real meal at the festival. While the food includes a lot of local cuisine and so is way better than typical festival food, for a combination of religious and health reasons I can’t eat much of it, so the pleasure of the festival’s food is largely lost on me. I had an order of vegetarian red beans and rice for lunch. Not bad.

With Brian

After the Fest, for dinner I ordered takeout from 1000 Figs, a nearby Mediterranean restaurant recommended by my AirBnB hosts. I biked over to pick it up and ate it back at “home”. It was actually really, really good!

Traditionally, after JazzFest ends for the day at 7 PM people go out and party all night long in the clubs. I was a little too COVID-wary to go out to crowded indoor clubs, so I stayed in and got a good night’s sleep.

Bands seen: The Iguanas, New Orleans Suspects, Kermit Ruffins and his BBQ Swingers, Mikayla Braun, Wayne Toups, Billy Strings, and more I’ve forgotten.

Friday

JazzFest is said to be awful in the rain, when the dirt track, which is really made of a combination of soil and horse poop, turns to a most disgusting form of mud. Fortunately, the forecast for my visit had only a half day of rain, on Friday morning, in it. I decided I’d skip the morning at JazzFest and do something else until the track dried out a little. The rain conveniently stopped around 10 AM. I biked across town to the newly opened Museum of Southern Jewish Culture, where I talked the guy at the door into giving me two dollars off the admission price (maybe negotiating is part of the museum experience?). It’s a fun little museum – just three galleries, really – where I learned that the first documented Jewish person in the U.S. was Joachim Gans, a metallurgist (it figures he was a professional), who arrived in 1585 in … Virginia! So there have been Jews in Virginia for 437 years, yet it’s still hard to find a decent bagel here.

The museum

19th Century Southern Passover recipe

Gold bagel from the "Krewe of Jieuxs"

Biking back - note the streetcar

After my museum visit I biked back via the French Quarter, ate the previous night's dinner leftovers for lunch, then headed to the fairgrounds. My adoptive festy family had texted me their location, so I stopped by to say hello. I won’t bore you with a play by play of going from one stage to another – I’ll just say that on the second day I knew my way around a little better and so it was less overwhelming. Bands I saw included: Tribute to Art and Charles Neville with the Funky Meters, Ivan Neville, etc., Chubby Carrier, Sonny Landreth, Adonis Rose and the New Orleans JazzOrchestra, Elvis Costello and the Imposters, and some more I can’t remember. Plus, my mud avoidance plan worked - by the time I got there the hot sun had dried most everything out.

Chubby Carrier

Elvis Costello

Me!

Bike parking, early in the day

In the evening I biked over to Frenchman Street, a street of music clubs and nightlife near the French Quarter. I had no intention of going into any of the clubs, but I knew that even staying out on the street I could hear the music and mix with the vibe. My dinner was a portabello Po’ Boy sandwich, which was tasty but incredibly salty. While I sat outside the restaurant eating at a picnic table, a group of partying tourists asked if they could share the table. I said “sure”, and the group of us got to talking. It turns out they were from the NY/NJ area, were Deadheads, and were in town for JazzFest as well. We chatted for quite a while before they headed off to a club and I biked home. This was a totally random interaction between people who live in different parts of the country and who were in the same city only because of a music festival. There was no way I would have any mutual connections. However, when I posted a picture of the group of us to Facebook, Cornelius, who knows positively everyone, tagged one of the people – he knows her! Too strange.

Frenchman Street

Random people - at least one of whom knows Cornelius

Saturday

JazzFest doesn’t start until 11 AM and I’m an early riser, so every day I had time to fill in the mornings. On Saturday I tried going out for breakfast for a change, but the closest neighborhood coffee place had nothing but coffee – no pastries, no food, no nothin’ – and the other wasn’t open that early, so I went back and ate breakfast at home.

The idea of eating lunch before entering the fairgrounds had worked well, so I did it again. This time I visited a vegan soul food restaurant very close to the fairgrounds. It was soooo good. Okra gumbo, vegan mac and cheese, and sweet potatoes. I could eat there every day.

Vegan soul food!

My plate

Once again I met up with Brian and Amy inside the fairgrounds. I also noticed my neighbors Lawrence and Hannah had been posting pictures from around New Orleans and so messaged them. They were at JazzFest too – we sat together for a band. The last act I saw was Mavis Staples, where I ran into local Realtor® and music impresario Tori McKinney. Tori loves all things New Orleans (she lived there at one time and still has a condo there) and all things music so it was no surprise that she was at the event. A lot of fest-goers were excited about seeing 73-year-old Stevie Nicks, but I skipped her to instead see 82-year-old Mavis Staples. I later watched some video of Nicks’ performance. Sadly, her voice isn’t what it used to be. She cleverly relies on backup singers to hit the high notes while she sings in a narrow range. Staples, on the other hand, still has a voice which nearly set the tent on fire. Her only visible concession to age was that she sat down between songs. I chose right - it was one of my favorite performances from the event. 

Mardi Gras Indian. He must have been schvitzing in that outfit

Buckwheat Zydeco Junior

Rickie Lee Jones

More Indians

With Tori

The great Mavis Staples

Lawrence and Hannah (and their son Isaac)

I decided to eat dinner in and so stopped at Canseco’s Market again on the way home. The market was busy with other fest-goers, but not too bad. While I was on line to pay, two kids – one maybe 14, the other 10? – approached me and the older one asked if I wanted to buy any water (there are any number of people outside the gates selling bottled water to fest-goers). I said no, but he persisted. Sometimes he would just ask again, “Do you want to buy any water?” and other times he would riff about his product or on things I had said in answering him. This was cute for a minute or two, but he just wouldn’t stop. It got past the point of fun and into being harassing. Being a paranoid New Yorker at heart, as soon as the kid started talking to me I slid my left hand down and kept it in place so that I could feel my wallet and keys, just in case his goal was to distract me while the younger kid or some other accomplice picked my pocket. I even sent them off to talk with someone further back in line – but they returned to me. It was a little weird, but they laid off once I got to the cash register and I didn’t see them again.

The bike ride itself was a party - the JazzFest spirit expands into the neighborhoods

Dinner that night was a corner market hodgepodge of soup, salad, bread and fruit. I didn’t go out in the evening.

Bands seen: Buckwheat Zydeo Jr., Rickie Lee Jones, New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, Mavis Staples. I took it a little easy and didn’t go rushing from stage to stage in the heat, but there must have been more than that.

Sunday

Sunday morning I biked down to Café du Monde in the French Quarter and had their famous coffee (with chicory and hot milk) and beignet. It being New Orleans, while it was only 8 AM, there was a brass band playing for tips outside the café. Brass band version of Big Chief with breakfast :)

Coffee and beignet

Jackson Square

Front entrance to my AirBnB house

After once again eating the previous night’s leftovers for lunch, I once again rode to the fairgrounds. I didn’t hear from Brian, so spent most of the day by myself; however, once again I noticed FB posts from JazzFest from yet another friend. I met up with my friend Linda and her beau for Kool and the Gang. Linda used to live in Arlington. Our kids were friends many moons ago. Now she lives in New York and so we never see her, except somehow I keep running into her at concerts – last year it was Dead & Co. at CitiField in New York, and this year JazzFest. Kool & the Gang took a little while to find their groove, but a few songs in everything clicked and the rest of their set was great.

Gospel group

Kool and the Gang with Linda

It was hot and sunny

I once again took it a little easier. JazzFest weather is pretty hot, and seeing shows at many of the stages involves baking out in the Gulf Coast sun (fortunately other stages are in large tents, where you can get a break from the sun). I sat for a little while in the racetrack grandstand, which is air conditioned and less packed with people than elsewhere. There are no performances there; it’s just a place to cool off and, if you are so inclined, wait in enormously long lines for some of the few real bathrooms in the place.

I did go see Trombone Shorty’s big closing set, but I left a little early. On Saturday I had experienced the crush when everyone leaves, and I wanted to avoid being in that wave again.

People put up flags or other markers to mark their spot

On the way home I stopped at Nonna’s Pizza, which offers mediocre pizza and poor service, and jacks their prices up for JazzFest – but it was convenient. It was my last night in town and I was tempted to go out to a club, but ultimately opted to stay true to my vow not to hang out in clubs. I stayed in and packed.

Bands seen: Trombone Shorty, Kool and the Gang, Tribute to Dr. John, Dwayne Dopsie, Chris Thomas King, some gospel group (don’t remember the name), and more.

Monday

Monday morning I biked around City Park, then headed to the airport. My flight was delayed for four hours, but I made it home safe and sound.

Biking at City Park

Swan boats at City Park Big Lake

Streetcar by City Park

Another cool house

All told, a great trip. A chance to hang out in New Orleans which was both non-touristy (staying in the 7^th Ward and commuting by bike) and ultra-touristy (JazzFest). Good food (unfortunately I am constrained in this regard, and was eating alone so didn’t go to sit-down restaurants for the most part). Great music. The festival is very hot and sunny, something which worried me given my recent skin cancer diagnosis. I made lots and lots of visits to the water refill station – hydration is key. Had a fun time with fun people. Great fun, but not necessarily an event I need to go to every year. Maybe if I went with a group. Given that I kept gravitating towards local music, next I might try French Quarter Fest, which is all local bands rather than national headliners. We’ll see … 

Slimy sea creatures for sale at Canseco's

New Orleans lizard!