New Orleans notebook: Al Green and Springsteen are highlights of Sunday’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

NEW ORLEANS, SUNDAY, APRIL 29: It’s a beautiful, sunny Sunday in New Orleans, with low humidity and enough sun-blocking clouds and breeze to make a day at the Jazz Fest tolerable and, often, pleasant. We arrive early to avoid the ticket lines, since The Boss is closing the show today and that means a lot of folks will be here.

GOSPEL TENT: Start off, as you should on a Sunday with some gospel. Inside the tent, the misters are already going and the New Orleans Spiritualettes are testifying. Six female singers in long shimmering silver dresses, backed by guitar, bass and drums. They trade off lead vocals and powerful backup harmonies and chants, then end their set by pulling out silver and black feathered parasols for a second line through the tent.

CONGO SQUARE: The Batiste Family is one of New Orleans great multi-generational music families – so much that a character in Treme carries the name. They’ve gathered in force on the Congo stage for a musical family reunion. Some blues, some funk, a little rap, and even a round of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which in this context is a pretty fitting theme song for both the festival and the town.

FOOD VILLAGE: While Trombone Shorty, New Orleans hottest young musical export, is mixing horn band and hip hop on the main stage, the lines at the food vendors are short. Time for crawfish strudel, which pretty much needs no more description than that, some red beans and rice, followed by my fest favorite – cochon de lait po-boy.

JAZZ AND HERITAGE STAGE: The first big discovery of the fest for me – Bill Summers and Jazalsa. Summers is a member of Los Hombres Calientes, with Irvin Mayfield, he’s played percussion with Herbie Hancock, and  during his show he shares a story about one of his late-60s collaborations with Carlos Santana, as a prelude to “Oye Como Va.” His band is moves easily through tight salsa and samba styles that demands dancing.

BLUES TENT: It’s midday and the sun is taking charge, so it’s time to retreat to the Blues Tent, fight your way in and find a seat in back for Sonny Landreth. The slide guitar master, who has played and collaborated with folks like Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, Mark Knopfler and John Mayall, fronts a power trio – just guitar, bass and drums. But his soaring, and often lightning fast slide work, makes it sound like a lot more musicians are on stage. This set is so good, we stay from start to finish.

CONGO SQUARE: Al Green, in great voice, with a powerhouse R & B band, closing his show with “Love and Happiness.” What else can you say?

ACURA STAGE: Usually, I avoid the headliners at Jazz Fest. I’m looking for bands that fit the Palladium, not Times Forum. Besides, the crowds are too big and there’s no escape from the sun around the big stages. But Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball tour is getting ecstatic reviews across the country and he’s here.

Just before his 4 p.m. set, I walk around the outside track and find a packed dirt spot that offers a view of the big screens, a bit of stage, and great sound. Springsteen lives up to his reviews. He’s replaced the late Clarence Clemons with a full horn section – with Clarence’s nephew taking his sax solos. The result is a much stronger R&B feel, that propels the hits and the surprise choices.

This is Springsteen’s return to the fest after a rousing, emotional set with this Seeger Sessions band right after Katrina in 2006. He brings back some songs from that show – “My City in Ruins” and a hushed, intimate version of “When The Saints Go Marching In,” with the obscure verse that reveals the song is really a lament about death and loss. With the loss of three key E-Street Band members in recent years – two players and a staff member – the show was both a vibrant, sexy onslaught and a meditation on grief. In less capable hands, it would have  been all wrong. But Springsteen has always been able to meld opposites into something exactly right. He closes with “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” and when he recalls – “When The Big Man Joins The Band” – Springsteen stopped the song and the show for almost a full minute, pointing skyward, before launching into the furious finale.

In New Orleans there’s always a chance for Lagniappe – a little something extra – and I get that as I walk back around the track toward the exit. A line of big SUVs pulls slowly away from the Acura backstage area. We stop to let them pass. A clearly spent Springsteen, in a white SUV, sits in the front seat, the window half-way down, tapping outstretched hands with his fingers. He passes six-feet from me. The other long-time E-Streeters, each pass in their own private SUV, followed by a bus with the rest of the band.

It’s been a long day and like every jazz fest experience, you leave knowing you missed as much great music as you heard. But you did your best and it’s time to go home.