JAZZ FEST, THURSDAY, May 3: There was rain on Wednesday and the flat, black clouds have stuck around, but the are mostly just keeping the sun from doing its worst. Thursday is always the best day at the fest – small crowds, no lines, and today, no summer heat.
Jazz Fest crowds are famous for their t-shirts and the hit shirt this year carries just two words: Free Payton. If you haven’t been paying attention, Saints coach Sean Payton is out for the season as punishment for the bounty scandal. In this Saint’s crazy town, it’s the shirt of the year!
After four days of non-stop music, I’m targeting shows today, not trying to see everything.
ACCURA STAGE: The Honey Island Swamp Band is a bunch of New Orleans musicians who fled to San Francisco after Katrina and formed the band. They’re back in NOLA now and earned a spot on the main stage. With a three-piece horn section, Hammond B3, and congas, added to guitar, bass and drums, the group is able to take off on some spacious jams.
JAZZ TENT: Amina Figarova is a classically trained pianist, who knows her way around Ellington and Satchmo. Her set featured her husband, Bart Platteau, on flute. Joined by sax and trumpet, she proved why she’s earning raves as a pianist, bandleader and composer.
CONGO STAGE: I unfold my chair on a grassy spot about half-way back from the stage, just as Henry Butler and his band kick it off. I had seen Butler on Monday at the more intimate House of Blues stage. Playing this major stage, he stayed away from some of his jazz excursions and offered up blues, funk and some salutes of Professor Longhair and the Mardi Gras Indians. Still, in an extended jam on “Big Chief,” Butler switched gears into a mellow and rhythmic piano jam, that soars from the stage, finally coming back to the Mardi Gras march, which brought the crowd to it’s feet.
In the middle of Butler’s set, I turn around and there stands another fantastic piano player – Bob Seeley, the star of our Boogie Woogie Piano Stomp. He and his buddies come to Jazz Fest every year for a guys weekend. No wives or girlfriends allowed. And they spend all four days at the Fest, which is pretty impressive since Bob is now at least two years past 80.
Seeley isn’t known in New Orleans, so he isn’t playing the fest. That’s a shame, because he should be a star in this town. Henry Butler, is an old friend, he says.
Bob’s says headed off for a six-week tour playing boogie boogie piano all over Europe in June. He’ll be back for our Stomp next year.
FAIS DO-DO STAGE: I catch only a few moments of Ani DeFranco’s set, but she is in energetic and fiery good form – closing with a powerhouse, updated version of “Which Side Are You On,” which should be the anthem of the Occupy Movement.
CONGO STAGE: I get back to catch the beginning of the set I really want to see – jazz artist Esperanza Spaulding. But things do not go well. The show is delayed for 30 minutes, while tech crews stand around staring at her stand-up bass. When she finally does come on – the bass refuses to be amplified. She has to do her show on electric bass, which, as she said, is like taking away half of her voice.
She is touring in support of her new CD – Radio Music Society – and a big boom box cut-out provided a bandshell for an 8 piece horn section. She’s a beautiful, engaging presence, with a voice that floats like a butterfly. But the outdoor setting and the lack of her stand-up, keeps the show from taking off. Her crowd, which starts off filling 3/4s of the listening area, thins out well before she’s finished.
ACCURA STAGE: A bit bummed with the Spaulding sound problems, I head for some guilty pleasure. Eddie Vedder, of Pearl Jam, was supposed to close the show today, but he’s said to be ill. Filling in is Jimmy Buffett, doing a acoustic set with singer and songwriter Mac McAnally, along with a conga player, and the great Sonny Landreth, on slide guitar.
It’s like a barroom jam session with bunch of buddies having fun and that works well for Buffett’s music. At one point, he sends the band off so he can do solo versions of two “love songs.” The first is “Come Monday,” which lives up to the love song billing.The second is about a different kind of love – “Why Don’t We Get Drunk…” Which has the audience singing along.
The 7 p.m. closing time passes, and the boys are still playing. He offers up a rowdy version of Margaritaville, as the sun starts to set. Afterwards, he looks out at the beautiful, fading day and says he asked some nuns he knows to pray for good weather.
The prayers were answered.
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