Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305160230
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Long
Which, of course, is next to impossible.
It's as wide open as you'd want it, and when it's over, the only thing you ask yourself is how you might have heard even more.
An old high school and soccer buddy and I descended upon The Big Easy in the early afternoon of April 28, a day before the second weekend of Jazz Fest was to get cranked up at the New Orleans Fairgrounds.
After leaving Roanoke at 10 the night before, we had driven straight through, arguing over what cassettes to play, watching the roadkill change from opossums to armadillos in Alabama, stopping only for food and fuel. Finally, after a time change and much coffee, we crossed into Louisiana and over Lake Pontchartrain on Interstate 10 with New Orleans' high-rises looming up on the left.
That night, after meeting with friends from Atlanta, Albuquerque, N.M., and Austin, Texas, we took a turn at Tipitina's to see The Meters, New Orleans' 25-year-old funk band.
Tip's, located uptown, may be the most recognizable club name in the Crescent City. The bust of pianist Professor Longhair, who made the club famous, greets you just inside the door, and his mural looms as if in judgment over the bands that play in the back.
The Meters were an indoctrination for the four days to come. After careening and swaying through a seeming eternity of 20-minute long, funky, strung-together songs like "Fiyo on the Bayou" and "Iko Iko," we dragged our feet outside at 4 a.m. to head for the motel, ready, I thought, for Jazz Fest.
The Jazz Fest, now in its 24th year, is this:
A musical gumbo of zydeco, funk, Cajun, rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, African, blues and blends that defy description performing on 11 stages. More than 400 bands crank out neck-popping bass lines, high-swinging accordions and contort-your-face guitar jams.
Like New Orleans itself, it sprawls, bubbles and boils, with more than 50,000 people dancing, eating, drinking beer and meeting each other for two long weekends.
In the middle of the grounds are the craft tents, filled with the hats, jewelry, clothes, paintings and sculptures of artisans who flock here from Louisiana, Oregon, Minnesota, indeed, as with the fans, from most anywhere.
Stands of food offer everything Cajun, including crawfish, shrimp po' boys, red beans and rice, etouffee and jambalaya. The food alone is reason to come.
We found only one way to experience it: attack it. Start at 11 a.m., with a glance at the 50-bands-a-day schedule and a dash across the racetrack to a stage. Dance for an hour, then go. Eat some jambalaya on the fly, drink another beer and listen to another band. Never, ever stop. Keep going until the sun gets low and the musical day ends at 7 p.m. Then decide which band to see out on the town - they're all somewhere - get four hours of sleep and do it again tomorrow.
It's a crazy time, but the music is serious. These are musicians of real sweat and tears, who've seen pain and passion, and give both voice.
Consider: Long weekend No. 1, April 23-25. The cast included Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Fats Domino, Patti LaBelle, The Iguanas, Wynton Marsalis and a host of others.
And that's only the warm-up.
The second weekend of the festival included, over four days, Santana, The Neville Brothers, The Indigo Girls, Spyro Gyra, Michael McDonald, The Meters, Dr. John, Delbert McClinton, Buckwheat Zydeco, The Radiators, Nina Simone, T.S. Monk Jr. - gasp! - the list goes on.
It's important to check the schedule beforehand and be ready to move, running from this stage to that. (It's appropriate that it happens in the middle of a thoroughbred race track, because the fest requires speed and endurance.) Bands play for an hour and a half at the most and usually less, so just as you're getting set at one stage, it's time to run somewhere else, catch the last 15 minutes of another band, grab something to eat and be up front for another. In the midst of all the bedlam, one thing is certain - the bands stick to schedule.
But I quickly learned that it's not all that important to see the "name bands." Many of the gems are the ones you've never heard of before - and may never see again.
Many of the experienced who have come here in groups know the folly of trying to find one another after getting separated, which, as I found out, is as easy as glancing at your feet while following a friend through the throngs. So everywhere you look above the multitudes of revelers are their personalized beacons in the form of flags, or bamboo poles with painted mannequin parts, rubber chickens, banners and beads, stuffed alligators or whatever caught the fancy of the creator.
More than 360,000 people came to hear the sounds this year, said Matthew Goldman, press coordinator for the event. That's about 5,000 less than last year, and Goldman said the three days of rain that had people dancing in mud up over their ankles by the final Sunday watered down the total attendance. This year was the first since 1986 that attendance hasn't risen.
One might think the Lord knew what he was doing when he brought the three-day drenching because it seemed everyone ran to the gospel tent when the rain became too much to bear. Part of its draw was its proximity to the premier stage with the "top" acts.
But as I and anyone who ran to the tent found out, the sound of gospel rocks as hard as any other. Elbow-to-elbow and still splashing in mud, people gyrated to singers and choirs whose vocal ranges seemed almost preternatural.
Rain or not, you can't stay in one place too long, for everywhere you turn another band plays.
There's the Fais Do Do stage, reserved for local musicians almost exclusively, with the sound of blues and the washboard-scratchin', accordion-driving zydeco bands.
Beside it is the Conga square, where rhythms never stop, with hometown bands and some from Africa and Madagascar, congas, kettle drums, talking drums and tympani.
There's the jazz tent, where Wynton, Ellis and Jason Marsalis played at separate sittings, along with saxman Sony Rollins and Thelonious Monk Jr., son of perhaps the greatest jazz pianist ever.
Finally, there are the two headlining stages, on opposite ends of the grounds, which prompts agonizing decisions about which way to go. On the final day, the choice came down to hearing The Neville Brothers on one end or The Radiators on the other.
(Faced with a choice I couldn't go wrong with, I chose The Radiators.)
"That's Jazz Fest - either the Nevilles or the Radiators. That's how it should end," Goldman said.
Agreed.
But just getting to the end - heralded this year by a slim, burnt orange sunset peering through the clouds as if granting a little slice of reward to those who'd weathered the weather for the love of music - is a cathartic, rambunctious ecstasy.
So much music you don't know what to do - until next year.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is held every year on the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May.
by CNB