JH Underground – news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming

(Ed. note: This is the second in a series of posts from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Click on photos to enlarge.)

Jackson Hole is to natural beauty what New Orleans is to soul.

Down here, we subsist on music as much as oxygen. So when I arrived sleep deprived and feeling nearly dead, I decided to head out to the Fairgrounds to catch the last few hours of the festival. Sunday service would be celebrated by the Rev. Al Green.

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Posted under Food

The other reason, besides getting ready for this trip to New Orleans, that posts have been sporadic of late is I’ve been reading Norman Mailer for the first time.

Trying to write after reading Mailer is like playing tennis against Ivan Lendl. Every time you compose a phrase, as if tossing the ball into the air to serve, you wind up catching it because you know it will be smashed back in your face, even if the volley is taking place within your head.

Tough Guys Don’t Dance is a twisting tale of murder, hard partying and contorted relationships set in a resort town on Cape Cod. Given the mastery of the writing, I can’t wait to read Mailer’s two Pulitzer-winning works, Armies of the Night and The Executioner’s Song.

You’ll understand if I mention the spirits roaming the French Quarter or swirling in the Mississippi this week.

Posted under Art

It’s hard to believe the spree of great music headed to the Tetons this summer.

Grand Targhee has bolstered its Targhee Fest in July with the addition of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, who will play Saturday, July 19. The sensation from Vermont nearly shook the moose from the rafters in her Mangy Moose debut in February.

Here is how the three-day lineup is shaping up: Friday, July 18 — Martin Sexton, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi’s Soul Stew Revival; July 19 — Potter, Taj Mahal, and Emmylou Harris; and Sunday, July 20 — Josh Ritter and Lyle Lovett.

The full roster can be viewed here. Targhee still has five slots to fill.
(Jim Stanford photo; click to enlarge)

Posted under Music, Ski Resorts

If I had to pick one moment as the pinnacle of the 2007-08 ski season, it was the Jackson Hole Mountain Festival on March 29.

The concert, featuring The Radiators and Michael Franti and Spearhead, captured the joy of an epic winter in Jackson Hole, coming on a string of powder days in a powder week in a powder season. The jubilation flowed right off the slopes to the stage to the frozen parking lot, where a crowd in hats, gloves and puffy down jackets shimmied like a sea of helium balloons.

With everyone bumping and grooving and attuned to the music, the vibe was as good as anything I’ve experienced outside New Orleans.

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Posted under Music, Ski Resorts

Today was January 126th up on Teton Pass, where nearly a foot of fresh powder triggered one last all-out frenzy.

I say “last,” but of course, given the weather lately, I’m tempting fate. We could be headed for powder days in May, June … July?

Today’s run on Glory will be my last.

Posted under Sports, Weather

Today is the NFL draft, a day of much anticipation (and usually frustration) for fans of our favorite football team, the New York Jets. Here is a montage of just a few of the many first-round busts the Jets have picked over the years.

This clip is worth watching for the vintage ’80s hairdos, if nothing else. (Mel Kiper is still sporting his.)

Will the Jets get the game-breaker they need in Run DMC, or will Gang Green be Gang Groan yet again?

“Obviously the Jets know something that the people up here don’t.”

Posted under Sports