Jackson Hole Underground

(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.

Raindrops began to fall as our plane touched down on the tarmac. By the time I reached my hotel, the Maison St. Charles, the downpour had filled the streets. This part of the city took on a good bit of water after Katrina, so I was slightly worried about a flood. I sat inside the rental car for 20 minutes to avoid being soaked.

By the time I dressed for the Fairgrounds, in Gore-Tex and bathing suit, the rain ceased. One of the first people I spoke with was a woman setting up a chair in the neighborhood outside the fest; we exulted in the sun. “I hope it stays like this so you can have a good time,” she said. Not so I can do this or that, but you — meaning you all, the fest heads. That’s the kind of hospitality I’m talking about.

The rain had turned the Fairgrounds into a swamp. Fortunately, I’ve never been afraid of getting my feet wet. One of the first things I did upon walking inside was to find a nice area of wet grass, and take my sandals off. The feeling of squishy mud between the toes was a relief after a season in ski boots.

The sweet strains of Allen Touissant’s piano welcomed me back to the festival, as the venerable hometown musician performed with singer Elvis Costello.

At Jazz Fest, food is taken nearly as seriously as the music. My first order of business was fuel: crabcake with smoked tomato and jalapeño aioli, and a cup of jambalaya drenched in hot sauce, washed down with a rose mint iced tea. I started feeling remotely human again.

Each spring when I come to New Orleans, I fancy myself a mountain man at the rendezvous. If I were to set out from Two Ocean Pass, I could make my way down Atlantic Creek to the Yellowstone River, then paddle to Jazz Fest via the Missouri and Mississip. The big river is running high, lapping at the edge of the levee, from all the rain and no doubt snowmelt from the high country.

Rev. Al took the stage tossing roses to the crowd. He was dressed in a black tuxedo with white Cons, and he proceeded to bust a move in said footwear. Sweat poured from his face, and at one point he was bouncing so much that his drawers nearly fell down.

“Amen,” he said, drawing a cheer from the crowd.

The stage was his altar, and he preached the gospel of funk, churning like a locomotive through many of his Seventies hits. A friend once visited his church in Memphis and came away changed by his message of love.

“So Tired of Being Alone” found me on my own on a piece of relatively high ground. My krewe does not arrive until later in the week, so I was content to enjoy the company of the people around me. I wasn’t alone for long, however, as five people from Jackson came passing through. (Outside Tipitina’s tonight, I ran into four more. Rendezvous indeed.) Our outpost in Wyoming sends more people to Jazz Fest per capita than any other city in the world, I’d bet.

Over the years I’ve gotten a post-graduate education in soul and R&B at the festival, watching masters like James Brown, the Nevilles and Fats Domino. On this day I would get another lesson from the Rev. Al, whose “Love and Happiness” thundered from the heavens. These are the kind of sermons you never forget, that instill love in your heart and dance in your step.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 2:58 am and is filed under food, jazz fest, new orleans, blues, reggae. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.