By Jim Stanford on May 9, 2008
The 39th annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival closed Sunday with a homecoming, as the Neville Brothers, the city’s first family of funk, returned to perform together for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.
Sunday was also “family day,” as the preceding acts on the main stage were bands fronted by Carlos Santana and his son, Salvador, and Ivan Neville, son of the gospel brother Aaron Neville.
Jazz Fest is all about moments, and together these musicians produced an historic one, as the Neville Brothers were joined by the Wild Tchoupitoulas Mardi Gras Indians, younger generations of the family and a host of friends and former band members. One of those friends was Carlos Santana, who joined the brothers for “My Blood” and “Ain’t No Use.” Fiery licks erupted from his guitar as he moved like a cat on stage.
It was a joyous finish to a festival that left me, well, overjoyed. Here are a few of the other peak moments, in words and in photos, from the second weekend, as well as scenes from around the city. Click on any image to enlarge and begin the slide show, and navigate using the arrow keys. (All photos © Jim Stanford)
• Stevie Wonder brings us to the Higher Ground of funk, and politics — A large rainbow appeared over the Fairgrounds as the crowd waited for Wonder to take the stage. “A little more water to rinse our spirits,” he said.
This was the blind keyboardist’s first scheduled appearance at Jazz Fest, and his closing set on Friday was one of the most anticipated performances of the festival. Actor Jude Law paced in front of the stage looking for just the right vantage point to watch Wonder perform.
Before taking his seat behind the piano, Wonder locked hands with his daughter, Aisha Morris, and Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis. He asked for a moment of silence for all those who died from Hurricane Katrina. Only the cries of gulls, circling in the distance, could be heard.
“I love you in the spirit of God,” he told the crowd.
Then Wonder launched into a political speech. “We as a nation must move forward,” he said. “We must become the united people of these United States.” He wholeheartedly endorsed Barack Obama for president. “Do the right thing for the world and our nation,” he implored, “because yes we can!” The crowd roared.
Just as he made everyone wait for the music, he made us wait even longer for his funk hits of the early to mid-Seventies. But once he cranked up “Living for the City,” the dance party was on.
He played just about all of his classic album “Innervisions.” Huge raindrops began to fall, and the crowd endured several showers. Wonder improvised with “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” and picked up steam with a thumping “Higher Ground.”
The set was long and lagged at times, owing to the abundance of ballads that sent the bored on a beer run or to another stage for diversion. But I didn’t mind, as the slow numbers allowed me to chat up the cute girls gathered beneath the Wyoming flag.
The peak came near the end, as Wonder traded blistering harmonica solos on “Boogie On Reggae Woman” and pranced through an ebullient “Sir Duke.” Dancing in the rain — in ponchos, beneath umbrellas or shirtless — we indeed could feel it all over.
For an encore, Wonder brought out Irma Thomas, the Queen of New Orleans, and the two sang “Shelter from the Rain.” Thomas stuck around for one last dance favorite, “Superstitious,” fitting for a city steeped in voodoo and mysticism.
“Don’t be afraid to win,” Wonder exhorted on leaving the stage. “God has got your back.”
• With that, our krewe headed to the free Michael Franti and Spearhead concert in the Ninth Ward, chronicled in a separate post.
• Derek Trucks strikes a chord of pure soul — Opening for the Funky Meters at the Howlin’ Wolf on Saturday was the Derek Trucks Band, joined by Trucks’ wife, Susan Tedeschi. In the past few years the Allman Brothers prodigy has honed his sound impressively. He has matured into this generation’s Duane Allman, and his jams with the Funky Meters set the bayou on fi-yo.
The group’s second song was a cover of Eric Clapton’s “Anyday” that rang in my head for the rest of the festival. “Anyday, anyday, I will see you smile / If only for a little while,” Tedeschi and Mike Mattison sang in a harmony that nearly evoked tears.
Like Trucks, keyboardist Kofi Burbridge also is the son of an Allman Brothers band member, keyboardist Oteil Burbridge. The two young jammers have inherited the penchant for an Allmans-esque spooky séance heavy on percussion midway through the set. Fans at Targhee Fest, where Trucks’ and Tedeschi’s Soul Stew Revival will perform this summer, are in for a treat.
• Finale at the Maple Leaf — One of the best things about Jazz Fest is discovering new bands, and it seems every year I come back talking about musicians I never heard of before the festival. On the final Sunday at the Fairgrounds, I followed a tip and checked out New Orleans Bingo! Show in the courtyard behind the grandstand.
Bingo! Show combines music with theater, as costumed players mime scenes on the side of the stage and pretend to play bizarre, machine-like instruments. An R.E.O. Speedwagon cover might be followed by a pseudo-second-line parade. I didn’t stick around long enough to witness the actual Bingo! game, in which the group is said to abuse an audience member. There appears to be a healthy crop of young bands like this in New Orleans performing nontraditional music, often with a harder edge.
On our last night in the city, after a dizzying dinner of barbecued shrimp, baked oysters and butter-dripping bread pudding at Pascal’s Manale, improbably our krewe wound up outside the Maple Leaf, the famed shotgun bar that served as a backdrop in the movie “Angel Heart.”
We were having a beer, and mulling going home, when the music inside caught our ears and pulled us into the bar. On the dark stage were A Hundred and One Runners, a band featuring two drummers and a percussionist. Sitting in this evening was Neville Brothers drummer “Mean” Willie Green, who added extra oomph to the machine-gun rhythms. Before I knew it I had stayed for both sets.
Finally, around 3 a.m., came the featured band, Morning 40 Federation, an explosion of energy possibly described as “punk funk.” To say this group’s lyrics are irreverent would be as much an understatement as saying the Mississippi River is big. A small but rabid crowd of mostly locals was practically bouncing off the walls.
It was like this the whole Jazz Fest. I can’t count the number of times the music picked me up in a way that caffeine or other stimulants could not. Experiencing a festival in this manner, all day and all night, takes the stamina of a mountain climber, and Jazz Fest is Everest.
In New Orleans each spring, one eats and breathes music: blasts of brass, the bumping funk, the zydeco that streams like sunshine. You are dancing from your first night out until that panicked moment at 5 a.m. when you hail a cab to the airport.
All this takes place in a city at the crossroads of Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, a city so rich with character, so fertile and green, the air perfumed with jasmine.
The feeling is one I wish I could bottle and uncork several times throughout the year.
The 40th anniversary New Orleans Jazz Fest is set for April 24 to May 3, 2009.
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One other moment from the Nevilles’ set bears mentioning: Aaron Neville’s “Amazing Grace.”
I didn’t think the song could get any more beautiful than the rendition the Gospel Brother delivered at Targhee Fest last summer. It just about stopped the time, and I figured the sound must be better at 8,000 feet.
On Sunday, Neville stepped forward to give the traditional benediction at the end of the set, and after all the city had been through, and him losing his wife to cancer last year, there was so much emotion in just the first two syllables that it sent a jolt, like the point of a knife to the heart.
“Joel, y’all,” he said at the end, a nod to his wife.
Hearing him sing Amazing Grace in the theater at Center for the Arts in Jackson next month will be worth the price of admission alone.