A Day at the Fest -- May 1, 1997

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is second only to Carnival in terms of the number of visitors the event attracts to the city. In a city with lots of great food and music, Jazz Fest is almost an overdose of both. Every kind of local music is represented, and many big-name stars perform at the Fair Grounds for the seven days of the Fest. Jazz Fest is held over two weekends--the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May annually. The fun happens on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on Weekend One and Thursday through Sunday on Weekend Two.

The kickoff for Weekend Two, Thursday, is known as "locals day." The producers of the Fest, in response to criticism from locals that the crowds of visitors were making the weekend days less attractive to locals, decided to start a day earlier, before all of the weekend warriors fly or drive into the city. This idea has turned out just great, because the crowds are smaller and there's an additional chance for us to see some great bands.

There were three of us for this excursion: Steve G., Steve J., and yours truly. We met at 11:00 at Steve G's house in Bucktown and headed to Gentilly. My friends didn't want to use my patented parking strategy, so we looked for someone selling parking nearby. The folks living right next to the back of Holy Rosary church on Moss St. were parking cars in their very large backyard for $10. They were also selling beer for a buck apiece. Perfect start to what was looking like a fairly decent day.

11:30am -- Finishing up the beers on Mystery St. as we were approaching the pedestrian entrance on Sauvage St. We entered the Fest directly, since Steve J. picked up our tickets the day before at the Superdome. The Superdome box office is the one place you can buy Jazz Fest tickets in advance without having to pay the TicketMaster "convenience charge." Since we weren't trying to smuggle in any contraband materials like bottled water or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (don't laugh, people have been turned away from the gates for these deadly items in the past), we walked right past the inspectors checking backpacks. We could hear Paula and the Pontiacs playing at the House of Blues stage when we walked in, but decided to walk around a bit before committing to a stage area or tent.

The Jazz Fest is held on the infield of the New Orleans Fair Grounds, which is a horse racing track. The acts perform on either large stages or inside a couple of large tents. The stages are covered to protect the bands and their equipment, but the crowd just stands out in the sun. The stages and tents are placed around the outside of the infield, hugging the track. Food, drink, crafts, and other important necessities like an ATM and phones are set up in booths in the interior of the infield, ringing the two small decorative water ponds.

11:45am -- Beer. At the Fest, this means either Miller, Lite, or Foster's. We went with the Australian beer. The lock that Miller has on the Fest is a bit of a sore spot with other beer companies, particularly local favorite Abita. Two years ago, Abita took out a full-page ad in Gambit Weekly explaining their frustration with dealing with the Festival powers-that-be. Having had some small experiences with these folks, I sympathize fully with Abita and wish things were different. Not to mention the fact that I really can't stand Miller beer.

11:50pm -- Food. Time to start sampling food. Steve J. and I picked up a couple of the combo plates from Patton's Caterers, the creators of the Crawfish Sack. This is a neat little item made of crawfish in a creamy sauce that's then wrapped in pastry and tied off with a piece of green onion. The presentation is that of a little 2-inch sack tied with string. It looks cute and tastes wonderful. The combo plate had a Crawfish Sack, a traditional Oyster Patty, and two Crawfish Beignets. These are more like hush puppies than traditional beignets. They're a crawfish filling that's breaded and deep-fried. The Sack was swimming in a creamy garlic sauce, the beignets in a horseradish sauce, and the patty in a classic oyster sauce. We wolfed these down pretty quickly as Steve G. came back with a shrimp-stuffed bell pepper from a booth down the same row. While the pepper was pretty good, it didn't really live up to its advertised name. There weren't much in the way of shrimp in there. The ground beef stuffing was as good as any I've ever had, though.

12:00 noon -- Beer.

12:05pm -- Crawfish Bread. This is one of my all-time food favorites here. Crawfish bread is a deep pan bread that's cut open and stuffed with a spicy cheese and crawfish filling. It's then sliced into 4" slices and sold for $3 apiece. I picked up three of 'em, but Steve G. didn't really like his, so Steve J. and I split his and polished it off.

12:10pm -- Walking past the Fox 8 stage, we caught the closing minutes of the South Lafourche High School Jazz Band. If the entire set was as good as the end, it was pretty good.

12:15pm -- Beer.

12:20pm -- Steve Masakowski at the Jazz Tent. The tent stages at the Fest are pretty big enclosures. They hold a large stage and seating for around 500. Given last week's weather, however, the ground inside the tent was still wet and mushy. They tried to compensate for this by laying down fresh straw and hay, making for, shall we say, a very unique combination of smells. Anyway, we grabbed seats on the right side of the stage and kicked back for the set. Steve Masakowski is a jazz guitarist. His backup band consists of piano, sax, drums, string bass, and two guys who play almost every percussion instrument invented. The set was typical of real jazz bands at the Fest--lots of improvisation in their regular tunes, extended solos, etc. It was great. We stayed for the entire set, then headed back outside, where the sun had really come out by now.

1:15pm -- Beer. Noticing a recurring theme here? Good, you're paying attention. :-)

1:20pm -- Nacotiches Meat Pies. We had crawfish and ground meat pies. These are similar to the "Hot Pockets" frozen food items. Pastry is stuffed with whatever filling and then deep fried. They're usually hot in both temperature and spice. These were no disappointment.

1:30pm -- Beer. Had to wash down the meat pies.

1:35pm -- Caught the last bit of BeauSoleil over on the WWL stage. We didn't have to even leave the sidewalk next to the section of the infield where the stage is located--the sound quality from the stage was that good. We then headed back around to the Fais Do-Do Stage for the next set.

1:40pm -- Beer. Lest you think we're totally irresponsible, Steve G. had pretty much switched to Coke by now. He's the driver, and he really hates Miller, so it worked on two counts.

1:45pm -- J. Monque'D and the Lil' Pats of Butter at the Fais Do-Do stage. J. Monque'D is a blues singer who has a bit of a cult following in town. Even though he's a white boy, his life is sufficiently screwed up that he's entitled to sing the blues. And sing 'em he can. J. Monque'D is all New Orleans, mixing solid blues with great harmonica playing and lots of fun. His current stage show features the Lil' Pats of Butter, which is a group of kids ranging in age from around three to ten or so. They all wore J. Monque'D t-shirts and had tambourines to beat out the rhythm. It was a really cute touch, the kind of family thing you rarely see outside of a local act. One of the young girls in the group was the sister of a little boy who died a couple of weeks before the 'Fest when his babysitter left the three year-old in a sweltering car for hours while she played video poker in a barroom. J. Monque'D dedicated a song to the little boy, which was a really emotional experience. His backup band was solid, and they closed the set with "Big Chief." Doing a New Orleans classic like that reminded me just how out of touch the Nevilles have become--they'd never be able to pull off a tune like Big Chief anymore with any level of soul or intensity.

2:35 -- Beer.

2:50 -- Walked over to the Fox 8 stage to catch part of Clarence "Frogman" Henry's set. The Frogman is another New Orleans one-hit institution. Henry's main claim to fame is the tune "Ain't Got No Home." His local following expanded dramatically a few years back when talk-show host Rush Limbaugh adopted the tune for his "homeless update" segments on the radio show. The set was already rolling, but it wasn't generating any excitement from the crowd whatsoever. The Frogman just didn't look like he wanted to be there, more going through the motions than entertaining.

3:00 -- Beer.

3:05 -- Back to Frogman Henry. I was lobbying heavily for moving on, but the Steves wanted to hear the man's feature song, so we stuck it out.

3:20 -- Walking back around, we passed through the grandstand once again. Had some white chocolate bread pudding from the Coffee Cottage while we checked out some of the crafts and exhibits inside the grandstand tent. Since the grandstand burned down in December of '93, all of what used to be the indoor features are located in the tent the Fair Grounds uses to house the betting windows and the few bleacher seats left. Now that the video poker issue has been pretty much settled, the Fair Grounds folks have been able to secure the financing needed to complete the reconstruction of the grandstand. I don't know if it'll be finished in time for next year's 'Fest, but it's pretty far along.

3:40 -- Back out into the infield. Stuck our heads into the Gospel Tent for a second on the way to the WWL stage.

3:45 -- Water. Yup, we picked up three bottles of water. Finally surrendered on the beer.

3:50 -- Mary Chapin Carpenter over at the WWL stage. We had walked completely across the Fair Grounds infield from one big stage to another by now. I want to go on record that I wanted to catch Delfeayo Marsalis at the Jazz Tent, but Steve G. had to get out to the airport to pick up his sister and the 4:25 start for his set would have cut things too finely. I must admit that I don't really know much about the lady or her music, not being a country fan. We caught about four tunes, and she was pretty good. The area around the stage was packed, so we stayed more towards the sidewalk so we could make a quick exit. The beginning of the set was quite good. There was one song where the chorus ends with her saying "kiss me" in a loud, sexy stage whisper that I really enjoyed. Some guy in front of me yelled for her to play "something exciting" at the end of that tune. I figure he was either brain-dead or a eunuch if that "kiss me" didn't get him worked up. It sure as hell made my afternoon.

4:20 -- Headed back for the exit. Ten minutes later we were in the car on our way back to Steve G.'s house. He dropped us off and I went to go get Justin and watch a 9-10 baseball game at the playground, savoring the memories of a quite enjoyable day.

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Photo by Richard Vallon, Jr.