New Orleans Jazzfest

Latest news, updates, photos and videos from the Jazz and Heritage Festival

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, with support from several offices of the Louisiana state government, has launched a new effort to link independent musicians to the marketplace.

The Jazz & Heritage Talent Exchange is a searchable Internet database of Louisiana music. This free service is open to all Louisiana-based musicians.

It is tailor made for the specific needs of two kinds of professional music buyers:

• Festival producers and other event promoters from around the world looking for Louisiana musicians to hire for live performances

• Film and television productions in need of music to license for their projects.

Aaron Neville made the most of his return to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He sat in with older brother Art at the Acura Stage, performed alongside brother Charles in the AIG Gospel Tent, then closed down the entire Jazzfest with the Neville Brothers.

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneAaron Neville sings in Jazzfest's AIG Gospel Tent on May 3, 2008.

The day after Jazzfest was even more emotional: On Monday, Neville oversaw the transfer of his wife Joel's remains from a mausoleum to the newly repaired Neville family crypt. She had died of cancer in January 2007; he returned to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina to bury her.

Aaron has sold his post-Katrina home outside Nashville and is moving to Covington. On Tuesday, he flew to Honolulu to rest and appear tonight at the Hawaii Romance Festival alongside Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight and "American Idol" alumnus Kimberley Locke.

He called from Hawaii to reflect on Jazzfest '08. "It was a rough week," he said, "but a great week."

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival produced four of the top 10 busiest days at the city's major airport since Hurricane Katrina.

These are just two of the things I learned from chefs demonstrating their dishes on the Zatarain's Food Heritage Stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival:

A ripe papaya has pits in it and looks rather beat up, Chef Tenney Flynn of GW Fins said as he sliced one. In fact, he added, he has seen supermarket produce managers discard the best ones because they look less than perfect.

Bacco Executive Chef Chris Montero made ravioli look easy , using won ton wrappers. He used his fingers to coat the surface of one won ton with beaten egg, then he heaped about 3/4 of a teaspoon of filling (on the dry side) in the center. He covered it with another won ton, carefully pressing out all the air as he sealed the edges. This could be done with any kind of filling you can dream up.

I checked in with two contemporary craft veterans of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, before, during, and after sometimes soggy week one.

In a pre-Fest interview, glass sculptor Mark Rosenbaum of Rosetree Glass in Algiers said he believes his 28 continuous years as a contemporary crafts area vendor is the record. The Jazzfest, he said, is his "top grossing retail show." He's come to rely on it to carry his business through the rest of the year.

This year's Jazzfest ended with its highest attendance since Hurricane Katrina.

"We estimate 375,000 to 400,000 people came to the festival," said Louis Edwards, an associate producer of the event, which is officially called the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell.

That's despite rain at the Fair Grounds on Friday and Saturday during the first week and on Saturday morning during the second week, he said.

Keith I. Marszalek / NOLA.comShoe protection was of extreme importance at Jazzfest.

The monsoon rains that visited themselves on this star-studded Jazzfest only served to produce more magical moments. By the time the last note was played on a crystal-blue Sunday, the Fair Grounds was back at the center of the entertainment universe.

The 2008 edition of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell boasted the most marquee talent in the festival's 39-year history. But its success depended on an age-old truism: The willingness of both festival staffers and attendees to adapt in order to keep the party going.

Intrepid local blogger and mother Liprap expounds on the evolution of the Children's Village from one tent to the array of activities available now, and how the area has become a social and conversational melting pot. This excerpt is my favorite part:

Jennifer Zdon / Times-PicayuneAaron Neville, center, sings wit his brothers as the Neville Brothers close the Acura Stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Sunday, May 4, 2008, returning for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Under Sunday's idyllic skies, people poured through the Fair Grounds gates to catch the last day of the 2008 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell.

Drawn by the fest-perfect weather perhaps as much as by the day's much-anticipated finale -- the Neville Brothers return -- festival attendees went from dodging the raindrops and puddles during the earlier days to maneuvering around long lines and overflowing tents.

Sun-baked or soggy, fest-goers found silver linings everywhere.

Vernel Bagneris opened his first-person tribute to Jelly Roll Morton in the Jazz Tent on Sunday by reading from Morton's Downbeat magazine obituary.

Morton died and was buried in Los Angeles in 1941.

Members of Kid Ory's band, said Downbeat, attended the ceremony and were asked if a funeral parade in the style of Morton's home town would be appropriate.

"They said that was a swell idea, and that they would do it next time," said Bagneris as Morton, who's been re-animating this character behind Morton Gunnar Larsen' impeccable piano accompaniment for nearly three decades.

The revue remains a crowd-wowing enterprise, thanks to Morton's source material, Larsen's playing and Bagneris's jangly grace.

In the band on Sunday afternoon was bassist Conal Fowkes. One of Fowkes's regular gigs, as a pianist, is backing clarinetist Woody Allen at the Cafe Carlyle in New York.

I think I might have been the only person older than 13 at the Congo Square stage Sunday evening who had never seen Maze featuring Frankie Beverly in concert before. I certainly was in the minority of audience members who did not know the words to every song.

"How many people are happy to be in New Orleans?" percussionist Cyril Neville asked from the Acura Stage Sunday. "How many people are happy to be listening to the Neville Brothers?"

Tens of thousands of voices answered both questions in the affirmative. The Neville Brothers celebrated their return to Jazzfest and to New Orleans, as well as their 30th anniversary as a band, with an epic set that focused primarily on its rich history.

SUNDAY, May 4

Roots rock, soul and funk guitarist and singer Eric Lindell -- among the most glaring omissions from this year's Jazzfest lineup -- headlines One Eyed Jacks. The Blue Nile hosts a Hyena Records Showcase starring the Marco Benevento Trio, Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle, John Ellis & Double-wide and the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. The guitar is featured at the Mid-City Lanes courtesy of Sonny Landreth and Tab Benoit. At the House of Blues, Keb' Mo and the subdudes share a bill with a solo Jon Cleary. At d.b.a., Linnzi Zaorski sings at 5, followed by the Tin Men and finally Garage a Trois.

Anthony "Tuba Fats" Lacen died in January 2004 and was given a state hero's send-off in New Orleans, where he'd played a key role in the renaissance of the city's brass band tradition.

He was, literally, the face of traditional New Orleans jazz to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who only heard it while passing through Jackson Square, over which he presided as resident tubist and snapshot target (I remember someone speculating at the time of his death that there's never been a more-photographed New Orleanian; who else would it be?) for many years.

Sunday, Lacen was remembered at the Jazzfest-closing set at the Jazz & Heritage Stage.

Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet were as pan-cultural as an all-American string quartet could be, fronted by a banjo-playing country singer-songwriter originally from suburban Chicago and Washington, D.C., who speaks, and sometimes sings in, Mandarin Chinese.

The combo's Sunday afternoon Jazzfest set at the Fais-Do-Do Stage combined ethereal singing and field hollers, ho-down fiddling (Casey Driessen), bluesy cello (Ben Sollee) and stunningly virtuosic banjo playing by Sparrow ringer Bela Fleck.

And Washburn closed her set by thanking her mom, who'd come all the way from Portland, Ore., for the gig.

Happy (early) Mother's Day, Chrissy Washburn.

Blend a healthy measure of Tom Waits, a dollop of Weimar Republic, a pinch of St. Claude gutter punk chic and what have you got? The New Orleans Bingo! Show.

On this last day of Jazzfest 2008, I just want to give a salute to all the rocking adolescent fest-goers I've seen over the weekend. They may get in for $5, but some of them bring a full-price amount of festival energy and music appreciation.

To illustrate the social savvy that allowed Lionel Hampton, vibraphone master and bandleader, one of the longest careers in jazz history, George Wein noted that Hampton was bipartisan enough to perform in the successive White Houses of both George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton.

Wein, one of Jazzfest's founders, and author Stanley Crouch toasted Hampton on Sunday on the Allison Miner Music Heritage/Lagniappe State. The affectionate Q&A was led by Tim Francis.

"He played the top of the deck whenever he could," said Wein, who also referenced the Vicar of Bray -- apparently a swinging cat in 18th century England - in describing the same facet of Hampton's personality.

Since most jazz concert promoters and record label executives were Jewish, Wein said, Hampton converted to Judaism.

"I think he wore a mezuzah and a cross around his neck at the same time," Wein said.

We got our Sunday started moving and shaking with Grupo Fantasma from Austin, Texas. This is definitely one of *the* Latin groups to be watching out for as they keep innovating on top of the deeply rooted cumbia, salsa, funk and psychedelia traditions that form the basis of their unique sound.

Grupo Fantasma at the Gentilly Stage

Grupo Fantasma Horn Section