For anyone who may have a desire to listen to my drivel instead or reading it, here is a video interview I did with NOLA.com over the course of Jazz Fest. It’s three minutes of sleep deprived and over caffeinated Loki talking about Jazz Fest, WWOZ, and internet tech.
-Loki, Founder and Blog Wrangler, HumidCity
The Lump (our 11-1/2-year-old spawn) reads during Jazz Fest. I have found this humiliating and/or embarrassing over the years, and make pains to point out her bobbing or tapping foot. This year, though, people were quite charmed. One man talked to me at length about her liking to read, about that keeping her “mind off all that mess” and away from too much TV. He was also charmed at how I “took care of her”–adjusting the umbrella and her circle of shade, spraying cold water on her legs to cool her off, checking in with her every song or break or so. She’s my child. That’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s just not that common to see. One day, she will be grown and gone. And I want her to miss the loving care she got from us.
Every child, especially the toddlers, reminded me of my Lump back in the day, the days of “Jazz Fest braids,” red shorts, no shirt, one quick diaper change, lots of mango freeze, jama jama, snowballs, lemonade and herbal tea and a 3-wheeled stroller that parted the crowds.
But I have gotten old. It took 3 days to get my Jazz Fest legs. And now, I am done for a week even though Monday is tomorrow and the race begins.
Happy Fucking Jazz Fest, y’all. See you next year.
G Bitch (still down!)
NOLA
First off, no, I do not understand the finer points of funding and producing Jazz Fest. But I do know that $50 tickets price out a fair amount of locals and takes an iconic season away from many of us who grew up on that change in the air. And the extra work/cash on hand.
Part of the justification for the doubling of ticket prices in the past 5 years seems to be the addition of big, headlining, head-turning acts–Bruce Springsteen, Widespread Panic (I had no idea who they were until Friday), etc. (I rarely see them)–acts that are great but have little to do with jazz or heritage. And that seem to justify pricing out locals. Solution–Local Thursday. I don’t care which Thursday, 1st, 2nd, just a damn Thursday. All local acts, all tents and stages, one Thursday, reduced prices. Don’t even open the Acura stage that day. Open the grandstand so you can get your grandmama out of the sun for a little while. Focus on the tents, crafts, food and smaller stages and paying musicians. I don’t need Elvis Costello. And I can go on a $50 day to see Al Green if I really want to.
I’m happy musicians are getting paid more, happy with the increase in quality of the French Quarter, Freret and Satchmo Fests and the work of the Foundation year-round but does all that have to come at the price of Jazz Fest to locals?
G Bitch (site still down)
NOLA
all pics by dsbnola
Extreme Weather, dammit! Details here, read before leaving home.
G-Bitch’s post inspired me to follow up with this one on the ‘OZ Blog.
I got a long Jazz Fest tradition, one of those who went as a child and carts her spawn there each year. Every year of my daughter’s life, we’ve gone to Jazz Fest. She never complains or begs off–going to Jazz Fest is what we do. Some people have dinner together at 6 every night, we go to Jazz Fest every year.
We used to spend most of our time in Economy Hall but the brass band groove has moved to the Jazz & Heritage Stage and we even see some of our Economy Hall family, people who watched our daughter grow up on the dance floor, over there now, people I know by hats, shoes, bandannas, umbrellas, and usual outfits. Names, no.
I love Jazz Fest Thursdays. It’s mellower and less crowded in general, though I can’t say for the big stages because we rarely go to the headlining, packed-in-with-the-masses acts. Or maybe we just think it is because we have no kid, also known as The Lump, in tow. I especially love seeing school kids there, packs of 5, 10, 20 in their matching shirts–my favorite today was Langston Hughes’ “Dream it. Be it. Do it.”–and uniform pants and shorts, eating snowballs and getting close to the Indians on the Jazz and Heritage Stage, being watched and directed by their teachers in matching t-shirts. They were all just so damn cute.
The best band today was the New Orleans Nightcrawlers–tight, full brass sound and traditional boogie. Panorama Jazz Band earlier was good, too, but for this granddaughter of a sax player in a traditional NO brass band, the Panorama is light on brass and kind of quiet.
I was glad to see some variety in the free-Harrah’s-drink and Hustler-Club airplane banners: Rouse’s–Buy Local.
My site is down again. Look for me here until further hysteria.
NOLA
Jazz Fest is always a busy and energizing time for me. Working out on the Fairgrounds, ground zero for entertainment during the season, is always fun. (Well, maybe not running through the rain with PCs wrapped in garbage bags trying to safeguard the gear, the rest is pretty great.) Its especially good this year because I actually have a team to work with. The pictures here were taken by one of the long standing HumidCity Irregulars: M. Styborski (who you may well know from his blog Nation of Morons). We’ve been putting out a good variety of nearly real time content and having fun doing it (except for the rain).
This year I have two surprising new bits of additional good fortune to share.
The first one is tomorrow. Instead of my usual ride to the Bywater on my bike I will be making my way to the French Quarter on the streetcar and heading over to Aranud’s for drinks. The lovely ladies of Tales of the Cocktail have been generous enough to ask me to be a judge, so tomorrow will be an afternoon of careful cocktail appraisal. Their office is next to my own, and we have been working together on fund raising efforts for the Ashley Morris Fund, yet despite knowing me they asked anyway. Brave or foolhardy, you be the judge.
If you’re not familiar with them click the banner below and check out their website:
The second is an odd bit of internet flotsam. I noticed a trackback in the site log that appeared to be brand new, yet when I followed it I got a surprise. Evidently my yearly anti-caterpillar rant here on the HumidCity was picked up and quoted in The New Yorker. Not only that, but the article is almost exactly a year old. I must admit to being quite amused that my words ended up there of all places not to mention puzzled at why it would take a year for a trackback to show. I’ll be damned.
Well here we we go, the last day of the first weekend. With storm clouds overhead failing to impede the enthusiasm of the masses I find myself bouncing between the stages and the WWOZ Brass Pass tent where our web team has set up the silicon. If anybody cares to read my drivel, as well as the words of various other voices ranging from WWOZ DJs to random Jazz Fest attendees, you can stop by the WWOZ Jazz Fest Blog on NOLA.com.
Jazz Fest 2008 by Often Absurd in the Humid City, on Flickr
The Following is the text of an email I received today. I was carbon copied along with the TP at my request. Since this very subject was the topic of much conversation during the afternoon torrents I felt it deserved to be shared. What are your thoughts? -Loki, HumidCity, Founder
It is 4:30 and I am writing this letter from the WWOZ hospitality tent (because I happily plunked down $380 to go to jazz fest and support WWOZ). For me to stop listening to the music to write the TP is phenomenal, but this time it has gone too far. I have been going to jazz fest for 40 years (1969 Congo Square before it was jazz fest). I worked there seven years for free and another eight for minimum wage. The last years I was the day fair book keeper and I know better than most how expensive jazz fest is to produce. So I have defended jazz fest when they added corporate sponsorships, when they sold areas for private parties, and when they increased their daily cost.
But today at 4:00 pm on my way to Bobby Lounge, I looked up at the grandstand and it was empty. Maybe 20 people inside away from the rain and another dozen on the balconies. In the pouring rain????
Well this year, the jazz fest closed the Grandstand to everyone but the Foundation and the Big Chief Experience People. So if you came thinking that you could run to the Grandstand if it rains, next year you will have to pay $500 or so to get in. Or you will have to have a friend on the Foundation willing to share the perks and highly expensive catering they enjoy. Shame on the Foundation, shame on AIG, and shame on FPI who was forced to sell their soul to the Foundation and AIG.
How many seats does jazz fest have to sell at $500 to make up for the $50 tickets that were locked out of the Grandstand today? Think about it.
Pat Williamson
Once again I am acting as Blog Producer for WWOZ during Jazz Fest, so look for our posts and pictures on the Jazz Fest Blog! Come on by, leave some comments, go to the WWOZ site and tune in the stream.
Its time for some food, some music and one hell of a good time.
-Loki, HumidCity FounderÂÂ
This is a guest posting by Rob Cambre, mastermind of Anxious Sound Productions and musician par excellence! (Rob may soon be joining the Humid City team as a local music correspondant):
I hate sending out more death notices, but as many of you now know the great clarinetist and educator Alvin Baptiste died this weekend, just 13 hours prior to his scheduled performance at the JazzFest.
Many writings are out there by those who know far more about him than I do, but I was fortunate enough to see Alvin play many times over the years and spend some time talking with him at various workshops and conferences over the years, mostly through my connection to Kidd Jordan and Alvin Fielder.
The memory that looms largest however, is one of the very first jazz concerts I ever attended, which was a reunion performance of the American Jazz Quintet (which included Alvin, ED BLACKWELL on drums and Ellis Marsalis on piano) at the old
Riverboat Hallelujah on Tulane Avenue.  It was a double-bill with Alice Coltrane’s Quartet (with Roy Haynes, Reggie Workman + George Coleman), and it was my first time seeing players of that caliber in person.  A real eye-opener for this then-19 year old…especially hearing Batiste’s majesterial clarinet interacting with the dancing
drums of the great Blackwell.  I won’t forget it.
Well today was quite something. I guess its a good thing I was feeling ill and took a cab down to the Jazz Fest because all the bus drivers decided today was a good day to “be sick.” I am filled with unexpressable joy at the idea of having to not only cab it the next day or two (an uneeded expense) but also to have to compete for cabs with the teeming masses of people who would otherwise take the RTA shuttle. Lets hope that it was a one day thing.
So I knew there was rain scheduled for the day, no big deal. I was not expecting a torrential downpour. In the span of ten minutes the WWOZ VIP tent was ankle deep in water, and from what I heard it was deeper in many other places. After the mad scramble to breakdown and waterproof all the laptops and wireless set up in there it was off to the trailer. At its height I wold say there was a foot of water behind the Gospel Tent. The outdoor stages shut down, but the tents kept rocking. WWL had this to say.
The above is a view from behind the Gospel Tent.
While we lost power for awhile, the broadcast got back up in short order and we reloacted the DJ’s to a dry space. As they say, the show must go on.
More pics can be found here, or in the WWOZ Flickr Community
All in all it was quite the day. I’m glad tomorrow’s forecast seems sunnier. More after the Festival.
First post up on the WWOZ DJ Blog, some pics I took over the course of the first day.
Also a moment of humorous narcissism as Laureen at Metroblogging makes me aware that not only is there a fake Loki running around, but also that he is a much better artist than I am…
7am tomorrow I head out towards the Fairgrounds as Jazz Fest launches. This year is going to be very busy as I am not only acting as AP to the Program Manager for the continuous live broadcast / webcast (stream here) of the event, but I am also cordinating and producing a group blog of postings by the DJ’s, myself, and possibly a few others.
It will be a nonstop run unitl 2am Monday night when we wrap Piano Night. Then its the prep and craziness of weekend two.  By the way, for my out of town friends who may have escaped exposure to it WWOZ is worth checking out, its not like any other station on earth and its all New Orleans sound. Check out the Wiki , The Site , The Flickr Photo Group, and (of course) 
wwoz_90_7fm
I should hopefully have some good pics and stories to share when its all over, in the meantime I will be out of the loop until after the first weekend of May.
Fair Warning….
The Basin Street Sheiks will be playing the Neutral
Ground tomorrow Friday April 27 at 11:00 pm. You may
want to stand clear of the area.
http://www.neutralground.org/map.htm
Also if you happen to be at Jazz Fest this Sunday,
bring your earplugs and plug them in between 12:45 and
1:30, for the godawful noise that emerges from the
kids tent just might permanently leave a fowl after
taste in your eardrum and ruin the enjoyment of
listening to music.
Just thought you should know.  I would not want you to
suffer on what would otherwise be a fine weekend.
—Burgin
The Jazz and Heritage Fest is finally here and to celebrate WWOZ has launched their retooled website! One of the innovations that I particularly like is the ability to create your own Jazz Fest Schedule. Instead of having to dig through the details of all the acts (which is, of course, also a fun way to do it), you can select which acts you are going to and print out a personalized schedule.
Check it out!
Hey out there in interweb land, Loki here, reporting the latest from the musical free for all that is the WWOZ Pledge Drive! Brian Stoltz was here earlier knocking out some really sweet tunes solo on his acoustic guitar. When I was speaking with him afterwards he told me that his new live CD will be hitting the stores about a week before Jazz Fest, and after hearing some tracks from it today I must say I cannot wait!
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There are only three days left, and things are about to get truly out of hand. The array of musicians showing up to bring a little live music into the equation is always amazing during the drive, and the last few days are always the most intense. Over the past few days we have seen local luminaries such as Irma Thomas, Harold Batiste, and more show up in support of WWOZ. I really cannot think of any other example of a radio station being so inextricably entwined with the music scene it embraces.
The image that always comes to mind when I think about what WWOZ means to me and to the music scene is borne of the madness from August ‘05. I visualize a vast expanse of toxic floodwaters, like the ones that inundated our city. Rising up from the middle of this turgid pool rises an arm whose hand clutches a trumpet, holding it aloft above the murk.
With more than half our neighbors and native musicians scattered to the four winds the WWOZ Stream assumes huge importance, bringing a taste of home to those in that diaspora and beyond. As we fight for our survival here in New Orleans, WWOZ holds aloft the beacon of our unique musical heritage, reminding us what we are fighting for.
Harold Cagler just got finished bringing a little of the classic New Orleans funk to the studio, and welcome sounds they were! It is truly things like this that keep me going!
Pledge now, keep WWOZ on the air and on the internet!
xposted on Defend New Orleans
I see someone was paying attention Tom D’Antoni: The Real Jazzfest: Anger and Sorrow | The Huffington Post
