Jazz Fest

7 days spread over 2 long weekends to celebrate: exceptional food, excellent music, and extraordinary crafts and culture. While the name may indicate the greatest draw to the festival is the music, upon attending it is easy to believe people (especially the locals) go just for the food! And oh how scrumptious the food is!

While I’d like to tell you the highlight of my first day at Jazz Fest (being the second day of the festival – Saturday, April 30th) was getting to see Simon & Garfunkel and hear Paul Simon sing ‘Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes’ (one of my favorite songs ever), I would definitely have to clarify that it was my favorite part that day of the music side of the event. That morning I warmed up my taste buds with a serving of crawfish strudel. I initially had no idea what it was, but I knew I had to have it as I had been told it was a must by Rose (Sister Helen’s right hand woman). And so I beat my way through the crowds, lurching across mud and waited entirely impatiently at the one stand on the site which sold these delicious delicacies. I don’t really know how to describe it, except to tell you that I would have been quite content to keep eating them for the rest of the festival and give up trying anything else if it weren’t for the pleasured moans coming from around other stalls.

Other food I tried included: crawfish bread (a warm roll stuffed with melted cheese and crawfish meat), crawfish sacks (pastry sacks like dumplings stuffed with crawfish meat and fried) and crawfish Monica (a pasta dish with cream, Creole spices and …crawfish!) – are you sensing a theme? It continued naturally but I did branch away from it as well. I tired Boudin Balls (my least favorite of the event) which is effectively the meat of a white pork sausage rolled into a ball, battered and (as the Southerners so love to do with all their food) deep fried. And I began what I believe will be a lifelong addiction to fried green tomatoes! I also tried some ‘Jama Jama’ which is in fact sautéed spinach, and far more delicious than it sounds – a woman on her own had bought a plate of it and sat at a picnic table next to our little group. She picked away at it as I gobbled down my crawfish strudel (again) before asking her what it was – she told me, and offered me a taste. My eyes lit up, and my tongue began to dance – then she let me have the rest of the plate. And so I got my greens for the day.

As for the music – well I saw a whole lot of bands you probably won’t know, as naturally the Festival features up and coming local artists. But you may want to check out: Treme Brass Band, who, if you have been watching the latest HBO hit show “Treme”, you may recognize. And Trombone Shorty – who plays a variety of instruments not just the trombone, and doesn’t appear at all short, and he’s rather delicious, not to mention a phenomenal performer.

As I mentioned above, I saw Simon & Garfunkel which was quite an experience having grown up listening to their music. Garfunkel’s voice wasn’t up to scratch and while some criticized him for it, I think for others like myself it was just enough that he made the effort, turned up and gave it his all. It also allowed Simon to do some of his solo stuff which was rather special. It was funny because all day long it had been overcast and threatening to rain. We all kept hoping it would rain during the day so it would clear by the time they came on, and as we waited for them the threat seemed closer and closer to being realized. But the minute they stood on the stage, the clouds dispersed and the sun shone down. It was glorious.

For the second weekend I managed to get the Friday off to attend the Festival as my boss and his choir were singing in the gospel tent. It was so much fun to see him on the stage – he even did a solo – as if I didn’t admire him enough already. I also got to dance along with a group of strangers to Jose Feliciano and the Gypsy Kings. Aretha Fanklin was supposed to headline on one page but she cancelled supposedly because she didn’t want her vocal chords to be affected by the oil spill – on the road outside the gates someone had written “No R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” In her place Earth Wind & Fire played. At first I thought I didn’t know them, but as the set continued I recognized more and more songs, mostly from car journeys with my mother. And just to keep bragging – I also got to see Van Morison (who’s stage was almost completely gold, particularly his microphone stand) and listen to BB King – for reasons unkown to me he was put in a small tent which burst out onto the paths, so while I couldn’t see him for the crowd I could at least hear him. And he ended the Festival with “When the Saints go Marching In” – which as I may have mentioned before is quite a well loved tune in this football fanatical town.