'06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 12:53 AM

Ooops, I misspoke. Admission at the gate is now FORTY bucks (!!), but you pay $30-plus-service charge for advance tix.

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Apr 06 - 03:01 AM

refresh

Plenty of hotel rooms are available (which did not seem likely a few months ago), and the city is well-prepared and indeed anxious to accommodate as many vistors as ever to what promises to be a great festival. C'mon down!

The jazz festival website now has the complete schedule for each of the six days. Admission is $30 per 9-hour day ~ lower advance prices were available months ago; if you're just now deciding to attend, don't waste your money by ordering in advance and incurring the Ticktmaster "service charge" ~ just show up and buy your ticket at the gate. You won't be turned away; this event does NOT sell out.

Send me a PM if you're coming. I can't house anybody and can't make any promises, but I should be able to show you around town, including both devastated and fully-recovered areas. If you're just in and out of town for one of the weekends, it might be difficult to schedule a meeting, but I'm sure I'd be able to visit with anyone in town for the full week between the two weekends...

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 12:11 PM

Reason for the Neville Brothers' absense from the Jazzfest roster:

Aaron has suffered a recurrence of asthma, which he had not had since childhood, and is under doctor's order not to return to New Orleans. I have returned to the city, and as far as I can tell the pollution and stink of the immediate post-Katrina days is no longer a factor and the air is now clear, but Aaron and his doctor (neither of whom have been here since the flood ~ they're in Nashville) have apparently decided to err on the side of caution.

Oldest brother Art, in fact, who has had health problems of his own in recent years, is the only one of the four currently living in the city.

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 02:14 PM

INDIAN NEWS: Bo Dollis, Big Chief of the Wild Magnolias and the greatest singing Big Chief of them all, has been living in exile but will arrive in town tomorrow, to stay in a friend's apartment through Mardi Gras day and perhaps a little longer. I assume he's working on the finishing touches for this year's suit, which will probably require a room of its own in that temporary housing unit. If I learn anything of interest, I'll keep you posted (probably by starting a new thread with an appropriate title, since this thread is supopsded to be about Jazzfest).

JAZZFEST: A long list of participating acts was announced recently. I didn't study it closely, because I'll be going every day anyway, regardless of who's playing, but just from reading the newspaper headlines and seeing the local TV news, I can report that the big-name out-of-town acts will include Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, and Paul Simon, among many others. My brother, who will be visiting from England for the second weekend only, perused the lineup much more closely than I, and emailed me to say:

~ The first weekend would have been a better choice for him than the second, but he already made his arrangements, and hey, it's all good, anyway.

~ Conspicuously absent from the roster are the Neville Brothers, who have traditionally sreved as the closing act of the entire festival ever since the death of Professor Longhair back in 1980. What's up with that?

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: PoppaGator
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 11:33 PM

Sorry, can't recall the name of the tribe/gang reportedly relocated to Austin. I read a newspaper article (in New Jersey, so it was nationally syndicated news), and didn't recognize the name of the young (20-something) Big Chief. Of course, my not knowing the name doesn't mean much ~ I'm a local, and a relatively knowledgable one, but by no means an "insider."

Please refer to the wonderful new benefit/fundraiser CD "Our New Orleans" for the definitive word from Big Chief Bo Dollis and the Wild Magnolias: "We gonna fun on the Mardi Gras, Ain't gonna let Katrina keep us down!"

Some of the Injuns will undoubtedly spend this Mardi Gras in exile, a few others may be in town but not have time to put together an outfit they'd be seen in, and as we've seen, there's a possibility one or two groups may even transplant themselves elsewhere and continue their traditions there. Maybe.

Nevertheless, a decent-sized complement of Mardi Gras Indians will certainly among the thousands of New Orleanians determined to celebrate our city and our culture ~ like never before ~ two weeks from Tuesday.

In the words of Allen Toussaint, also from the CD mentioned above, "Yes We Can Can."

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: Ernest
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 06:29 AM

Hey Poppagator,
that is good news! Almost as good as having you back on the `cat. Thanks fot keeping us up to date, so we can at leastget a bit of it from the net - until we can make it to N.O. again!
Best wishes to you and your family
Ernest

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 07:32 PM

Thanks, Tinker.

But that site doesn't give any updates on post-Katrina Madri Gras groups. I'm interested in knowing whats going on with those groups now.

I know that given the devastation of Katrina, that's not the most important thing to be worried about, but it would be such a loss if the Mardi Gras Indians cultural traditions ended because of Katrina and the national, state, & local governments' inept recovery efforts.

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: Celtaddict
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 07:12 PM

YESSSS! I want to be there. . . .
Thanks for the updates, Poppagator.

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: Tinker
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 09:22 AM

Mardi Gras Indians

Azizi, check out the linked pages as well, it's a facinating tradition.

Tinker

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: Azizi
Date: 02 Feb 06 - 10:26 PM

Hello, PoppaGator!

Thanks for keeping us up to date with New Orleans cultural news.

On a somewhat off topic note, on another recent thread you mentioned that a Mardi Gras Indian 'nation'[if that is the correct term] had moved to Austin, Texas. Which nation is it?

And may I ask what do you hear of other Mardi Gras Indian groups? Given the likelihood of the tremendous loss of supplies and outfits, and the high cost of those intricately feathered and beaded customes, not to mention the probably disruption in folk's lives {and lost of lives}, I'm sure that Hurricane Katrina has to have a negative impact on this unique tradition.

Any information that you can share will be appreciated.


Best wishes to you,

Azizi

Subject: RE: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: pattyClink
Date: 02 Feb 06 - 08:33 PM

Wonderful news, Poppa.   I'll bet there will be a LOT more camping out and sleeping on floors than ever before.

Subject: '06 N.O. Jazzfest WILL be held
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 Feb 06 - 12:06 PM

Yesterday the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation announced that the annual festival will be held this year at the usual venue, the Fair Grounds racetrack. Katrina be damned!

As always, the festival will be held on the last weekend of April and first weekend of May. This year, there will be two three-day weekends (Fri/Sat/Sun), just as there were during the first 15-20 years of the festival ~ the Thursday sessions added in recent years have been eliminated for the time being.

This annual announcement has traditionally included a long list of the year's scheduled performers. This year, the mere fact of the festival's survival and the decision on the number of days were newsworthy enough to suffice. Only one performer was identified as having been signed: Fats Domino, who rode out the storm in his Lower Ninth Ward home and who was widely assumed to have died before he was found and rescued several days after the flood.

The official Festival poster for 2006 was unveiled, featuring a portrait of Fats.

Director Quint Davis noted that organizers are having difficulty lining up the usual "local" musicians because so many have had to relocate and are now scattered around the country and the world. However, many of the local nightclubs and other venues are located in "high-and-dry" areas of the city and have been able to reopen, so the local music scene has resumed operation, providing gigs to support returning players.

The local rumor mill is rife with rumors about world-famous acts who will come to Jazzfest as a gesture of solidarity and to help draw audiences who will contribute to the resurrection of the local economy. Discussion centers around U2 and the Rolling Stones, but there also has been a revival of an old favorite rock-festival tradition, the usually-wrong prediction that "Dylan will be there!"

The most likely to actually appear of all the big-name "outsiders" is probably Elvis Cosello, who has been collaborating with New Orleanian Allen Toussaint in recent months, while the two have been living in New York.

Hopefully, by late April a number of local residents currently living in FEMA trailers will have begun moving into their houses, creating an underground economy of subletting trailer housing to Jazzfest visitors. (Of course, an even larger number of folks will still be waiting for their trailers.) It has occurred to me that some visitors might find a stay in such cramped quarters as an interesting experiment in reality-based tourism, a way to vicariously experience a few days of live as a flood survivor in 2006 New Orleans.

And, oh yeah, in the more immediate future: Mardi Gras will be celebrated on Tuesday Feb 28 (and over the preceeding two weeks). Come see us, spend some money, and see not only the usual attractions (most of which are found in the older, higher-elevation, unflooded neighborhoods), but also take a drive or tour through flood-devasted areas (like mine) to witness both the devastation and also the determination of homeowners to rebuild and return, with or without help from our astoundingly boneheaded and ineffectual government.