New Orleans Jazzfest

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

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation will present the first annual Treme Creole Gumbo Festival on Saturday, Dec. 13, and the third annual Holiday Bazaar Dec. 13 and 14.

The Treme Creole Gumbo Festival celebrates the history of Faubourg Treme as a hotbed of New Orleans' musical and culinary culture.

Each year the Archive selects Photographers to document the internal culture; people, crafts, music and food, at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Selected photographers will work according to a schedule provided by the NOJHF Archive and will be provided with festival and photo pit (in the front of each of the stages) access. All photography must be digital.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival will accept press kit submissions for bands wishing to perform at the 2009 Festival through October 31, 2008.

From traditional African dance to the latest hits by R&B singer Cupid, drums ancient and modern will beat at the second annual Congo Square Rhythms Festival.

The festival (view lineup), which will be held on Bayou St. John at Orleans Avenue on Saturday, Oct. 4, and Sunday, Oct. 5, celebrates the historic role of Congo Square as the birthplace of American music. It was there that African slaves gathered on Sunday afternoons to practice their ancestral traditions - influencing all of the styles that would emerge from New Orleans' cultural melting pot.

AP File PhotoChevy Chase leans in to listen to George Wein at the Newport Jazz Festival at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, R.I.

For the first time since he founded the Newport Jazz Festival, George Wein didn't have to sign any checks or worry about how the fickle weather might affect the bottom line. Instead, his biggest concern at the recent festival was whether he could keep up on piano with his Newport All-Stars band during their set on the main stage that preceded performances by Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins.

But though the 82-year-old Wein sold his festival production company last year, he is still very much a force in producing jazz events, not only working to preserve the Newport festival's legacy but even starting a new concert series at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in memory of Joyce Wein, his wife and business partner for nearly half a century.

Chris Rose, Columnist

A shocking and saddening e-mail is making the rounds through what, for lack of a better term, could be called the extended Jazzfest family -- a loose-knit but broad-based coterie of over-dressed, ever-present, always exuberant 40-, 50- and even 60-something revelers who seem to have been born right there on the Fair Grounds and never left.

The e-mail was written by one of the most visible and colorful -- literally -- Jazzfest fixtures, a man by the name of Wing who was most notable for his braided hair, his medley of fantastical fringed outfits and his nearly maniacal stamina and dance style, most often in the Gospel Tent or at Congo Square.

Wing, simply put, was a spectacle, an institution, a harbinger of delight for all who laid eyes upon him. He whirled, skipped and spun relentlessly through the aisles, from stage to stage, every day, every year.

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.