Jazzfest 2010
There’s a texture here in New Orleans. What is it? The porch of an old southern home with three generations of family members including great-granddad whose cheeks are sallow as he lifts his harmonica to his lips and begins to tap his foot. And look at all those little ones swinging themselves around the pillars that were built around the time of this country’s Civil War. Today they sell their patch of lawn for parking because it seems the whole world has arrived for another Jazzfest, a holiday rooted in a spiritual swirl of history where the birth of rock & roll and a language called Jazz can be celebrated in great earnest without ever mentioning the name Jesus Christ, unless you want to. The fairgrounds is a horseracing track but I’ve only ever seen it used for the festival. So much music on every corner of every space and I can hear a big choir from the Gospel tent as I make my way past the Blues tent on my way to the main stage where Van Morrison, Pearl Jam, Jeff Beck, Galactic, George Porter, The Meters, The Radiators and the Neville Brothers will sooner or later fill the air with American funk, rock and soul. Irma Thomas, the Queen they say of New Orleans, is singing about Katrina but she tells us she no longer cries during the song. It’s been enough time now, she offers, so she just closes her eyes as the intro starts and contemplates, I can see, the words she’s written, the tune, the safer place she’s conjured, so as to sing it with dry eyes. My friends are people I‘ve known for twenty years, there are five of us and we’ve been here before together. Our closeness is unconditional, our memories rooted in childhood. We are a clique, all of us father’s, all of us centered enough to express how much we need each other in an unpredictable world. When I remove myself briefly from the musical zone I spin in, I see them, each of them, and I know that the precious ingredients at work here are as much about them as any of it. Surrounded, we are, by thousands more, we cannot stop grinning as we sway or hop or dance in small circles in a far-off state of mind that is somehow and strangely private as well, a personal soundtrack. The music is loud at times, pushing your blood along as you move so there’s not a lot to discuss with the person next to you, unless you find it crucial to lean into him and say, “My God, how did I get here?” How did I extract myself from the routine that is my life and place my body on this plot of land in Louisiana while this amazing musician hands me his words, his rhythms, his instrument. The friend will smile and it’s not just any smile. It’s the kind that says, I know exactly what you’re feeling because I’m feeling it too. Our hands might grip, a warm pat on the back. We’re here and we’re listening and we know where we’re heading after this show and after the next and after our soft-shell-crab Po boy and that cold light beer and bucket o’ craw fish. We’re heading just around the bend. You can see it. We’re heading for more music.
May 7th, 2010 at 4:50 am
Dear Mr. Branff -
Having enjoyed Peep Show & Unthinkable Thoughts … I have a movie recommend for you. “Holy Rollers” is a Sundance film that I believe it being released this summer. It is based on a true story of Hasidic Jews from NY becoming Ecstasy dealers/smugglers in Amsterdam.
Take care,
Lisa/Salt Lake City