As music lovers everywhere know by now, the city of New Orleans is celebrating the fiftieth year of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with a blowout party. After the first fest weekend concluded on Sunday, April 28, 2019, many out-of-town revelers headed home, but for those that stayed to keep dancing with the locals, there were still countless live-music, food and entertainment events happening around town to keep the revelry going.
Every year at this time, there’s a heated competition among clubs and restaurants to draw in both the local and out-of-town festgoers on the “days in between” the festival, which happen Monday to Wednesday. We stayed in town and hit some of the special events and concerts that took place over the three “in-between” days.
One of the strongest contenders for best in-between celebration is the NOLA Crawfish Festival. Now in its fourth year, the annual three-day extravaganza produced by Chris “Shaggy” Davis, AKA The Crawfish King, takes place at the expansive Central City BBQ, which opened in 2017. Davis, whose catering company is known for his massive crawfish boils, is deeply connected in the New Orleans community and the music scene. He and his team also really know how to throw a party, so it’s no surprise that the NOLA Crawfish Festival has become one of the must-attend events on the days in between Jazz Fest.
Monday’s bash featured sets by SWAMPGREASE, the NOLA Crawfish Fest All-Stars and the Neville Jacobs Band. SWAMPGREASE is one of Terence Higgins’ (Dirty Dozen Brass Band, John Scofield Piety Street Band) bands and includes Ron Johnson (Gregg Allman Band, Warren Haynes Band), Roosevelt “The Dr.” Collier (The Lee Boys), Big D Perkins (Bonnie Raitt, John Cleary) and Eric “Benny” Bloom and Nigel Hall (both from Lettuce). Maurice “Mobetta” Brown (Tedeschi Trucks Band) joined the band and played his funky trumpet throughout. Their set of funk and soul tunes had the audience dancing and grooving.
The NOLA Crawfish Fest All-Stars followed and featured George Porter Jr., Dave Malone, Billy Iuso and Terrence Higgins. This group of veteran New Orleans musicians can draw from a rich catalog of music. They played a couple of Radiators tunes including “Spanish Moon”; a few songs by The Meters; and an inspired version of Sly & the Family Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher.” They also did a great version of the country blues classic “Sitting on Top of the World.”
Neville Jacobs played the last set of the day. That band features Ivan Neville and Tony Hall from Dumpstaphunk, Baltimore-based blues rocker Cris Jacobs and drummer Brady Blade (Dave Matthews, among many others). The group released their debut self-titled album in 2018. Tony Hall was late for the Crawfish Fest gig so George Porter Jr. and Todd Harrington filled in on bass.
Theresa Andersson, a fantastic vocalist and violinist who appears on a couple of tracks from the Neville Jacobs album, joined the band onstage. They played a few songs from the album and a great cover of Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can.” Tony Hall finally arrived and took over on bass for covers of The Band’s “Don’t Do It” and Allen Toussaint’s “Night People.”
The Tuesday edition of Crawfish Fest opened with a rollicking crawfish eating contest. Participants had eight minutes to consume as many of the tasty crustaceans and they could. About a dozen crazy people participated and the winner ate over five pounds of crawfish.
The NOLA Crawfish Fest Theory of Funk led off the musical performances. The specially formed group features Sam Williams, Jermal Watson and Drew Baham from Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Nick Cassarino (Nth Power), Joey Porter (Motet), Kevin Scott and Ari Teitel.
The Mike Dillon Band followed featuring Nathan Lambertson, Brady Blade, Brian Haas (Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Nolatet) and Tiff Lamson (GIVERS). Fishbone’s Norwood Fisher sat in on bass for the entire set. Their wild show focused on songs heavy in vibraphone, percussion, spoken word and rap stylings. Mike Dillon displayed his usual manic stage presence and the band was enhanced with some additional horn-playing guests.
Eric Krasno & Friends wrapped up the evening. Krasno is most known for his amazing guitar work with Soulive but has also recorded with Tedeschi Trucks Band and has expanded his repertoire to include vocals in the Eric Krasno Band. The Crawfish Fest show featured Kraz with George Porter Jr., Ivan Neville and Terence Higgins.
They opened with an instrumental version of the Beatles’ “Get Back,” a song that Soulive recorded on their Rubber Soulive album released in 2010. They also covered Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie on Reggae Woman” and Lee Dorsey’s “Get Out My Life Woman.” The show really took off when Danny Mayer (Eric Krasno Band) and Marcus King joined the musicians onstage. The triple guitar assault amazed the audience on rousing versions of the Grateful Dead classic “Sugaree” and the show-closing, Eric Krasno Band tune “Unconditional Love.”
On Wednesday, May 1, before going to the third and last day of NOLA Crawfish Fest, we went to the New Orleans Jazz Museum. The museum, in the old U.S. Mint building, had an exhibit of photos and memorabilia covering the 50-year history of Jazz Fest. Beautiful, enlarged photos, old instruments and Mardi Gras Indian costumes were displayed through the galleries. Also, Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and former Meters bassist George Porter Jr. held a sold-out discussion about the history of funk in the city of New Orleans.
We arrived at the Crawfish Fest in the late afternoon and caught an amplified acoustic set by Anders Osborne accompanied by pianist David Torkanowsky from Astral Project. Osborne played some melancholy ballads from his new album Buddha and the Blues as well as more upbeat, older tunes. Guitarist/vocalist Cris Jacobs (who played the same stage Monday night with his Neville Jacobs band) joined the duo on stage and Osborne and Jacobs did a few excellent duets including a cover of Eric Clapton’s “After Midnight.” Percussionist Mike Dillon joined the trio on stage and played bongos until the end of the set.
The fest musical finale was a scorching set by Samantha Fish. The vocalist and talented blues-rock guitarist got excellent support from her six-piece band that includes two horns. She played a variety of axes but used her ancient-looking, cigar-box guitar for a rowdy, distortion heavy new tune called “Bulletproof.”
Fish invited her pal and fellow guitarist Jonathan Long to the stage about halfway through the set. Fish produced Long’s 2018 self-titled album. He is an explosive, passionate blues guitarist so when the two gunslingers traded solos, the crowd went wild. At the very end of the show, Fish brought out another guitarist, sixteen-year-old prodigy Brandon “Taz” Niederauer. Fish gave Taz her Gibson guitar and he proceeded to show why he has become a jam-scene veteran at such a young age. Taz blasted away, together with Long, as Fish sang and danced until the show and NOLA Crawfish Fest finally ended.
The night was still young, so we went back to Howlin’ Wolf for their annual late-night Jazz Fest show called “Megalomaniacs Ball.” The theme this year was percussion and punk music. Mike Dillon was the ring leader. He opened with his experimental and percussion-heavy jazz band Nolatet that includes James Singleton on bass and Brian Haas on keys. A few guest drummers joined the trio for the show as Dillon led the group on vibes and various other percussion instruments.
That set was only a precursor to the insanity that followed. It is hard to describe Mike Dillon’s New Orleans Punk Rock Percussion Consortium. Try to picture seven vibraphones, two full drum kits, additional drums, congas and percussion instruments and at least eighteen musicians all on the stage simultaneously. Then imagine all that percussion playing synchronously, led by Dillon’s vibraphone that was connected to an effects pedal that makes it sound like a fuzzy, electric guitar.
Guests included Nate Werth from Ghost Note and Snarky Puppy, Nikki Glaspie from Nth Power, Jason Hann from String Cheese Incident and Jeff Franca from Thievery Corporation. It was a mind-bending, slightly insane display of percussion expertise. The crowd looked on in awe, clapped, and danced throughout the set.
The final group included an all-star lineup billed as “Steel Punk.” Dillon once again led the charge on vibes, percussion and some manic vocals. Roosevelt “The Dr.” Collier and Ed “Shred” Williams from the Revivalists wailed on pedal-steel and slide guitar. Eric McFadden shredded on guitar and sang. Rob Mercurio from Galactic, Nate Edgar from Nth Power and Norwood Fisher from Fishbone took turns on bass. Nikki Glaspie, Brady Blade and several other drummers took turns pounding the skins.
The group played a series of classic punk tunes like “Kill the Poor” by The Dead Kennedys, “One Way or Another” by Blondie, “TV Party Tonight” by Black Flag and a few songs by The Minutemen. It was a bizarre experience watching artists known for their funk, jazz and jam music go nuts on punk tunes, but it worked. As the band kept blasting away well past 2 a.m., we rolled out knowing we needed to rest up as more late-night shows would be in our future.
And two that got away? Trombone Shorty (aka Troy Andrews) hosted Shorty Fest at the House of Blues Wednesday night. The fundraiser for his Trombone Shorty Foundation and its Trombone Shorty Academy was a night of jazz, blues, funk, rock and soul performed by many of Shorty’s musician friends. Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue closed the show and it was their only appearance in town until the closing slot on the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s Acura main stage Sunday May 5.
Jon Cleary hit Chickie Wah Wah, also on Wednesday night. That Mid-City, hole-in-the-wall bar features live music four to five nights a week. Cleary’s set started at 8 p.m. and before it was over, a special guest slid through the crowd and grabbed the mike. It was Tom Jones, and he and Cleary did a couple of Elvis Presley covers just for the fun of it. Sadly, we heard about that one through the grapevine, too late to race over in time to see it.
But moments like that, and all the other great shows with surprise guests that fill every club to capacity every night during the Days In Between, are the reason that Jazz Fest fans should always stay for the whole shebang!
Watch this space for our coverage of some of the non-fest second weekend shows happening in the clubs around the city of New Orleans as the celebration of 50 years of Jazz Fest roll.
Live photos courtesy of Andy J. Gordon ©2019.
