Thursday night was a benefit for MusiCares, when NO piano giant Henry Butler came home (temporarily, he says) from his new digs in snowy, cold Colorado to dazzle a room at the Harrah's casino (!) with a solo set, and then joined what should be, but isn't being, called a Crescent City supergroup: Porter and Nocentlli from the Meters, Henry, Ivan Neville, Russell Batiste on drums, and John Bouttee singing one of the tunes. The New Orleans Social Club may never come your way, but if it does, drive over relatives to go see them.
Friday, Jazzfest opened under a warm, sunny sky, a light breeze ruffling the humidity, and closed under clouds, and a wind doing a little more than caressing the flags overhead. This is a gut-check for the city and its visitors. Chris Rose in the T-P today argued for taking all Fest visitors on a tour of the devastation prior to the (amazingly) restored Fairgrounds. But, if like most folks, you seek parking in the surrounding neighborhoods, you'll get your tour just walking to the entrance. Like the lower Ninth that I briefly visited a couple of days ago, the mid-city neighborhoods around the track are not stuck in the miasma of lifelessness they've been in for months. It's spring, and the death-brown of the lawns and neutral grounds (median strips) has finally been broken by stubborn new shoots of green. Even in the devastated reaches of the Ninth (saluted in one of the Fest's second-line parades by a group carrying signs proclaiming "Big Nine"), there are cars on the streets that haven't been flooded, folks on porches, stores--food stores, a pharmacy, an auto repair shop--poking up like new shoots through the wintry despair. And walking back from the Fest, I passed a half-wrecked building on the Fairgrounds property still bearing this painted message: "10/2 3 CATS STILL HERE CAN'T CATCH"
Local trumpeter Irvin Mayfield took the mic at his gig--a jazz orchestra to which diasporto denounce the Wall Street Journal's recent piece saying that most New Orleans musicians who've moved away are happy where they are. "That," declaimed Irvin, "is complete, 100 percent bullshit."