The Short Long Weekend

Long because I took a day off to go to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest, short because I spent chunks of two days traveling.

I flew through Houston, which has the greatest airport in the world. It has both a Popeyes and a Shipley Donuts, which gives it the best chicken and the best donuts in the world. People around here talk about Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts, and they're good. But they can't hold a candle to Shipley's.

We stayed in the convent with some Marianite nuns. You know when you stay with nuns, it's going to be nice and clean. Friday night we at a place called Ye Olde College Inn, where I had trout meuniere. Next time I may try some else, but I love anything that has "meuniere" attached to it.

You can see the schedule for the day I was at the Jazz Fest here. We started at the gospel tent with the Zulu Gospel Ensemble. Then I wandered over to see the last song by Bonsoir Catin at the Fais Do Do stage. Four talented girls doing it well. They sang a song that seemed to have the words "mon pickup truck" at the end of each line. Love that.

Then over to see Groove Academy at Congo Square. Sounded a little bluesy-funk to me, but I could be wrong. After a few songs I went over to the Jazz Heritage Stage to see the Mahogany Brass Band. I love brass bands. They seem to be made up of the kind of guys who will play all night till the joint shuts down. And the music seemingly never stops. They play a song, and when the song is done, the music keeps going and then another song starts.

Economy Hall tent was packed for the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, which is a great name. They dressed like Navy guys and played what sounded to me like the kind of old, old-timey jazz that people would sit around and listen to on the radio in the 1940s. Speaking of great names, I was sorry to miss out on seeing Rockin' Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters.

I went back over to the Jazz Heritage stage to see the NewBirth Brass Band, which might be the biggest I've seen. I think they had about fifteen guys on stage with trumpets, guitars, trombones, tambourines, saxophones, drums, and maybe four or five other things. Really good.

We closed out the day with Norah Jones at Gentilly stage. Huge crowd. She's got about four songs that I really like (Turn Me On and Lonestar are probably my favorites), and Wikipedia says she's sold about 30 million albums, so she's good. But man was she BORING. She's nice and calm and easygoing, which would be okay if she was playing in front of fifty people in a dining room. With thousands and thousands spread over a big expanse, it just doesn't work. We left about thirty minutes in because she was so dull.

I think it speaks well for the Jazz Fest that they can have Norah Jones, Ludacris, and Rod Stewart all closing out the day on separate stages. The next day it was Brad Paisley, Jill Scott and Bonnie Raitt.