New Orleans JazzFest

This was my first time to go to JazzFest. They have it over two weekends, but not the days in between. I was there for Fri and Sun of the second weekend. Many of my Memphis WEVL friends never miss it, but it just happened that I'd never gone. What's it cost? $40 per person, per day. It is $30 if you buy your ticket in advance and they have some $300 and $500 special priviledge catagories.

The whole thing is on the area around and in the race track. The track grandstand is visible in one of the photos. There are 10 stages, some in huge tents and some smaller ones outdoor. They seem to pay a lot of attention to getting the BIG sound right across the board.

The weather was really perfect, a bit overcast and breezy. That way we saw fewer bad sunburns and even in the 97 % humidity, we were pretty comfortable. Lots of variation in the music presented. Some of the most fun was in the gospel tent. One high School choir made up of about 30 or 40 kids was really rockin'.

Chairs are set up in the tents and lots of people carry in folding chairs for the outside stages. We didn't, so we spent a lot of time standin'...hard for me.

I was happy to run into some old friends in N.O. last weekend. We went to the Rock 'n' Bowl on Thursday night and Sharon & Rick were there. They taught me to dance Zydeco at Idewild Pres. Church in Memphis when Sharon was head librarian at Christian Brothers. Now she is chief librarian at Univ. of N.O., they moved down there a couple years ago and Iposted photos of their post Kartina house on this blog. Also saw Susie and Al from memphis at Rock 'n' Bowl. I had never been there, always heard of it, and always wanted to go. A very unusual place, Bowling and Dancing to live bands all under one roof plus a bar, of course.

At JazzFest on Sunday we saw Jeanne & Dan, old friends from WEVL FM90. They both did radio shows for years. Dan was also pres. of the board when I was on the board. Dan's show was 'New Orleans Under the Influence' and Jeanne did 'It's a Girl Thang" highlighting female recording artists. Also ran into Gulf Shores friends Becky and Warren who have a place in N.O. as well.

One amazing thing to me was the quality of the food at JazzFest. One of my photos shows the bumper to bumper food booths and the long lines on Sunday...fortunately we got our lunch when we first got there and there were basically no lines. Never have I seen mass feedings where the quality was so high. Everyone I chatted with agreed.






Remember Sam & Dave...this (photo 3) was Sam Moore of that duo w/ a big band and three hot chick back-up singers.

We saw a lot of really old guys making BIG music. I saw two men in the audience wearing T-shirts that said "Old Guys Rule"










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