The picture you see above was taken outside the Howlin' Wolf at roughly 5:30am on Monday, May 8th, during the final set break of Jazzfest 2006. I needed to sit down and shut my eyes, if only for a few seconds, before that last set, when Zigaboo's Funk Revue would close it all out before a lonely crew of remaining stragglers, all limping to the finish line at around 7am, begging the man to please -- please -- not play another encore because we all needed to get some fucking sleep.

I really sucked the marrow out of this one. This Jazzfest was a seemingly never-ending series of crescendos, two weeks full of "Best-of-Fest" quality sets, played early into the morning. Surprise after surprise, just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it did.

I've talked in the past about "the moment," the one when you're standing out on the floor, resplendent, carried away; the moment you just know is going to top every other show you'll see. This year, I can count at least four separate occasions when I had that thought, starting with the Voice of the Wetlands set on Monday, trumped by Lonnie Smith on Wednesday, blown out of the water by the Greyboy Allstars early on Sunday morning, and then eclipsed by the Ivan Neville and friends show at Tipitinas early on that last Monday morning.

What trumps the Ace of Spades? The Ace of Spades squared, that's fucking what.

And I was drained. Hell, it's a week later and I'm still drained. Thanks to an ample supply of Vitamin B-12, more espresso than you can reasonably expect not to kill you, and the force of sheer will, I managed to make it to every show I wanted to see, no matter how late, how early, how utterly unprepared I was to be awake, let alone leave the house. I dragged, cajoled, and embarrassed my friends out of bed to get them to the fest on time, regardless of how much (or how little) sleep they had had.

You hear the line, "I'll sleep when I'm dead," bandied about pretty often at Jazzfest, and by the time this picture was taken, I was perilously close to the brink.

So, please, no more encores. I'm getting some sleep. I'm pretty sure I better start resting up now, because by my count there's only 346 days until I have to scrape my ass off the sofa and start this all over again.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I really need to write this now, before I go to sleep, before the memory fades. It's 6:15am in New Orleans and I just got home from seeing the Greyboy Allstars. I've heard a lot about them over the years, but had never seen them before (or heard their work).

It. Was. Fucking. Amazing.

There are about 30 minutes last night that I can't account for except for knowing I was on the dancefloor with my eyes closed and the Greyboys playing. This has never happened before (at least not without the aid of strong chemicals). There were no drugs, and I wasn't drunk.

Just an explosion of funk and boogaloo the likes of which I've not seen in some time, if ever. The band was so hot it was nuclear. The groove was uncontrollable. I danced my ass off!

OK, that's all, I'll stop frothing at the mouth. I'm off to bed. Wake up call for fest in 4 1/2 hours.

It's hard work having this much fun.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think it bears mentioning that I saw a mind-numbingly incredible show last night. Dr. Lonnie Smith, funky master of the Hammond B-3 organ, descended on the Blue Nile club teamed up with an all-star band of Donald Harrison, Jr. on sax, Will Bernard on guitar, and Idris Muhammad on drums.

The Blue Nile's layout allows you to get super close to the performers -- uncomfortably close, almost. I could have reached over and stolen Donald Harrison's sax in mid-solo. But that would have been a crying shame because Harrison was absolutely inspired, playing with badger-like ferocity and putting everything out on the table.

All of the individual players were great, but what made this night so special was how this unrehearsed act played as a unit. It was zero-sum music, with the push and pull of the various players balancing each other out, filling the voids that needed to be filled.

At one point, on a soulful jazz tune whose name I do not know (if it wasn't strictly improv), the band was doing some harmonic half-step key jumping that just made it feel like they were exploding with every refrain.

The band is playing again tonight, and I'm tempted to do the never-before-attempted Jazzfest double-dip, which would mean blowing off some incredible brass bands down at Tipitina's tonight, but it might be worth it.

I'm too tired to choose, and the choices only get harder from here.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everywhere I look, I keep seeing shadows. They're more like flashbacks, really -- an image of a show, or a venue, or a song from the past refracted through the lens of me, here, today, now. I guess you always see ghosts and shadows when you come home, but I can tell you that the visions are stronger when it's a home you thought you'd lost.

This is my 13th Jazzfest. Every year, I slide into my loud yellow shirt, strap on my sandals, pull on my straw hat, and make my way up Jeff Davis to Moss, take a right on De Saix, another right on Trafalgar, and then I'm there. I step out on to that infield and -- screw the calendar -- it's my birthday. The feeling I get in the pit of my stomach at that moment is what I live for, the point in time that I count down to, my ground zero, my homecoming.

Over the past few years, I've chronicled every Jazzfest moment on this site, hoping to somehow convey to anybody, everybody who's reading this, just what it means and why I love it.

Well, if ya ain't got it by now, ya ain't gonna get it, and I'm too busy, too tired, too hung over, too emotional to give you the play-by-play. You'll have to settle for the brief recap and some pictures.

My city is still here. It's down, but if the people I've seen and spoken to down here are any indication, it's not out. Musically, it's as if Katrina were the wake-up call. So far I've seen and heard more spirited, no-holds-barred performances, more all-star lineups, funkier funk and jazzier jazz than I've seen in a good lotta years. There have been po-boys and crawfish bread, and of course, pheasant/quail/andouille gumbo. The attendance at the fest has been way beyond whatever I had let myself hope for in even my most optimistic moment.

In a lot of ways, it's as if this Jazzfest were the culmination of all Jazzfests past. All that emotion, all that music, all those ghosts filling the clubs alongside this year's attendees. Bringing the past back home to ensure that tomorrow, and for generations to come, people from around the world can descend on this special city to celebrate its unique culture, hug a complete stranger, and say, "Happy Jazzfest."

Posted by ElectricOrange at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)