CoachWHOla? No ... NOLA, baby.

On the crawdad's trail...

NOLA... as in, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. As in, you still have time to roulez your laissez bon ton on down to the Crescent City for Weekend 2 of the fest, if you hurry, crawdaddy.

Last week, we Buc-ee'd and Stuckey'd our way across TX & LA for a virgin trek to witness weekend one of the famed fete.

Rolling across the bayou at sunrise was almost as humbling as hitting the eerie Katrina-damned landmarks of the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center at dawn. Almost two years after the tragedy of storms and levee breaks, the town is still creeping to a question-mark recovery, teetering on the brink of a true soul comeback or being overrun into becoming the corporate bitch Vegas of the Gulf.

Every ounce of the fest, too, was steeped in a humid brew of hometown hopes and self-sufficient dignity – the subtext of a body-memory's worth of abandonment, all too present. But fret not. This is NOLA and her stiff upper lip and stubborn good-times-roll spirit has pulled them up this far and can only take us higher.

This vein of rejoice and recover was tapped in just about every act – locals and special guests alike: in the uproarious joy channeled through Lady Tambourine (and Lord forgive me for not knowing the name of the unlisted choir with which she performed) in the Gospel Tent; traipsing across the fairgrounds in the second-line funeral parade memorial for Fest Fan and bro 60 Minutes man Ed Bradley; pumping through the new-meets-old school throw-down called Trombone Shorty at the Congo Stage (then later at Cafe Brasil); swinging through the smooth skronk of Pharoah Sanders in the Jazz Tent; tiptoeing atop every gray-hair in attendance at Pete Fountain; slurring and crooning with Lucinda Williams; sangin' and blangin' with Ludacris; and especially coming right out with it and laying it on the line during just about every break of Charmaine Neville's set. And that's not the half of it. (Click the Open Image Gallery link above for pics of many of these artists and more.)

We missed more than we saw – that first weekend was impossibly stacked – but what we saw, felt, tasted, and sang made it all better. If you go out for weekend two, tell Trombone Shorty and that nice lady who sells the pies near the Fais Do-Do Stage that Texas sends her love.

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KEYWORDS FOR THIS POST

GP Recommends, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, fest, jazz fest, NOLA, NOLA Jazz fest

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