Nevilles? Toussaint. Irma? Who are these people and what's their part in this ruckus?
Anybody who knows anything about New Orleans music knows that singer Irma Thomas, composer Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers rhythm-and-blues band are part of Crescent City musical royalty.
They are among the perennial signposts for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, now in its 19th year and picking up hundreds more annual visitors with each successful spring.
Last year, the festival drew its biggest crowds ever. Between 250,000 and 300,000 people came from all over the world to revel in the rich, warm, diverse mix of form, style, color and tone that is American music, if not, for that matter, America itself.
The festival starts today with the first of two successive three-day weekends of concerts, art exhibits and special events that cover the city like Tabasco sauce on a po'boy (New Orleans' variant of a hoagie - or vice-versa).
Most of the daytime action is centered in the spacious Fair Grounds Race Track. For $9 at the gate or $7 in advance (children are admitted for $2 at the gate, $1.50 in advance), the cultural adventurer has at his or her disposal a mind-blowing array of options for entertainment and/or enlightenment.
There are about five outdoor performing stages where everything from blues to zydeco, from soul music to band concerts, from Cajun swing to salsa is performed. There are several enclosed performing areas, the two most popular being the Jazz Tent and the Gospel Tent, where you can count on an emotionally galvanizing moment or two.
Even a partial listing of the performers scheduled to appear at the Fair Grounds for the first weekend is enough to suggest the staggering exhilarating diversity of the festival's offerings: Taj Mahal, B.B. King, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Doc Watson, Pete Fountain, the Trinidad Folk Troupe, Hank Crawford & Jimmy McGriff, James Brown, Cissy Houston (Whitney's mom), Beausoleil (the Cajun band that did the theme song for the movie "The Big Easy"), Ernie ("Mother-in-Law") K-Doe . . .
And the action doesn't sink when the sun does. Tonight and tomorrow evening, there will be concerts on the Riverboat President (bluesmen Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King and John Hammond tonight; jazzmen Kenny G. and Lee Ritenour tomorrow), the J.B. Rivers New Orleans Music Hall (Crawford-McGriff quartet tommorrow) and the Spanish Plaza at Riverwalk (trumpeter Jon Faddis, ageless boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price tomorrow.)
Too late for the first weekend? No problem, as they're fond of saying in this inland Caribbean island. The following weekend offers similar epiphanies at the Fair Grounds. Again, a sampling: Queen Ida, Gospel Inspirational Singers, Asleep at the Wheel, Al Green, Buckwheat Zydeco, Jean Knight, Earl King, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters ("Work with Me, Annie"), Dr. John, the Nevilles, the Dixie Cups ("Goin' to the Chapel"), Frankie Ford ("Sea Cruise") and much, much more.
Before getting to the second weekend's evening schedule, a few caveats about the Fair Grounds. It should already start getting pretty sultry down by the Gulf Coast. (Average temps reach as high as the mid-90s.) So if you're going to hang out, be sure to dress lightly and loosely. Be prepared, also, for sudden showers to intrude on the proceedings - though chances are you'll be so blissed-out by the music and good vibes you won't care very much.
The April 29 evening concert at the Riverboat President features the recently reunited Little Feat with special guest Bonnie Raitt. The following night will be headlined by blues superstar Robert Cray and the ubiquitous Neville Brothers, who, as always, will close out both the daytime and evening portions of the festival. In the week bridging these two jammed weekends are a variety of evening concerts and workshops throughout the city. Among those scheduled to perform in the concerts are Alice Coltrane (in a tribute to her late husband, John), the Rev. James Cleveland, Tito Puente and his Latin Jazz Ensemble, the McCoy Tyner Trio.
Does any of this suggest why the festival has become so cherished by so many? Maybe one should be more direct. Maybe one should say that for 10 days, it's possible to feel that all the boundaries - mythical or otherwise - that place music into little cubby holes are busted down.
