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04/28/2008 2:30am
Wet and wild: That's the spirit of this year's Jazz Fest
NEW ORLEANS -- The ghost of Katrina hovered over the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival as rain, mud and enormous puddles presented hurdles for thousands of fans in search of a good time. That specter evaporated against the life force of the city's musical riches and the festival's feisty spirit.
The multitudes, many in plastic ponchos and shrimp boots, braved the weekend downpours to soak up the sounds of a Rootsapalooza that unspooled country, jazz, zydeco, folk, gospel, Cajun, rock, blues and myriad hybrids on 11 stages.
On Sunday, Rockin' Dopsie's zydeco workout, including a bayou twist on Beast of Burden, had two-steppers tromping the sodden field. Choices dried up at 2:50 p.m. when the monsoon struck and fans headed for the nearest tents. By late afternoon, weather prospects were improving, bringing good news for evening headliners Al Green, Cassandra Wilson, Tim McGraw and Allen Toussaint with Elvis Costello.
The festival started Friday with a jam-packed day of wildly eclectic sounds. But at 3:15 p.m., it seemed as if everyone had congregated at one stage on the sprawling Fair Grounds Race Course for a set by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
The oddly harmonious couple set the early high bar for the rest of Jazz Fest's eclectic bill, sampling their respective catalogs and turning Black Dog into a steamy, haunted ballad.
Among the day's other high notes:
*Cajun blues hero Tab Benoit, backed by the masterful Louisiana's LeRoux, set the blues tent afire with One Foot in the Bayou.
*The Zydepunks wailed through a variety of original mash-ups blending Yiddish, zydeco, klezmer, rock, Irish, Cajun and Slavic music.
*Soulful jazz siren Leah Chase, whose parents Dooky and Leah founded the city's famous soul-food joint Dooky Chase, submitted an exquisite interpretation of You Don't Know What Love Is.
The second day started with dark clouds and drizzle, then built into a steady, cold downpour that flooded the Fair Grounds Race Course and drove many soaked fans to exits by midafternoon.
But Saturday's showers couldn't douse the fires onstage. Billy Joel's closing set was shut down a half-hour early, though not before he delivered a high-energy parade of hits to his soggy stalwart fans, who joined in a sing-along on encore Piano Man.
Earlier, rain chased many into tented stages, giving blues harmonica king James Cotton a spillover audience and packing the traditional jazz tent to capacity.
Though Keyshia Cole and O.A.R. were the day's youth magnets, plenty of young fans went off the mainstream map to seek out eccentric and obscure performers. They weren't disappointed. Among the finds:
*Carol Fran made a potent and poignant appearance. Though 75 and recovering from a stroke, the singer still summoned enough vocal vigor to perform a robust version of Proud Mary and a sassy Kansas City, punctuated by a little risque shimmying.
*Cecil "Big Jay" McNeely revived the vanishing urban style of honking sax with a rousing display before a full house in the blues tent. At 81, the R&B tenor saxophonist kicks it old-school, but with the vitality and mischief of a kid. Horn squawking, he wandered into the audience, dropped to his knees to serenade two women, then found another attractive young target in a short skirt and lured her onstage to dance.
*Even with its staggering diversity of artists, Jazz Fest seldom serves up anyone as eccentric as Bobby Lounge, the singer/pianist who made his third consecutive Jazz Fest appearance before a large, enthusiastic throng.
Lounge, wearing feathery wings on his shirt, was wheeled onto the stage in an iron lung (actually an old gym steam chamber with added knobs). He launched into a new song about a Barry Manilow statue made of cheese. His humor is swift, smart, surreal and often salacious, and his piano-playing recalls the prime of Jerry Lee Lewis. No words can describe the freak performance piece that entails Lounge galloping on the keys and spinning a yarn about a Sasquatch-like squirrel while a man in a huge squirrel costume chases a woman, clad only in bra and panties, through the audience until his tail falls off. Now that's Southern-fried entertainment.
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