The jazz fest in New Orleans was fabulous. What a great event - so much music and food and people.. it's a great time!
I hung out in the Gospel tent quite a lot in the first weekend (jazz fest is 7 full days of music, over two weekends). I heard heaps of styles of gospel, from the 'I have a gospel voice and know how to sing and here's me and my band' (like Mavis Staples), to family shows (like the Anointed Sisters), to man groups (like Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers), to a gospel choirs - the whole traditional thing.My absolute favourite performance from the whole of Jazz Fest was Tyronne Foster and the Arc Singers. What a sound. It was like a great horde and throng of people singing with rich voices, even though there were only about 30 of them. They were excellent and sharp and professional, and had obviously sung together for a long time. I loved it. It was not so much what they sang but how they sang it. Their conductor (Mr Foster) was awesome and entertaining, and had command of the choir so that it could do anything dynamics-wise. Wow. I have tried googling these guys, but they are elusive... if anyone finds anything of his/theirs, please let me know. I would love to share some sound clips of this with you if I could find some on line (nope, didn't record the show myself). For me, this was one of those shows I will never ever forget... one of those musical moments that makes time stop because the music is taking you over.
Second best musical moment was hearing Theresa Andersson play. She is a solo artist who plays violin, guitar, drums, etc. while singing - yep she does. She records herself on stage and loops herself. So she might start of with a wee guitar line, add some drums and then sing for a bit; when she gets to the chorus, she'll record and loop in the main line, then sing a harmony, record that and sing another line over the top, and/or sing and play the violin at the same time. All of this while delivering a convincing show, keeping everything in time, and making some magical music. It was kind of like live composition (except all pre-planned). It was awesome!! I bought one of her CDs and a DVD.... am happy to lend it when I'm home if anyone's interested.Those were my favourite shows. Another highlight was discovering John Mooney. He is a blues artist... I just happened upon his show in the blues tent. That was superb. I can't remember if I bought his CD yet or not - might have decided to pay NZD for that... Anyways, he's awesome. If you need some blues inspiration, look him up.
One of my favourite times at the jazz fest was when I was trying to find a friend-to-be at the jazz fest. I had been in contact with a friend of a friend of a friend who was going to jazz fest, back when I thought I would be going solo... We had great fun trying to find him for an hour or so waving the New Zealand flag and shouting out his name. We met a lot of people, got in some strangers' photos and generally had a darn good laugh. We didn't find Fred till a wee while later, but sometimes it's all in the trying.Gluten free food was a bit tricky to find inside the grounds, but the people on the door read my Dr's note and let me bring my own food in. That was cool. I did find Lamb Tagine, and these fabulous boiled Crawfish... yum yum yum. That was a bit of an adventure that also made us a few friends - heroic fullas who wanted to show us how to eat them ; ) Apart from that, the most consumed item were strawberry dacqaries... mmmmmmmmm!!!
I liked the jazz fest a lot!
