Anniversary Coverage

I don't get anniversaries as hooks for stories, and nothing illustrates why like Keith Spera's coverage of the 40th anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival at Nola.com. It's a cyclical exercise in nostalgia for a non-story:

From James Booker and Bongo Joe to Billy Joel and Bon Jovi.

From $3 at the gate to $50.

From hundreds of attendees to hundreds of thousands.

From a budget in the tens of thousands to a budget in the millions.

From sponsorship by Schlitz to sponsorship by Shell.

Much about the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has changed

Ten years from now, the second half of those statements might change, but they'll reflect the same thought - "look at how things have changed" - but they could also be made four years from now or eight years ago or 17 years ago or 12 years in the future. The number's a marketing device; the press doesn't have to bite on it.

By the way, I generally like Keith's writing a lot, but he goes a little soft when he starts explaining away criticisms of Jazz Fest today:

Some longtime festival fans bemoan its lost innocence. They miss the days when ice chests and tent canopies were allowed and nighttime Jazz Fest concerts rocked the riverboat President. Some find corporate sponsorships and premium VIP ticket packages distasteful.

Ultimately, such contemporary festival realities do not distract from the average festival-goer's experience -- except, perhaps, when the grandstand's upper floors are reserved for VIP ticketholders and everybody else is huddled outside in the rain.

I'm not sure how he knows people aren't annoyed as they work negotiate their way through the Shell hospitality tents, and how people feel about there being a Miller hospitality suite with a view of the Acura Stage, and how he knows that most people who worked to get to the front of the stage don't care that the wealthy can buy their way in front of them with their VIP packages.

And while I agree that Jazz Fest ticket prices aren't out of line, that's probably the sort of argument that should come out of Quint Davis' mouth, not his.

... on the other hand

Todd Martens at the Los Angeles Times started his final take on SXSW this way:

As much as reporters sought to apply a theme to this year's South by Southwest, the musicians and industry reps in Austin, Texas, for the four-day music extravaganza just weren't making it easy. The economic realities of 2009 were a relatively obvious topic, but life for the many of the artists in Texas this week -- a record-setting 1,900 of them this year -- has never exactly been easy.

"During hard times, I didn't have much education or stuff like that to rely on," said the New York Dolls' Sylvain Sylvain, reminding attendees that artists are comfortable with recession-time living even in flush decades. "I wanted to take a job where I could still do my performances, or if I got drunk the night before, I wouldn't get fired."

Me, I want to follow up on yesterday's thoughts on Jazz Fest and SXSW and the relationship between the events and their towns. Yesterday my flight home was overbooked and the airline was looking for volunteers to stay until Tuesday - the soonest they could get the volunteers out - with a hotel paid for and a per diem. I considered it, thinking about friends from L.A. and New York that were still in town and what I could do if I stayed. What that reminded me was that SXSW is its own city, and Austin's simply the space it occupies. That might seem obvious, but graffiti on the bathroom wall in the Continental Club says, "Don't move to Austin," and I'm certain that many enjoy the town's vibe during SXSW and want to move there the same way people want to move to New Orleans after Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest. The difference is that the SXSW is as much shaped by the people visiting as the people who live there, and the glut of music will largely go away this week. In New Orleans, the big event may end but the same bands will play the next week as played during those events, and the vibe that surrounds them is entirely New Orleanian.

Getting Religious

In New Orleans, it's impossible to hear about/think about Austin and SXSW without contrasting SXSW and Jazz Fest. The fact is that they share a few very significant characteristics. Both events represent the one occasion people from around the world have to see certain artists. Many regional artists don't tour, and both events collect most of the heavy hitters.

The more significant similarity is the sense of community that underlies both events. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and a host of networking events make it possible to build a virtual community, but at SXSW and Jazz Fest, you get the visceral reality of looking around a room at a band that draws 50 or so people in your town and find the space you're in at the festival packed. You can see the numbers of people who share values with you; they don't have to be imagined or assumed. It's very clear that you're not alone.

I've half-joked that Jazz Fest is the high holy holiday for the Church of New Orleans, those whose connection to the city and its culture has taken on the character of belief - something beyond the city and bands' actual ability to deliver. The ideas that are encoded in the city and its music speak to them even when the reality is less convincing. Simply because of its size, SXSW is more than that. It's the gathering for those who believe in rock 'n' roll, its inheritors and fellow travelers. There may be more reflexive irony and cool self-protection in SXSW's adherents, but there's no less of a sense of the meeting of the true believers at it than there is at Jazz Fest.

What the size of both events tells us is that the significance of music in our lives isn't on the wane, just anyone's ability to get paid making it. (Or writing about it, I might add.)

A Tough Town to Die In

Funerals are strange under the best of circumstances, and for New Orleans' prominent figures, they're even moreso. Danny Barker didn't want a jazz funeral when he died because they'd become such undignified affairs, and though efforts have been made to solemnize them, they're still pretty ratty. People filtered into the Howlin' Wolf during the service for Eaglin, many of them simply there for the second line. Rather than wearing something funereal, they were in T-shirts, cargo shorts, straw hats and athletic shoes. They were dressed for Jazz Fest, and no doubt many had sunscreen in their backpacks.

I don't think their motivations were callow, but I suspect they were a little remote - more connected with a general affection for New Orleans music than Snooks, and more into participating in a New Orleans ritual than in the sad passing of a musician.

This is the mixed blessing of Jazz Fest. One of its great successes has been to support and educate people about second line, jazz funeral and Mardi Gras Indian traditions. But, with that knowledge comes the cultural tourism of people who are barely connected to the death (in this case) joining a Jazz Fest-like event in a Jazz Fest-y way, and the inappropriateness of their wardrobe is lost on them.

In most ways, Eaglin's funeral was a good funeral - a balance of spiritual consolation and good-humored remembrances. Irma Thomas sang three spirituals, and by the end, she had a vibe going with the woman playing organ so that the bar was rocking as if it were a church. Allen Toussaint and drumer James Jackson both confirmed the Eaglin tall tale that the blind guitarist once drove the band they were in, the Flamingos, home after a night when they all got too drunk.

And in death, some guys find their moment in the sun. Jackson stood with Eaglin's open casket for much of the time before the service started, took to the stage to introduce himself when the stage was made available, and when Toussaint spoke, he returned to his spot by Eaglin's casket as if the moment was a shared one. Who knows? Maybe Jackson was closer to Eaglin than any of us knew. Maybe his death spoke to him in a way that made him feel the importance of asserting his presence. I like to attribute positive motivations to people's behavior at funerals, even when I can't figure out what they are.

Bonnaroo Lineup

Here. After looking at this and the lineup for this year's Jazz Fest, can we officially call the jam band dead? Or at least in remission?

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Phish (2 Shows)
Beastie Boys
Nine Inch Nails
David Byrne
Wilco
Al Green
Snoop Dogg
Elvis Costello Solo
Erykah Badu
Paul Oakenfold
Ben Harper and Relentless7
The Mars Volta
TV on the Radio
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gov't Mule
Andrew Bird
Band of Horses
Merle Haggard
MGMT
moe.
The Decemberists
Girl Talk
Bon Iver
Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabate
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Galactic
The Del McCoury Band
of Montreal
Allen Toussaint
Coheed and Cambria
Booker T & the DBTs
David Grisman Quintet
Lucinda Williams
Animal Collective
Gomez
Neko Case
Down
Jenny Lewis
Santogold
Robert Earl Keen
Citizen Cope
Femi Kuti and the Positive Force
The Ting Tings
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Kaki King
Grizzly Bear
King Sunny Adé
Okkervil River
St. Vincent
Zac Brown Band
Raphael Saadiq
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Crystal Castles
Tift Merritt
Brett Dennen
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue
Toubab Krewe
People Under the Stairs
Alejandro Escovedo
Vieux Farka Touré
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Cherryholmes
Yeasayer
Todd Snider
Chairlift
Portugal. The Man.
The SteelDrivers
Midnite
The Knux
The Low Anthem
Delta Spirit
A.A. Bondy
The Lovell Sisters
Alberta Cross

Shotgun Marriage

In New Orleans, chewing on the Jazz Fest lineup is a ritual as time honored as throwing coconuts from the Zulu parade. Still, if I were festival producer Quint Davis, neither of these reader responses at Nola.com would make me very happy. A critic writes:

snoooooze...been there done that...no surprises and same old same old...look at who is touring this summer and look at all of the great acts we are missing out on....time for Quint to get out his little black book and make some phone calls and beg...wondering why almost all of the big name brit legacy acts from the 60s have avoided Jazz Fest like the plague since Katrina, but show up as spectators?

A festival defender writes:

Ever heard of the phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."?
Might look like the same line-up from the past, but why change it if it satisfies thousands of other people - locals AND non-locals? And when did New Orleans become a city of "Keep Out Tourists"?
I've bought my ticket - proud to support my hometown (recession or not).

My guess is that Davis didn't get what he got because he didn't beg enough; the lineup features so many artists that have played the festival before that they have to be there by choice, not default. But when you trot out a talent roster that includes Aretha Franklin, Wynton Marsalis, and a host of other E ticket attractions and people are bored, it means you've leaned on these artists and their generation a little too hard - enough to make the prospect of seeing them unexciting.

The festival's defender's attitude is almost sadder - who cares? For many, Jazz Fest is a party, and the music is just the background. Typically, artists such as Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and to a lesser extent Bob Dylan annoy this brand of festgoer because they don't want Van, Joni or Bob circa 2008; they want the hits to sound like the hits because that makes the party better. And presenting the usual suspects on a regular basis guarantees that the party won't change.

For me, the most interesting feature of this year's lineup is the apparent schism between the producers, Festival Productions and AEG Live. Jazz Fest has had a traditional problem dealing with modern times, and for the most part, it tried to acknowledge and attract people under 40 by presenting the jam bands. That made a certain amount of sense, but now that the jam wave was receded, the void has been filled by such un-Fest-like bands as Kings of Leon and Spoon, bands for whom Davis' fest-defining phrase "the heritage of jazz" seems stretched in the extreme.

It looks from the cheap seats (I have no inside knowledge) as if Davis hopes as he seemingly has always hoped, that the soul/R&B/blues stars of the mid-1960s to mid-1970s will always draw and will always find audiences large enough to sustain the festival, while AEG Live is looking to keep younger fans coming in the door, even if the fit's a rough one.