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Down by the Riverside

By offBeat Staff

Every year, we return to the banks of the Mississippi River for the French Quarter Festival. This year’s festival takes place April 11-13, with music on 16 stages dotted throughout the Vieux Carre, Woldenberg Park and around the U.S. Mint. There’s the usual emphasis on jazz, particularly traditional jazz and brass bands—two of the sounds most associated with the Quarter—but almost every stripe of music from the area is represented. There’s even a classical music stage, which will close Saturday with “Opera on Tap” at 4 p.m.

The World’s Largest Jazz Brunch is back, with food booths from the city’s restaurants reaching from Jackson Square across Decatur Street to Woldenberg Park, where it stretches from the Pavilion Stage to the grounds surrounding the Main Stage to the Kohlmeyer/Brass Band Stage in the shadow of the aquarium.

OffBeat is proud to be the media sponsor for the Kohlmeyer/Brass Band Stage and the Cajun/Zydeco Stage, and to produce this year’s French Quarter Festival program. For an A to Z of performers, other events and more Quarter Fest history, check it out. Still, we can’t let the festival go uncovered here. You’ll find the festival’s schedule in these pages, along with features on two of the city’s leading piano players. John Swenson profiles Tom McDermott, who performs Saturday at 1:15 p.m. on the Intercontinental Stage (333 Bourbon St.) as part of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and this month’s “Backtalk” features Ellis Marsalis with his son Jason. The Ellis Marsalis Quartet plays Friday at 3 p.m. in Jackson Square.

The musicians who make up the backbone of the city’s scene will be in the Quarter that weekend. Will you?

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