Issue Articles — Features
Going Back to Coolsville: Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones was no stranger to New Orleans when she flew in from California to play Jazz Fest in 1992. She’d lived on the seamy edge of the Quarter in the early ’80s with a tribe of swashbuckling outlaws while working on Pirates, the critically acclaimed follow-up to the meteoric success of her Grammy-winning self-titled debut.
Defying Labels: Mr. Sipp is not one dimensional
Castro Coleman’s contributions to the Count Basie Orchestra’s 2024 album, Basie Swings the Blues, earned the charismatic Mississippian his first Grammy award. That same year, Coleman received a second Grammy nomination for his solo album The Soul Side of Sipp.
River Eckert, A Piano Prodigy, is putting good energy into the world
River Eckert made his Jazz Fest debut in 2024 at 14-years-old. A singer, pianist, composer and arranger, he’s a New Orleans native steeped in his hometown’s indigenous rhythm-and-blues and funk.
Gladney: High Vibrations and Deep Meditations
Gladney’s been playing Jazz Fest since the seventh grade, but this year’s fest is his first gig as a bandleader. He’s a trailblazer and purveyor of spiritual qualities in music and life. Release of his Inner Peace album is imminent.
Johnny Allan: Promised Land
In the 1960s and ’70s, fans jitterbugged and two stepped while Johnnie Allan sang, danced and pranced in dancehalls, like the Southern Club in Opelousas and the Jungle Lounge in Ville Platte. In 2025, Allan traded prancing for a stool at center stage.
Kyle Roussel: Refreshing and Intellectual
Pianist Kyle Roussel kicked off 2025 with a bang in the form of a landmark new album, “Church of New Orleans,” featuring around three dozen top New Orleans musicians.
Youssou N’Dour: The Voice of Senegal
About 20 years ago singer Youssou N’Dour, who stands at the top of modern Senegalese music, visited the island of Gorée near his home in Dakar. It was the start of a mission to trace the paths of the many Africans transported from there to the Americas and Europe as slaves, and to trace the paths of the music that emerged from the depths of those horrors — specifically jazz and gospel. The directive was for him, accompanied by Swiss pianist Moncef Genoud, to bring that music back for performance on Gorée, now used as a monument to those who suffered beyond comprehension in that dark history. The result was a documentary, “Retour a Gorée (Return to Gorée).”
Pete Fountain: Every Note Has a Smile
Along with Louis Armstrong and Al Hirt, Pete Fountain is among the most famous jazz musicians from New Orleans. A brilliant traditional jazz and Dixieland clarinetist, Fountain became a household name in the late 1950s when millions of TV viewers watched his weekly appearances on The Lawrence Welk Show.
A conversation with Odd the Artist
Whatever you do, don’t pigeonhole Odd The Artist. The young rapper, singer, DJ, and producer is equal parts hip-hop and rock star. She’s been steadily making noise around New Orleans, which elevated with her first album “Let Go, Let Odd” in 2024. There’s no doubt she lives in the studio, so we met up in the lab to get the word.
Sarah Quintana: Baby Don’t
“Making feel-good music is harder than I thought thanks to pandemics, hurricanes, this being 2025 and life being life,” Sarah Quintana says. “But the sense you have of being in the moment, being part of a community, having a good rehearsal—all that is encouraging.
