As we cope with the demise of yet another wonderful Jazz Fest, I present the six stages of Jazz Fest grief:

Denial – Jazz Fest is not over. If I stay out late every night, sleep until 11 and then hang out at the Louisiana Music Factory all afternoon, I can convince myself that we are merely “between weekends.”

Anger – They had to make it last ten days, just long enough to become addicted. My body adjusted to where I could survive on no more than 20 minutes sleep during a car ride back from the Fair Grounds. Then they pull the plug? Those cruel bastards.

Bargaining – I’ll accept that Jazz Fest is over if I’m allowed to buy 150 new CDs and spend the next month burning CDs for friends.

Guilt – I can’t believe there were days when I didn’t get to the Fair Grounds until one or two, and what about that time we showed up late to Tip’s because we were hanging out with friends at a barbecue? Inexcusable. I oughtta be ashamed.

Depression – My inflatable stripper totem looks so lonely sitting by itself in the corner.

Acceptance – Jazz Fest may be over, but I have spectacular memories. Plus, I live in New Orleans, so I can experience great jazz and food almost any time. Those tourists from the coasts are probably stuck in traffic right now, poor bastards!

How was your Fest, people? If you did it like me, you are probably still vibrating with music…

My voyage began with a virtual Big Bang, a jazz supernova, at the Contemporary Arts Center. New Orleans’ own sax wizard Kidd Jordan joined the Die Like a Dog Trio on April 25th in a mind-bending free-jazz concert that threatened to blow the lid off the packed Freeport-McMoRan Theater. Of course, there was the expected furious deluge of notes from Peter Brötzmann’s horns, the dense “sheets of sound” of the type first heard from Coleman and Coltrane, but a serenity permeated the onslaught. A nimble, delicate intelligence was discernible between Brötzmann, bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake as they interacted with almost superhuman facility, ebbing from a whisper to a scream and back again.

Jordan emerged from the wings repeatedly to join the rhythm section, emitting a fluttering sax stream that functioned like a bionic keyboard fill behind Brötzmann; and then Jordan intermittently came forward, lacking the sheer lung power of Brötzmann, but making up for it with a wellspring of expressive, edgy ideas.

During one of the more quiet moments, bassist Parker wowed the audience with a “double-arco” (two bows) solo that sounded like several conversations at once, string-bending to eek out impossibly high notes. Later, Drake abandoned his drum kit and took center stage with a single large hand drum, deftly tapping out an interwoven rhythm that, in the tradition of ancient African and Indian music, was multi-layered yet fluid and flexible.

It dawned on me during this concert that so-called free-jazz, when executed in this fashion, is not the formless mush of chaotic sound, the unholy “anti-art” that numerous critics have castigated. It is certainly a rebellion against established forms, particularly the European concept of harmony and static rhythm, but the human artistic impulse is by definition to create form, so what made this concert exciting was watching the musicians function outside the established boundaries and then organically create new form as if from thin air. It’s like removing gravity, and then watching them blow themselves down to earth anyway. In the process, they tap into forces primeval and atomic, elemental and volatile.

As if to underscore my realizations, the concert culminated with Jordan blowing a lithe solo which finally broke down into the old spiritual “Wade in the Water.” Brötzmann joined in and the band as a whole began to shout simple blues phrases with wild intensity, reveling in the music’s most earthy, elemental origins.

This concert set the stage for a remarkable Fest. On the following Saturday night, I found myself at the House of Blues Parish at 1:30 a.m., still glowing from an outstanding Dr. John show at Tip’s Uptown, about to witness the “Battle of the Bands” between trumpeters Kermit Ruffins and Irvin Mayfield along with a capacity crowd.

Ruffins, dressed in a hilarious tailored camouflage suit, hat and tie (geared up for battle, no doubt) won the coin toss and struck early with a crowd favorite, “Viper.” Mayfield’s first retaliation was blunted by mysterious technical difficulties (the PA began playing canned music over the live action), prompting charges of sabotage and a great uproar in the crowd. (Note: Ruffins’ laughter seemed to suggest that this was in fact some kind of planned practical joke.)

Still, Mayfield recovered with spirited renditions of “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” “Cherokee” and original material from the new How Passion Falls record. He seemed to mesmerize the crowd with his explosive trumpet chops and the razor-sharp tightness of his band featuring drummer Jaz Sawyer and saxophonist Aaron Fletcher.

Ruffins, meanwhile, played to his strengths: infectiously fun-loving trumpeting and singing, his overall showman’s charisma. At the end of “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” for example, he let out the famous Louis Armstrong cry “Good Morning Everybody!”, momentarily casting a nostalgic spell over the audience. But by the time Mayfield’s band hit the end of “The Denial,” vamping into strains from “Cissy Strut,” there could be no denying his band’s more formidable power on this occasion.

The excitement was far from over, as Ruffins and Mayfield both took the stage along with renowned trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who emerged from the wings and pushed the exchange of solos to white-hot intensity. The walls shook in a hailstorm of trumpet notes, until, finally, a number of other musicians (including saxophonist Jesse Davis) crowded up on the stage to create a more relaxed jam session vibe. I hurried back Uptown to Tip’s to catch the second half of Galactic’s late night set, arriving just in time to see the Li’l Rascals Brass Band sit in on a rousing “Blues for Ben.” That show ended well past dawn at roughly 7 a.m., leaving precious little time to recover for the Fair Grounds later that day.

My best day at the Fair Grounds, oddly enough, occurred a week later on Saturday, May 5th, the most crowded day in Fest history. For the first time, I showed up early before the crowds gathered. I heard the opening prayer at the Gospel Tent, followed, as I imagine is customary, by the song “On the Battlefield for My Lord.” I wandered into the near-empty Grandstand and watched a film of Louis Armstrong singing “Dinah” in his prime. I listened to the Heritage School of Music Band on the Lagniappe stage before heading out to hear the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indians doing “Let’s Go Get ‘Em” on the Sprint stage. I popped into the Economy Hall tent to hear the Young Tuxedo Brass Band perform “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” and “Joe Avery Blues,” then chased after snare drummer Benny Jones as he raced across the Fair Grounds to lead a brass band second-line. Before I even thought about what was happening, the sweat rolled down my back as I buck-jumped in a frenzy to “Jesus on the Mainline,” “Food Stamp Blues” and “Hey Pocky Way.”

Hardly an hour and a half had passed, the crowds were just starting to take over, and I had already absorbed nearly every essential strain of New Orleans musical culture. Now, that’s what it’s all about!

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Robert Wagner’s New Thing at the Zeitgeist Creative Music Festival on May 2nd. This invigorating band features unusual instrumentation: two drummers, Andy Wolf on electric bass and both Wagner and Joe Cabral on saxophones. The original compositions are expansive yet grounded in deep grooves that sound at times Latin or Afro-beat, at other times like funk or rock. In this context, Cabral displays a surprising power, depth and vast stylistic reach on the tenor that goes largely unnoticed when he plays with the Iguanas (his regular gig). Wagner, likewise, is developing into a stunning player, possessing a fat Sonny Rollins-meets-Pharoah Sanders sound, and occasionally playing two saxes simultaneously like Roland Kirk, but full of quirky originality. Only about 30 people witnessed this phenomenal set at Zeitgeist (many of them fellow musicians), but we were all howling for more.

Imagine seeing James Brown in his prime, except he’s from Nigeria and can play sax like Maceo Parker. That was Femi Anikulapo Kuti at House of Blues on May 2nd. Despite the fact that his longtime band had recently quit on him, he managed to put on an incredibly high energy, captivating show. Milking the “Afro-beat” sound invented and made famous by his father (Fela), Kuti sang, danced, played horn and keyboard, made subtle use of echo effects, and interacted beautifully with his large band and three entrancing female dancers (dressed in bright, scant African garb). There was no need to ask for an encore when he left the stage. The crowd kept chanting a refrain from the previous song—”Ah ee ya ay”—like crazed soccer fans in a foreign country. When the band reemerged, they brought volunteer dancers up on stage, one of whom happened to be “DJ” Davis Rogan (All That bandleader). Rogan’s years of second-line experience paid off as he surprised and greatly amused Kuti’s dancers with his gyrations, shuffle steps and other antics (such as falling down on the stage so one of the dancers could straddle him as she passed over him).