Every year I feel obligated to wax poetic about why I love the Jazz Fest-and why you should love it too (of course, if you’re reading this magazine, I may be preaching to the choir).

The Jazz Fest epitomizes everything to love about New Orleans-the music, the food, her laid-back approach to life, her history and unique culture, her ingrained traditions, her warm people and her party atmosphere. It also is representative of local politics, which can be somewhat retrogressive, but usually quite entertaining, nonetheless. But, in my humble opinion-and the real reason I want to continue publishing this magazine-it’s the music. It’s why you’re reading this now, and why you’ll want to experience more!

The Jazz Fest distills the essence of why New Orleans citizens love their hometown, don’t want to leave, never want it to change, and-sometimes without meaning to-keep people “from the outside world” at arm’s length, at least until they’ve proven themselves worthy of New Orleans’ charms.

If you love our music and our musicians, don’t just stop with Jazz Fest. Please keep coming to experience more of our quirky city and take a side trip to another part of the state (there’s lots outside New Orleans for you to experience). In the almost 13 years that this magazine’s been in existence, we’ve thought about the time when we might have covered every base, written about every musician, covered every event-but the well seems to get deeper every year. The wealth of musical talent and the emotional life of the city that embraces and encourages the creativity here is truly an amazing phenomenon-and another reason why creative folk can’t seem to keep away from New Orleans.

Please support our local musicians and music economy by buying local music, seeing musicians at clubs here and throughout Louisiana. Support our bands when they play in your hometown-there are many festivals that focus on Louisiana music throughout the country, many of whom are represented in this issue of OffBeat: New Orleans By The Bay in California, the Crawfish Festivals in New Jersey (with a new one in the Detroit area this year), the Fort Lauderdale Festivals, the Zydeco Festival in Plaisance, and a touring festival of Louisiana music that will tour ten US cities beginning this summer.

And my annual loving admonition: love our music and our city; please don’t turn Jazz Fest into another drunken Mardi Gras event. Party respectfully and love one another!

Honoring The Emperor

So many of local musicians are beloved; yet so many don’t get real respect from audiences until after they’ve passed away (Professor Longhair, James Booker, to name but a few). This year we’ve decided to honor one of the living greats: Ernie K-Doe, of “Mother-In-Law” and more fame, the self-proclaimed “Emperor of the Universe.” He’s a local beloved musician and a colorful part of the city’s musical history, and we thought we’d give him his props while he was still with us, so…Hail Ernie!!

Mr. K-Doe graces the cover of this month’s free edition of OffBeat, and our annual poster which we publish around Jazz Fest time. Bunny Matthews, local illustrator, writer of renown and Associate Editor of this publication, specifically chose the pose of Mr. K-Doe for our poster as the “OffBeat” version of the official Jazz Fest poster by the ubiquitous George Rodrigue. We thought we’d had just about enough of those Blue Dogs, so Bunny decided to add in some Mardi Gras-flavored Chihuahuas to our little poster. The “Festival Y2K-Doe” poster is available for $35 from OffBeat (signed by Bunny Matthews and numbered) or for $60 (also signed by Mr. K-Doe).

OffBeat will host a poster-signing party at the Ernie K-Doe Jazzfest Celebration and Buffet on May 3 at the Rock ‘N’ Bowl® (Tulane and S. Carrollton Avenue, in case you’re from another planet) from noon til 5pm. Meet and shake the hand of one of New Orleans’ greatest musical performers and eat a home-cooked meal from the buffet table of “Soul Food Queen” T-Eva, with a great helping of Mrs. Antoinette K-Doe’s gumbo. Emperor K-Doe will perform all afternoon with local bands. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to party through the afternoon, with great food, music, the OffBeat staff (including the wonderful Mr. Matthews-a characktah, his ownself) and, of course, the K-Doe clan.

News of Note for Festers

There’s so much musical going on during Jazz Fest that naming everything of note would take up way too much space for this humble column (see Listings, Club Crawl, Column, etc. etc.). But here are some tidbits of things you might want to check out.

Please be sure and get an extra copy of the magazine to take home to a friend and have a hang at the Across Da Street Bar, at the corner of Gentilly Boulevard and Fortin Blvd., right across from the Fair Grounds. Every Monday night Across Da Street will present classic R&B, funk, jazz and blues from the New Orleans Vintage Band Red Beans and Rice Revue. The Revue plays every Monday night from 7pm to 11pm, with no cover.

Jazz Festers can also enjoy a rare screening of the multi-award-winning documentary “Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together,” by local filmmaker Stevenson Palfi. This is a rare treat for lovers of New Orleans music, and features Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint and Tuts Washington. The screening is at 8 p.m. on May 3 at the Prytania Theater in Uptown New Orleans at 5339 Prytania Street (call 891-2787 for more info).

The first-ever GRAMMY in the Schools® in Louisiana will be held at the beautiful New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA) complex on May 1. GRAMMY in the Schools®’ purpose is create opportunities for local high school students to interact with music industry professionals. As regular readers of this column are aware, I am a strong proponent of music business education for musicians, and particularly for young people wanting to get into the business of music, and I would encourage you if you’re a high school student interested in getting involved in music, to attend this event. Participants in this event will include one of the Neville Brothers, Entertainment Attorney Suzette Becker; Dr. Scott Fredrickson of Loyola University’s Music Business Studies Program; Producer/Engineer John Fischbach; video producers, managers, songwriters, record label execs, music journalists and much more. The GRAMMY in The Schools is an important program of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). Louisiana has yet to form its own chapter of NARAS, and we encourage all local musicians and music industry folks to get involved! For more information on NARAS or the school program, contact Jon Hornyak at (901) 525-1340.

Happy Festin’, and come back and see us soon!