Jazz Fest is a sensory whirlwind par excellence. You can’t not hear great music, eat great food, and encounter art and culture of high quality. But what to actively take in? Here is where my nose and ears led me.

When you enter through the main Gentilly entrance and follow the path to the left away from the Gentilly stage, just before reaching the iconic Roman Candy cart, you will find the 1 Million Strong tent in their second year at the fest. I was drawn to the fresh mocktails that Lenaye Doussan of Tap Truck and her crew were preparing. 1 Million Strong partners with The Phoenix and Stand Together and is aimed at shifting the culture around sobriety and addiction in a music space. New Orleanian Bill Taylor, Director of Music Strategy and Programs with The Phoenix said, “It was well-received last year. Years ago, Anders Osborne and I started Send Me a Friend. This little program we launched now finds itself here. We have a good momentum.” You should also know the Bayou Basil Quencher was a wonderful way to start the day, with its watermelon, basil and more. The Voodoo Mint Fizz is already top of my list for Friday.

As far as food goes, I needed to start off with my classic Jazz Fest dishes, including one that’s returned after a two-year hiatus—Crawfish Bread. I enjoyed it thoroughly, as always. It was also great to see John Ed Laborde again, the founder of Panaroma Foods and the creator of Crawfish Bread. He said, “It’s good to be back. I missed it terribly. It’s a good feeling. The welcome has been refreshing.”

Treating this as a marathon, not a sprint, my other food choice was perennial favorite Cochon de Lait Po-Boy from Walker’s BBQ Love at First Bite. It hit the spot as expected. Guess what? This year there’s also a new version. Proprietor Wanda Walker stressed, “Cochon, no bread this year, took off like crazy.” It’s her 30th year in business and it’s not random that she’s also been a Jazz Fest food vendor for 30 years. What to attribute that to? “I was Jazz Fest staff before, but I had to get off staff to do this.”

I love that one can walk the festival grounds and hear a snippet of a song that beckons to its place of origin. Robert Finley did that with “Make Me Feel Alright,” with its groove a mile wide that had the Blues Tent teeming with others in the sun who, like me, followed the veteran bluesman Pied Piper. At the Jazz & Heritage Stage, Sons of Jazz Brass Band had me almost high-stepping through the grass to see how they were pulling off such a beautiful version of “What You Won’t Do For Love.” John Boutte’s “Treme Song,” booming from the WWOZ Jazz Tent, has become a document of pre- and post-Katrina that harkens to different days. It feels now like both a time capsule and a clarion call.

Alexey Marti kicked off his own WWOZ Jazz Tent performance with the question, “Are you ready to dance?” knowing, of course, the ushers keep the aisles clear. Though the packed house mostly remained seated, Marti and his eight-piece band pulled us in from the first song as a temperature check. This got Marti ready to introduce his hit, “I Know What You Want,” which he then went on to cleverly weave as a motif through the set. It should be mentioned how generous a bandleader Marti is, making sure those of his excellent band, particularly pianist Victor Campbell and trumpet player David Navarro had plenty of time to shine.

Cimafunk filled up the lawn at the Festival Stage with kinetic energy that would not stop once it started. Lead singer Cima’s vocals were as interesting and wide-ranging as the hybrid funkiness of the musicians themselves. The uniquely catchy songs from a range of their career went from the new “Playa Noche” to crowd pleaser “Me Voy.” The genuine joy of the band’s interaction, as typified by Cima grooving with “The Queens,” saxophonist Katy Cacao and trombonist Hilaria Cacao, was infectious and stretched all the way back to the Strawberry Lemonade booth just past the infield.

It was a true honor to meet and talk with internationally known “Visual Jazz” artist Richard Thomas, who is celebrating over 40 years at Jazz Fest. If you don’t know him by name, trust me, you’ve seen his work all over New Orleans, including the airport and the 1989 Jazz Fest poster featuring a certain icon. About the latter, Thomas recalled, “The 20th anniversary poster featured for the first time a recognizable personality, Fats Domino. I’ve been called the musician’s friend. I brought lots of kids out here over the years, including Terrance Osborne when he was a teenager.”

Thomas, who first lived at Third and Tonti, said, “I was a newspaper boy, and that introduced me to the wonderful world of artists—people like Rolland Golden and Emery Clark. That turned out to be very rewarding to me. I was a sickly kid growing up with asthma, but my father banned me from doing art. He thought the real reason I got kept back twice in school was because all I wanted to do was draw. The young artists at Andrew J. Bell [Junior High School] blew my mind and inspired me to disobey my father.”

Thomas emphasized that highly influential Bell band teacher Donald Richardson taught in such an inspiring way that Thomas extended it to how he himself worked with young artists. Learning all that and more made for a great kick-off to Jazz Fest 2024.
—Michael Allen Zell

Sarah Quintana
Quintana, a New Orleans and Paris-based singer-songwriter, kept things light and tight on the Lagniappe stage. Great horn players backed her Miss River band and were complemented by drummer Rose Cangelosi, who kept each song from getting too serious through her bouncy, distinctive backing beats. With French songs, an Irma Thomas cover (“Breakaway”), and Quintana originals, Quintana and her band were the perfect start to a Local’s Thursday and the Fest generally. Quintana segued through her material into a French take on “Let the Good Times Roll,” done in the Shirley & Lee vein, with a guest vocalist to supplement her.

Midway through Quintana’s set, she held the final syllable in the word “cry” while shooting a look at the sky in a somewhat accusatory way. Let’s hope she didn’t dare the weather gods to respond next weekend.

Mem Shannon
The AARP Rhythmporium is now just the Rhythmporium, a sad turn of events for those who considered the tent an oasis in stormy or oppressively hot weather at Jazz Fest. Despite a lack of sponsorship, no music trivia games, or CDs/LPs for sale, or free drinks for AARP members, the tent was bopping very soon after the gates opened for the Fest this year. Mem Shannon & The Membership brought together funk, blues, and Bourbon Street jazz to galvanize the packed-in hordes. His smoking jazzy-blues set showed why the local artist is a worst-kept secret at the Fest.

Brother Tyrone and the Mindbenders
Tyrone, playing in the Blues Tent in the early afternoon, knocked out tunes with vaguely familiar but infectious funk beats. The bass was loud in the mix, threatening to drown out Tyron’s belted-out, electrifying vocals; nonetheless, the whole performance gelled. This was one of those memorable Jazz Fest “discoveries” for me. I, and everyone else, will be back.

Robert Finley
Robert Finley’s bassist/hypeman told some tall tales in his introduction, but Robert Finley is indeed a real-deal Louisianan.

The bluesman, who recently turned 70, was once a carpenter, street performer, Army bandleader, and America’s Got Talent semi-finalist, most of those before releasing his first album. That 2016 record got the attention of Easy Eye Sound and their owner/producer Dan Auerbach, one half of the stadium rock band The Black Keys. Easy Eye has now released three Robert Finley records, most recently in 2023, turning Finley into a blues world phenom. Following in the footsteps of the dearly missed Charles Bradley (2013 Jazz Fest); the two were discovered long after their youthful singing days and have made up for lost time. Finley has played everywhere from Baton Rouge to Nashville.

At the Fest, in dark grey cowboy hat, gold belt buckle, blue jeans, and dark t-shirt emblazoned with his most recent album cover, Finley grooved through new and not-so-recent material, including “Miss Kitty,” with its memorable couplet: “I call her Miss City, ’cause I know I can get it/ She got everything that I need.” Of its titular character, Finley says he based her on a woman who has twice weaved in and out of his life. Based on the booming, pleading vocals, “Kitty”—or whoever she may be—must’ve done somebody, likely Finley, very wrong.

Finley, who says he’s been “living out of a suitcase,” wrote another set staple for all the traveling people of the world. Untethered—except for a handheld microphone—he moved animatedly, marching in place to the slow, screaming guitar and the rhythms of the rest of his four-piece band. Finley got so into the dirty blues sound swirling around him, he squatted and danced in a frog-like position, to a roar of approval from the crowd. At one point, after taking a seat, his tambourine-playing backup singer had to offer him a hand, but the bandleader was back swaying away seconds later.

“What goes around,” he sings on the hard-hitting song of the same name, “comes around.” Let’s hope that means Finley will circle back to the Fest next year.
—Brian Fairbanks