Saturday was the kind of day that Jazz Fest likes to brag about: The crowds were there in droves, and didn’t seem to be concentrated at any one stage. In fact, an out of town friend hit the Gospel Tent early, saw Tonia Scott & the Anointed Voices, and came back raving that the backup band was better than many that he’d seen in arenas. I’d say the same about the Voices of Peter Claver choir, whose band featured a funky piano/conga combination, and whose vocal arrangements made good use of the contrast between the childrens’ and grown-up voices in the choir. For folks who overindulge on their first night of Festing and hit the Gospel Tent next day to get lifted, this would’ve done the trick.
Herb Hardesty’s set was what I imagine you might have heard when the musicians warmed up for a Fats Domino session in the ‘50s. Hardesty is of course best known for playing the sax solos on Domino’s hits (and lately, as a frequent sit-in guest with Dr. John), and his set at the Blues Tent was what you’d call jazz-rock fusion—except that both the jazz and the rock harked back to the mid-’50s. They kicked back on a few standards, stretched out on some early rock numbers (including “The Hucklebuck”) and generally gave the sense of pros at work.
The Voice of the Wetlands Allstars set is usually an easy way to check a bunch of names off your must-see list. The lineup was slightly altered this year: Dr. John was absent, and Michael Doucet replaced Waylon Thibodeaux in the fiddle slot. You still had John Vidacovich and Stanton Moore tag-teaming on drums, Anders Osborne and leader Tab Benoit trading solos (and Osborne reviving the storm-themed “Oh Katrina” which he hadn’t played in awhile), and Cyril Neville and George Porter Jr. adding the funk; plus Monk Boudreaux joining the group at the finale. But surprisingly, it wasn’t any of the above who provided the set’s highlight: It was Johnny Sansone, whose “The Lord Is Waiting & The Devil is Too” proved an unusually intense and foreboding bit of swamp blues. When Sansone went red-faced and clutched his heart after screaming a chorus, I wasn’t sure whether to get worried. Great to hear Doucet’s fiddle in this context, a long way from the relative calm of BeauSoleil.
Andrew Bird at Jazz Fest on Saturday, April 27, 2013 (photo: Elsa Hahne and Golden Richard III)
Allen Toussaint can be far too modest in his Fest sets, putting the spotlight on his backup players instead of on his mighty song catalogue. That was partly the case in his show this week: Grace Darling, a perfectly good singer/saxophonist who recorded for his NYNO label, got called up for two songs; and a mini-Labelle tribute followed with his band’s three singers. Later in the set came a few minutes’ worth of Toussaint calling out everybody in the band. Between all this came the real payoff: Toussaint doing a fine, surprise cover of the Band’s “Life is a Carnival” (which he dedicated to Levon Helm), and reaching into the ‘70s for “Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky” and “Soul Sister” (perhaps the only song that ever made “Hey, you with the curly bush on your head” sound like a viable come-on). You’re grateful for those nuggets (and for the appearance of a newish song, “Whatever Happened to Rock & Roll”), but I still yearn for a whole set of Toussaint honoring himself as a writer.
As someone who neither loves nor hates Billy Joel, I’d say his set was about as good as Fest sets by aging ‘70s superstars get (and he’s fine with jokes about his age, pointing out onstage that “I look so much like my dad now that my mom’s started hitting on me”). It wasn’t the usual greatest-hits set, honoring New Orleans by including some hardly-performed numbers—like the Scott Joplin-esque “Root Beer Rag,” which he expressed doubts about being able to get through, but did fine. A couple of his biggest hits were absent, replaced by deep cuts like “Zanzibar” and “Big Man on Mulberry Street,” both about as close to jazz as he gets. There was also a surprise Preservation Hall Jazz Band cameo during “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant”; they appeared in the section that references New Orleans. “The Downeaster Alexa” was dedicated to Boston and Joel’s self-effacing humor was a plus; he even took a jab at one of his whinier lyrics, “The Entertainer”, noting afterward that “I was wrong on that one, but we all write a bullshit song sometimes.” Even the wall-of-hits finale (“Only the Good Die Young,” “River of Dreams”, “Piano Man”) sounded spirited. It was bound to feel nostalgic, since Joel stopped writing new songs two decades ago, but it didn’t have the phoned-in quality you often get from comeback tours.
Click here for OffBeat’s Jazz Fest 2013 Photo Set from Day 2, April 27
Click here for OffBeat’s Jazz Fest 2013 online guide
