Yes, and it is the best party on earth. Haven't been since Katrina since the friends I used to stay with moved to Baton Rouge. But I miss it. Crawfish Monica. Abita Amber. Soft shell Crab Po-boys. Snake n Jakes. The Maple Leaf. Juan's Flying Burrito. The Music Factory. Running into Earl King getting out a cab and helping him load in his gear to the club ("Nice to have white guys working for me!" -he said). Seeing Dr.John, Allen Toussaint, Marcia Ball & Eddie Bo playing simultaneously on two grand pianos. Discovering there were indoor bathrooms in the grandstand at the Fairgrounds, and knowing I'd never have to use a port-o-let in 98 degree heat again. So many great memories. More good shows in one week than I'd get in Toronto in a year.

Second Weekend looks sick.

Aaah, but there's much more than Cajun music at Jazz Fest, MM.
I don't know if Sonny Landreth, from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana is on the schedule this year, but check him out anyway:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0drgG6bnS4

i can't imagine a jazz fest in new orleans being less than a great time.  they have these around my area pretty much every summer, but i never go.  jazz bore the daylights out of me.

By Tod Smith        

Seven days, two weekends, forty years. No matter how you measure it, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Presented by Shell is a musical and cultural rite of spring for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. From its humble beginnings at Congo Square, to this the 40th anniversary, Jazz Fest always provides enough musical variety to satisfy even the most diverse musical appetites.
Yet, it's the variety of musical styles that has been perceived as both a blessing and a curse depending on the individual doing the perceiving. To the purist, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival long ago abandoned the "jazz" in its title and became more of a general music fest—a place to be seen, but one that is not a serious festival like Monterey or Newport. While to others, dependence on the tradition can sometimes make the festival seem stale or stodgy. Wherever you fall in the vast spectrum of musical opinion, a little objectivity provides festival goers a chance to experience what Jazz Fest really is about—a great time to experience music, food and culture influenced by southern Louisiana.

While the specific times for each act are yet to be published, it's not too early to plan on catching some of the big and not so big names performing at this year's event.

Weekend 1

The obvious choices are here as Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra perform in New Orleans for the first time since April 2006 and for the first time ever at Jazz Fest. Terence Blanchard, Dave Matthews, Etta James, Wilco and James Taylor are a few of the other big names that will grace the stages during the first weekend, April 24th-26th, but some of the local, less widely known acts are worth a try. While no list is complete, following are some potential hidden highlights of the first weekend.

If traditional mainstream jazz is your thing, vocalists Stephanie Jordan, Leah Chase and Germaine Bazzle are perennial fest favorites, while drummer Herlin Riley, formerly of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, is definitely worth sampling. Fans of New Orleans funk should plan on Ivan Neville and Dumpstafunk, Papa Grows Funk and Walter "Wolfman" Washington. Brass bands are as much part of Jazz Fest weekend as food is and brass bands Rebirth, the Hot 8 and the Fairview Brass Band Reunion Tribute to Danny Barker should all be special sets. Other sets worth checking out include Trombone Shorty, Big Sam's Funky Nation and the Dew Drop Inn Reunion featuring Deacon John and Allen Toussaint.

Weekend 2

The big names are here again as Aretha Franklin makes a rare festival appearance in week two. Add to that Tony Bennett, Buddy Guy, the Kings of Leon, Dr. John and Los Lobos and you already have a full plate for the weekend. But the local acts will not disappoint.

Kermit Ruffins and the Barbeque Swingers bring a uniquely New Orleans experience that you won't forget. For more brass band sounds, Dirty Dozen is a party waiting to happen, while Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Swingers bring the sounds of Cajun Country with a distinctly R&B flavor. Bonerama is a trombone funk festival. There are performers who live on the fringes and the intersection of musical styles and the results are at the very least, intriguing. The New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, Bamboula 2000, and the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra all defy traditional categorization and are favorites among experienced fest folk. Other notables include clarinetists Dr. Michael White and Tim Laughlin, improvisational master and educator Kidd Jordan and violinist Michael Ward.

One more thing, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is one you can't afford to miss over both weekends. Representing a tradition that goes back generations, theirs is a special brand of music and performance that is not easily described but is easily one of the most unique experiences you'll enjoy anywhere.

It's nearly impossible to highlight all that's good about Jazz Fest. You'll find yourself having to make some tough choices as great acts are always scheduled against each other throughout the days. Bottom line is this; it's hard to go wrong at a music and cultural festival as diverse as this. If you're predisposed to categories, toss them aside for these two special weekends and just go out to enjoy some good food, some good art and some great music.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31754

Haven't been yet but maybe in the next few years.

Emmylou Harris on 30 April !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQnDqE7cdxI

Neil Young on 3 May !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Yviw0MkCI

Ivan Neville & Dumpstaphunk on 25 April !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCJ1oz-BNH4

Eric Lindell on 2 May

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqmsHY0tdd0

Patty Griffin on 1 May        TTM, are you listening?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bHc18n6tBU

Pete Seeger on 25 April

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh0elZi0KG4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RL8ZcmLEB4

I think this guy deserves two vids:

Alex McMurray on 30 April

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqDp731FZr0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1RDcJ7VkV4

Edith Grove wrote on Mar 28^th, 2009 at 6:27pm:


I'm all ears.
In the end its all a matter of taste.  It's actually pretty hard to have bad taste in music. Unless your a rabid Bon Jovi fan then it comes naturally, some kind of genetic defect, But really whatever rocks the cradle.

Original Dixieland Jazz Band on 2 May

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ahodYxIN0c



And the original Original Dixieland Jazz Band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yMvzxDqsQ

Jon Cleary and The Absolute Monster Gentlemen on 3 May

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKsjJnJue7I

Check out this young lady, Amanda Shaw on 24 April

She's 18 now but these clips are a couple of years old, still amazing IMHO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCLO3fII7k0


She really plays her heart out on this one, especially from 3:00 onwards.
Keep in mind that she's only 15 years old in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qRhyy1uaKQ

Galactic tomorrow, 25 April

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpc_PiH6NWo

New Orleans Jazz Vipers 25 April

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdk2alD4xKc

Maybe or not Jazz Fest related, but a streaker just ran past my house! Totally   naked, not even shoes or a scarf!

Seems like I never have my camera when I really need it!  

Papa Grows Funk on 26 April

Excellent pro-shot video in "HQ" taken at last year's Jazz Fest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv1OHX4-HsQ

BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet le 1 Mai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RD9M8uwt2g

Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Rebirth Brass Band on 1 May

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXDzhPM8nJk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E1VBCcA76E

John Mayall on 2 May

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kuPYm7SlIE

April 29, 2009, 4:00 PM
The Ponderosa Stomp: A Gathering of Survivors
By JON PARELES

Cheryl Gerber for The New York Times
The Remains performing at the Ponderosa Stomp.
NEW ORLEANS, La.,–

Guitar twangers, soul belters, blues shouters, rockabillies, funk generators, garage-rockers and psychedelic holdouts - that’s the annual Ponderosa Stomp, the two-night musical marathon, from 6 p.m. to after 3 a.m., tucked between the weekends of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Founded by Dr. Ike, an anesthesiologist named Ira Padnos with a record collector’s dedication to the combination of obscurity and wildness, the Stomp is now in its eighth year in New Orleans, where I’ll be hearing way too much music (and blogging about it) till the 40th annual Jazzfest ends on Sunday.

The Ponderosa Stomp - named after a collector’s-item single, “Pondarosa [sic] Stomp,” by Lazy Lester, who’s due to perform on the second night - has been spreading. Now a nonprofit foundation, it has produced shows in Austin, in Memphis and, this summer, in New York City, where Midsummer Night Swing and the Lincoln Center festival had the Stomp book a night each of Memphis soul (July 16), rockabilly (July 17) and New Orleans R&B (July 19).

But those lineups are only a fraction of what the Stomp assembles for its annual revue at home, on two stages at the House of Blues here.

During the day, the Stomp has organized its second annual conference with panels of musicians and music experts unveiling their memories.

Dr. Ike said on Tuesday that raising the $200,000 for this year’s Stomp had been difficult during the economic downturn. Many of the sets were recorded for the July 4th “American Routes,” the public-radio show.

Among other things, the Stomp is a gathering of survivors: musicians who have been been picking, pounding and wailing professionally for many decades, and whose gray hair and career setbacks haven’t tamed their music yet - and sometimes not their showmanship. The first night featured music from Texas, Tennessee, Detroit and Boston.

Some glimpses:

Little Willie Littlefield, a Texan boogie-woogie pianist and singer who started recording in the 1940’s, led off Tuesday’s lineup with unswerving left-hand propulsion while his right splashed and tinkled all over the place. A few songs into his set, he pulled off his jacket and tie and placed his right shoe up on the piano.
The rockabilly singer Dale Hawkins and the guitarist James Burton, whose 1957 collaboration on “Susie Q” jumpstarted both of their careers - and finished their Tuesday night set - were first reunited (after four decades) at a previous Ponderosa Stomp and enthusiastically returned. No
wonder: Mr. Burton, who played with Ricky Nelson in the 1950’s and Elvis Presley through his Las Vegas years, is a grandmaster of twang, sly and precise. He places the exact triplet run, bent note, jazz chord or bluegrass filigree where it will make a solo leap out–spurring Mr. Hawkins to sing with extra gusto.
Mr. Burton also backed Emmylou Harris in her Hot Band in the 1970’s; his successor was the guitarist Barry Tashian, who in the 1960’s had led a Boston garage band, Barry & the Remains, that was the opening act for the Beatles’ last American tour. Now reunited, the Remains tore into their 1960’s repertory with adamant glee. Closer to the pop craftsmanship of the British Invasion than to simpler mid-1960’s American garage rock, the songs revolve around minor chords and seethe with resentment against errant girlfriends. And they take peculiar turns, particularly in “Don’t Look Back,” which starts with accusations and breaks into something like gospel - “Truth is the light/light is the way” - before getting snide again.

Cheryl Gerber for The New York Times
Dale Hawkins performing at the Ponderosa Stomp.
Dennis Coffey was the studio guitarist that Motown called on to bring psychedelic immediacy to Temptations songs like “Ball of Confusion.”
He sat in with the soul and funk band the Bo-Keys, one of the preservationist bands that makes the Ponderosa Stomp work. (The Stomp also had Deke Dickerson and the Eccofonics for rockabilly and the A-Bones for garage-rock.) Mr. Coffey has turned nonstop jitters into memorable style. His right hand was on a perpetual tremolo, moving rapidly across the strings in scrubbing funk chords or stuttering melody lines; his left was restless on the fretboard, doing twitchy, zig-zagging improvisations or leaving jet trails of glissando. Every phrase took on an extra core of percussive syncopation, making the music boil up from within.
The Texan rockabilly singer Ray Sharpe, backed by the A-Bones, was an apparition in beret, shades, short-sleeved jacket, gold chain, patterned shirt, cutoff jeans, knee socks and Nikes. Playing lead guitar with an attack like Chuck Berry plus reverb and singing in a siren voice, he flung anarchic whoops, hollers and extra syllables into songs like his 1959 hit “Linda Lu” and a song he recorded in the mid-1960’s backed by King Curtis on saxophone and Jimi Hendrix on guitar, called “Mary Jane.” He insisted it was about a girl, and laughed.
Classie Ballou, a guitarist from South Louisiana who was an essential sideman for the zydeco accordionist Boozoo Chavis and the R&B singer Rosco Gordon, was a full-throated lead singer on his own. But he concentrated on his superb lead guitar, playing wiry, lucid, incisively melodic solos over rhumba-blues grooves from his band, which includes his children and a grandchild.
Little Joe Washington, a Texan guitarist, wore a cowboy hat over his gray dreadlocks. As his drummer and bassist rolled through blues shuffles, Mr. Washington sang about “lovin’” and got seriously physical with his guitar. He made it squawk, ambled through long woozy lines, jabbed quick blues phrases; he scraped the strings with his pick, rubbed the guitar on his hair and spent a lot of time playing it with his mouth, pausing only to exclaim, in a falsetto, “Daddy, don’t stop!”
Mr. Washington segued easily into James Blood Ulmer, the guitarist who circled back to the blues via Ornette Coleman’s harmolodic jazz, leading his own trio. He was just as spiky and free-associative as Mr. Washington, though he substituted politics for raunch.
Alton Lott, half of the rockabilly duo Alton and Jimmy who recorded for Sun Records, had a glittering G clef on his cowboy shirt and sang song after song about girls who got away, including “No More Crying the Blues” from 1959. He claimed to have just seen her at their 50th high-school reunion: “Good thing I let her go,” he declared. He was part of a mini-revue of Sun alumni, along with Johnny Powers, Carl Mann and Cowboy Jack Clement, Sun’s recording engineer, who became a country songwriter. Mr. Clement played a forlorn, metaphor-slinging songs about lost love and songwriting, particularly writing songs about lost love.
Two full-fledged soul singers, Otis Clay and Howard Tate, were in the lineup, both reveling in the slow-building dynamics of gospel. Otis Clay was backed by the Hi Rhythm Section, from Memphis, where he had recorded in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He announced that his music hailed from Memphis, Chicago (where he lives) and Mississippi (where he was born). And it did, as he could move between the gritty vehemence of Memphis soul shouting and the smooth-soul suavity of Chicago, sometimes in a single line. “I’m no angel,” he sang in one song, “but I can take you to heaven tonight.”
Mr. Tate, who recorded in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s before disappearing from music, made a 2001 comeback at one of the Ponderosa Stomp’s New Orleans precursors, parties at the Circle Bar. His imploring high tenor, and his leaps into falsetto, were still strong.
Performing well past 3 a.m. was Lady Bo, who played guitar in Bo Diddley’s band during his hitmaking late-1950’s heyday. Leading a trio, with her guitar sound swathed in echo and flanging effects, she lent her husky voice to what became psychedelic meditations on the rhythms and machismo of the 1950’s–including new lyrics, proclaiming “I’m a Woman,” for the Muddy Waters-Bo Diddley song “Mannish Boy.”
It’s hard to tell if the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, born in 1947, is a weirdo or a conceptual art act. (David Bowie has recorded one of his songs, “I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship.”) With his band (including Klaus Flouride on bass, from the Dead Kennedys) playing taut, stop-start punkabilly vamps, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy declaimed, crooned and barked his lyrics, determinedly avoiding anything like a recurring rhythm.
By the time he performed his 1968 single, “Paralyzed,” he had also stripped until he was topless except for his black cowboy hat, his eyeglasses and a white neckerchief, flaunting a serious belly.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/the-ponderosa-stomp-a-gathering-of-...

The Radiators on 3 May

Video for Suck the Head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gslJP3m1Qno  

Reviews, articles, and hundreds of high quality pics of Jazz Fest can be seen here: http://www.nola.com/jazzfest/