A little more than a week after returning home from New Orleans, I’ve finally recovered enough to reflect on my experiences.
We meander down Frenchmen Street casually seeking a place to eat. Me, my husband Phil, and our good friend Alex are three revelers among several hundred soaking up the festive atmosphere and cheerful chaos created by a citywide celebration of good times and great music. It’s the second weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, sometime around 11 at night, and the vibe is laid back in such a way that I hadn’t seen since my first Jazz Fest in ’05, the one before Katrina.
People crowd the sidewalks and spill out into the streets, some standing in disorderly lines outside the range of bars and clubs, waiting to get ID’d and stamped or wristbanded, others flocking to see a many-piece brass band that has set up right at a crossroads and is playing the sort of lively, Creole-infused jazz you only hear in New Orleans. The performance has caused a traffic gridlock, the vehicles barely able to move around the crush of bodies having a joyous, spontaneous party in the street.
Everyone is having a grand old time. Even the cops seem to be in good spirits; we pass a pair who are patiently dealing with a sloppy drunk frat-looking guy. “Move along,” says one with a long suffering look and a gentle push. Frat Guy’s not catching the hint and in fact, turns around and holds out his hand, slurring to the cops, “Dudes, let’s shake it out. Can we shake it out?”
“Keep walking,” says Sgt. Long Suffering, more sternly this time and with a forbidding look at Frat Guy’s friends, who start tugging, then dragging him and cajoling him urgently, “Let’s go, man, come on.” We slide around the scene, exchanging amused looks, and make our way a few blocks down and over to grab dinner and drinks at a little bar called Mojo’s on Decatur Street. Once we’ve fueled up, we head back to Frenchmen to see Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey at d.b.a.
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This article appears in May 7-13, 2008.