Living in New Orleans Has its Privileges

You might come down here for the Voo Doo Music Experience (unofficially the October version of Jazz Fest) this weekend, but maybe not for last weekend's Crescent City Blues & Barbecue Festival, possibly the best kept music secret in the city of New Orleans, and completely free. There were no football stadium headliners, the audience was loaded with locals, and the music sounded so good it was ridiculous.

I think on Saturday in New Orleans it's morning until 2PM because Marc Stone of The Marc Stone Band kept apologizing for making everybody say "Yeah!" so early, even though it was already 1:30. They began building with some less demanding blues for breakfast until it reached 2 o'clock, when you could palpably feel a crowd energy shift. Marc and the boys then initiated the afternoon and the block party by tearing the house down with beefy blues, ringing out across Lafayette Square Park. City pigeons winged in V formation against a cloudless sky from elegant CBD office buildings to the old City Hall and back. Couples spontaneously danced with each other's partners on the grass.

Whatever you wore to the festival, you were dressed right. Maybe you had on a shiny olive pinstripe suit and black cowboy boots. Maybe you had glitter adorned sneakers. Overalls? OK. Cargo shorts and tee shirt? Very popular. And hats from stingy brim fedora's to feather embellished velvet caps - not important, just for fun...

We sat in the grass behind some wizened festival veterans with their portable chair cup holders cradling brimming beers and waited. Then, a tuba, a drum, a saxophone and a genius appeared on stage. We had missed Anders Osborne at the Jazz Fest because he was opposite someone we had to see, but now we were seeing him for free. Passion is not a New Orleans monopoly, but we've got it in spades, and Anders & Co definitely came to represent. He could be the modern soundtrack to New Orleans - so outstanding he sounds good sober.

After that, we had to hit the Best of New Orleans 2008 po-boy #1's, so we did a tour. After finding Domilise's in the middle of an uptown neighborhood on Annunciation, we ordered and split the large shrimp po-boy. The authentic flavor of that joint can not be replicated. Then all the way across town to Parkway Bakery and Tavern for the dressed roast beef. As the sun set on Bayou St. John, we cruised back up Broad St. Just another ordinary weekend in New Orleans.

Hurricanes are Not the Bosses of Us

We fell in love with New Orleans 20 years ago, and were getting ready to come back here when Katrina nuked it. Rumors of post-apocalyptic gangs roving the streets under marshal law, and piles of burning garbage in the streets being gnawed by wild dogs like something out of Blade Runner, persisted in the media even three years afterward. We gritted our teeth on Leap Year Day 2008, and determined to visit the ravaged city no matter how heartbreaking a scene we would find.

At 60 miles out of the city, we saw snapped off trees still dotting the highway median. Coming in over Lake Pontchartrain, we paralleled the new bridge under construction. In New Orleans East, the abandoned Six Flags stood as a ready backdrop for some horror movie with evil clowns. As we approached through metro peripheral neighborhoods, greater remnants of destruction began to flash by - defunct grocery stores and boarded, shell-bombed apartment complexes went on for several miles. Then we crossed the I-10 bridge over the lower 9th ward.

We stayed in a newly renovated hotel on Canal St. – we could see the sunrise over the Mississippi River, and look down on a semi-gutted housing project. Under I-10 in the median bisecting Claiborne St. were multiple tent cities of homeless. Driving through Mid-City, municipal buildings and schools all appeared empty. In the City Park area little trailers stood outside several homes on every block, the spray painted X’s of the search and rescue teams faded but still visible on their clapboards. But everything seemed under construction.

As out-of-towners we were fascinated with the local Katrina experience, mostly out of desperation to uncover if it had destroyed the city’s special culture forever. But when we talked to the people of New Orleans, they would tend to mention it, if at all, as a point in a timeline where some stuff happened before and some after. If you pressed them, everyone had a terrible story about “the storm” as they called it, but they would eventually turn the conversation back to the present day with some affirmative statement borne out of the city’s indomitable spirit. It affected the city deeply, and there are some who still live like it was just yesterday, but most have taken it for what it was, come to grips with it, and are moving forward.

And that’s my point. We can report New Orleans is alive and well and welcomes you back anytime. We found that the people of New Orleans aren’t still crying – they’re still smiling and laughing with their traditional jazz funeral response to adversity. Their world-wise sense of humor has not only helped them survive, with it has survived what is, in fact, New Orleans itself.

(New Orleans is rapidly rebuilding - see A Walk to the French Quarter)

Counting the Nice People in 40 Minutes

A two mile stroll through the architectural wonderland of uptown New Orleans the other day took us past colorful paint schemes, rich gardens, architectural details (like a Shakespeare door knocker)...we saw an ancient live oak tree with a trunk 12 ft around and a canopy 125 ft across. A beautiful girl sitting on her porch with the door wide open to catch the cool breeze smiled and said, "How's it goin'?" A man on his steps with a Pekingese tied by a delicate chain to a Crape-myrtle at the curb confessed as we passed, "I'm walking the dog the lazy way!" We were nearly attacked by another dog named Harvey who was no bigger than a cat, little curly hair all over him...his owner came running from the steps of her stunning old home to apologize and scoop Harvey up into her arms. While we tried to snap a picture of a tree with the most beautiful flowers, a gardener pulling up in a truck at a stop sign nearby with his window down just leaned out and said, "It's a Japanese magnolia." People who haven't visited here maybe don't realize you can live like this every day. We have started to call these "New Orleans moments" - tell us yours!

Two Words...Frenchman Street!

Last night we cruised in the convertible to some live music on Frenchman St. in the Marigny. The famous street is densely packed with clubs, some doors wide open with jazz jumping out. At d.b.a. we caught Hot Club of New Orleans - a Django Reinhart style quintet with a stellar clarinet player. The bar has the high ceilings with pendant fans, wooden floors, and large angled mirrors reflecting the eclectic crowd. In New Orleans it's like everybody notices you and nobody pays any attention at the same time. Because of this, you can truly relax when you're out on the town. The music was so cool, we kept saying to each other, "If we were in New York, you couldn't get in here with a shoe horn." Instead, we had front row bar stools and shared a decent bottle of wine for an exceptional beer joint.

After the last set, we stepped across the street to check out the Spotted Cat, back across the street to peek in the window of Snug Harbor, and walking back to our car passed Blue Nile and Hookah Cafe all within two blocks.

Top down, balmy breeze coming in off the Mississippi, we drove down Decatur Street while fireworks exploded over the river for some unknown occasion. Through the beautiful evening we eased our way uptown on Magazine St. passing restaurants bustling at the sidewalk with al fresco patrons.

Tomorrow, free live music at the extra large one year anniversary Freret Market celebration - let you know who's worth catching again down on Frenchman St.