Walkin' to New Orleans

I think a weekend in New Orleans will cure anyone of just about anything, except for whatever it is you might catch down there.

I've just returned from three-plus days in the Crescent City. It was the weekend of Jazzfest, as well as an extended bachelor party for an old friend. I've returned home with a light wallet, a perceptibly larger waistline and a head full of music.

I'd long heard those familiar tales of how urine and vomit run in the streets like cherry wine down in The Big Easy, but I'd never seen it for myself. I was lucky enough to splash into the experience by landing after midnight and arriving at my hotel in the Quarter at about 1:00am, stone cold sober, with directions to meet a merry band of revelers at the far end of Bourbon Street. This meant that I was about to become the Sober One in the staggering and lurching capital of the world. I headed downstairs, acquired a very tall cup of beer from a "bar" that was really nothing more than a window, and navigated through the massive outdoor Bourbon Street party for roughly a half-mile, doing my best to catch up quickly but still aware that I was way, way behind these people. Certain words kept springing to mind: depraved, surreal, decadent. And this was still only Thursday night.

I don't mean to imply that the weekend was all about public intoxication -- we were there to see lots of music, from noon til late every night. The Jazzfest occurs at a horse track uptown, toward Lake Ponchartrain. It was quite warm the first day, but breezy, showery and cooler on Saturday. My biggest highlight was Saturday afternoon's performance by Allen Toussaint, whom I knew as a songwriter, pianist, producer and arranger but not really as a performer. Wow. Toussaint knows the deep, deep intricacies of groove as well as anybody. His horn arrangements were dynamite, his band was well-rehearsed and sometimes seemingly telepathic. If there is one person who encapsulates everything I experienced in town -- the French, the Spanish, the Caribbean, and the all-kinds-mixed-together American thing, plus the sweat, the funk, the feel, and the elegance -- it's Allen Toussaint.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters had the unenviable task of following Toussaint. EC happily ran through his early hits and newer material, though I can't imagine why he didn't get Toussaint to stick around long enough to join him on "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," their 1989 collaboration. (Elvis didn't play it at all.) It would've made my day.

The solo performance by Randy Newman made everyone uncomfortable. "Short People" may amuse, "Political Science" may be shrugged off as a dated, goofball Cold War comment (though it's really not that dated, is it?), and "The World Isn't Fair" may be taken for comedy as much as a bizarre remark on the fall of Marxism. But there is no denying that singing "Rednecks," down in Louisiana, shuts everyone up and grinds the party to a halt. People really didn't know what to do with themselves. (The guy next to me with the LSU hat and the "George W. Bush Is My Homeboy" t-shirt sure didn't like the second verse, I'll tell you that much.) A couple of songs later, "Sail Away" didn't really get the party re-started either. Newman is still making trouble, at 61 years old. It was a strange, idiosyncratic performance. I think he's brilliant.

Elsewhere, I saw Doc Cheatham's old bandmates play a 1925-style tribute to him. I saw the Dirty Dozen Brass Band -- another onetime Costello collaborator -- tear it up. I saw a fair amount of hot zydeco, and I saw the gospel tent erupt for "When The Saints Go Marching In" (among other things). I saw about five minutes of Galactic before I was bored to tears -- don't they know how obvious their mediocrity is when Allen Toussaint is playing a couple of hundred yards away? -- and thankfully, I saw an awful lot of fans of bad music disappear when Dave Matthews started playing at the far end of the Fairgrounds, making it a lot easier to enjoy the good stuff at our end.

Some of the best music I saw all weekend was in a tavern on Bourbon, a few steps beyond the part that seemed to attract the most drunk college kids. A dazzling clarinetist, a strong saxman, a couple of fierce-strumming banjoists, a loose-handed piano player and a powerful upright bassist traded fours all night at Fritzel's European Jazz Pub. And it was free.

In addition to our time at the Fest, we did make it out of the Quarter a few times to explore the city and its food. The nightspots on Frenchman Street attracted a mix of tourists and locals, but became crowded quickly and featured some cheerfully terrible music. Our dinner at Mother's, a cafeteria on Tchoupitoulas among some warehouses beyond the downtown region that was recommended to us by a couple of people, was extremely (ful)filling, though the best meal had to be the muffuletta from Central Grocery, consumed atop the levee with the Mississippi flowing at our feet. And, interestingly, our most expensive meal -- dinner Friday somewhere fancy on Decatur -- was probably the worst.

I'm already ready to head back there, once I regain my sanity. Meet me down there, anyone?