THROUGH THE LENS: Everything Everywhere All at Once for Roots Music Fans at 2023 New Orleans Jazz Fest

After several other, similar festivals in prior years failed to take root, George Wein, who’d built the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk festivals, was brought in to create a unique festival for New Orleans, one that was both worthy of the city’s legacy as the birthplace of jazz and would have popular appeal. It was named the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and its inaugural year was 1970.

Legend has it that the spirit of Jazz Fest was born when first-year performer Mahalia Jackson happened upon the Eureka Brass Band leading a crowd of revelers through the festival grounds. Wein handed Jackson a microphone and she spontaneously began singing along with the band, then joined the parade. Both the festival and that spirit have continued ever since.

Again we are fortunate to have had frequent Through the Lens contributor Jim Brock covering the 2023 Jazz Fest for us. It was his 19th time there, and he was present for the fest’s full seven days. As you may recall, Jim was on hand last year for Jazz Fest’s return after its COVID hiatus. Here is his 2023 report.

2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival by Jim Brock 

The seven days that comprise the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival are like a homecoming for me, even though by living in Los Angeles I’m about as far west of the Mississippi as one can get without crossing an ocean. While the 2023 edition featured a few changes from previous years, the annual gathering that draws music fans from across the globe delivered the sounds, culture, and flavors found nowhere else, with the unpredictability of the elements eminently predictable.

The skies opened more than once and the heat and humidity took their toll, but overall, the spirit was kind, and with 460,000 attendees from all over the planet, the happiness of the shared experience prevailed, as it always does. It never gets old.

How do you describe any one day at Jazz Fest that covers 14 different stages, tents, and pavilions for eight hours each day? You don’t. FOMO — that “fear of missing out” — is prevalent, and the daily schedules (known as “the cubes”) get circled, crossed out, and often ripped up. One goes where the ears and heart lead, rarely as planned, and the stomach often follows to any of the 50+ local food booths (soft shell crab po-boy anyone?). Not to mention the 250 or so artisans in three craft villages across both weekends. Call it everything, everywhere, all at once for all kinds of roots music fans.

The sheer breadth of music over the seven days of Jazz Fest is unmatched, with close to 500 different performances and interviews. Each Jazz Fest also features a cultural focus on the tradition, arts, and music of a country or region that shares a kindred soul with New Orleans. This year, the fest celebrated Puerto Rico, and the showcased artists were constantly energetic and thrilling. What makes this musical coming together utterly unique is access to so many diverse roots genres and styles in one place.

Only at Jazz Fest can one go, in mere steps, from the bounce and beat of New Orleans’ own Big Freedia to the sublime jazz vocals of 92-year-old Germaine Bazzle, then finish a day with a lap (the Fair Grounds, where Jazz Fest is held, is a mile-long horse racetrack the rest of the year) of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Wu-Tang Clan with The Soul Rebels, trumpeter Nicholas Payton with bassist MonoNeon, Mavis Staples, and Lizzo. Or, as we call it at Jazz Fest, first Friday.

Every year it seems there are those only-at-Jazz Fest moments that make for lifelong memories, a performance that meets the place and lingers. The refrain of Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” during a tribute to the fearless saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan and the emotion of his children, Marlon on trumpet, Kent on flute, vocalist Stephanie and violinist Rachel. Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway with one of the most talked-about sets of all seven days. Allison Russell, with the accompaniment of New Orleans guitarist and songwriter Joy Clark, continuing her streak of winning over whole new audiences wherever she plays.

The NOLA all-star horns of the Midnite Disturbers still get me every time. The feathered flurry of a jazz funeral for the late Walter “Wolfman” Washington. Buddy Guy at 86 letting the crowd know “if they weren’t into the blues, they were at the wrong fucking stage.” Afterwards, Santana seemed to turn the clock back to 1969. The chemistry between John Hiatt and guitarist Sonny Landreth feeling as fresh as it did 35 years ago on their Slow Turning collaboration. Jazz Fest 2023 came full circle when Saturday headliner Jon Batiste joined Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews for a string of New Orleans classics to close it all out. Yes, it felt like a homecoming all the way around.

I saw “Jazz Fest is my love language” on a T-shirt, and as many a New Orleanian will tell you, “Yeah, you right about dat.”

Click on any photo below to view the gallery as a full-size slideshow.