[UPDATED] I’ve wondered for much of this Jazz Fest if the crowds are simply smaller or if they’ve been evenly distributed around the stages. Yesterday, a ton of people were at Jazz Fest, which unfortunately coincided with the first real appearance of Jazz Fest heat and humidity, making it the most stifling day on the Fair Grounds so far. In other notes:

– When you’re 79, you’re forgiven if your set gets a little morbid. D.L. Menard’s demeanor was sunny – “If you’ve got to drive,” he warned, “use a car” – but the subtext of his stage patter and songs was infirmity and death. He joked that he never knows where he is, that he’ll never be 79 again, and he introduced one song by explaining that paradise “is not the place I’m going, but it’s the place I’m going to stay.”

The counterpoint to his good-natured performance was that of 12-year-old Luke Huvall, who was more than credible when ushered to the mic by his dad, steel player Terry Huvall. Still, when he sang his brow knit as if he was about ready to ream the road crew for the brown M&Ms in the dressing room.

– In the Lagniappe Stage, guitarist Bill Kirchen summed up the history of rock ‘n’ roll and nodded to the heyday of Las Vegas humor when he worked signature riffs and sounds into the set-closing version of “Hot Rod Lincoln,” the hit for Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen for which he was the guitarist. As part of the catalogue of musicians the car passed, he called out, “Albert King,” then played a stinging lick. “B.B. King” and a soulful riff. “Earl King” and something funky. “Don King” and he raked his hair straight up. Insert rimshot here.

– Trombone Shorty announced that he was a force to reckon with on the Gentilly Stage last year, and his set this year showed what good a year of touring will do for a band. A year of singing has made him a more effective and confident singer, and he marshaled his efforts as a front man more judiciously. A year of playing songs from Backatown has also led to subtle changes in the arrangements that add space and grooves. Shorty also knows something too many musicians playing Jazz Fest forget: A solo should generate excitement. If he or members of Orleans Avenue take a solo, it has impact.

What he’s doing is clearly working. The crowd doubled or tripled in density between MyNameIsJohnMichael’s set and his and sprawled out on to the track. While the Strokes had a big crowd, they didn’t have the people on the track.

– What’s the world coming to when Mystikal performs “Shake Ya Ass” with a live band that takes two horn solos and an electric piano solo? Is there any danger left in popular music?

– Ms. Lauryn Hill looked great, but her summer dress over pants with a stylish gray blazer seemed ill-suited to the Congo Square Stage, where the final performers face a merciless afternoon sun that’s in their faces. The Cult of Hill is still strong as the crowd on the track took over the lane reserved for staff golf carts, and her performance validated their love. It also validated those who think she’s a head case as she continued to fret over the monitors more than an hour into the set.

– When a beach ball ended up on stage, the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas picked it up, embraced it, and walked around the stage with it. “That’s as close as he’s been to a beach,” one wiseguy said. The Strokes are the one band in this year’s line-up that was tough to fit under even the most forgiving Jazz Fest aesthetic rubric, and Casablancas seemed to know it too, ironically asking the audience how their “festival of jazz” was going, and remembering giving up on jazz in the 1940s – approximately two or three decades before he was born.

They, like Hill, made me wonder if they’d neglected to download the Weather Channel app. Casablancas and Nick Valensi appeared in all black except for Casablancas’ neon green running shoes. He added a leather jacket with the collar flipped up to the mix, making it all the harder to look at.

Updated May 9, 10:48 a.m.

It was Nick Valensi, not Albert Hammond, Jr. who wore all black. The text has been changed accordingly.