What a difference a week makes! Jazz Fest week 2 opened with hard rain, cooler weather and a stiff breeze. Some Festers are born mudders who love these conditions, and no stage suits them better than Fais Do Do, where the party never stops and dancing in the mud is a time honored tradition. The Dog Hill Stompers brought the fire in memory of the King of Dog Hill, Boozoo Chavis, whom they most resemble. It takes three accordions to make that sound resonate, and they do not disappoint. Later on the day it was the intriguing zydeco/hip-hop synthesis of Lil’ Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers, then the great Bruce Daigrepont on accordion, with his virtuoso sidekick Gina Forsyth on fiddle making those dancers two-step with muddy abandon at the floating Fais Do Do.
Some fest goers sought shelter under the tents or other covered areas in the grandstand. Meschiya Lake & the Little Big Horns held court under the Blues Tent. Lake was fabulous leading her old timey band through classics like Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” as ten silver clad dancers cavorted on stage left. At the Lagniappe stage, which offered cover from the rain, Helen Gillet mesmerized the crowd with her one woman show only a day after she bravely fought off the rain at the final edition of Chazfest. Armed only with her cello and the electronic loops she manipulates so skillfully Gillet, dressed in shorts and a Chazfest t-shirt, turned in a magnificent set. She layered loops of cello lines and rhythm patterns to the point where she sounded like a full orchestra, dancing in her seat as she sang wordless vocals. She finished the set singing a song from her Belgian childhood in French. The guy sitting next to me was spellbound. “I’ve never heard anything like that,” he said in wonder.
Lynn Drury followed Helen with a supercharged set of saucy rockers, the kind of performance that had WWOZ Missy Bowen declaring on the air that it was “Dominatrix Thursday” at Jazz Fest. Drury’s excellent recent albums Sugar On the Floor and Come to My House offer great examples of her powerful singing and songwriting but you really have to experience her live to understand the sheer emotional power she brings to her performances. She delivered a high intensity set that had the crowd on its feet.
Wandering the Fair Grounds Thursday the crowd was dreamlike under the dark sun and constantly threatening skies. It was so different than the express train intensity of week one. I was reminded of Joseph Conrad’s immortal words: “no relation of a dream can convey the dream sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams…”
