Issue Articles
Alejandro Escovedo: Echo Dancing
Over the past six decades, Alejandro Escovedo has forged a unique genre-busting path through the American musical landscape. From his early punk rock days in The Nuns, the Austin band that opened for the Sex Pistols’ last show, to his “Sensitive Boys” solo career as a beloved roots-rock artist. He’s followed the impulses of an always-open heart and ever-inquisitive mind wherever they lead him. Fortunately for us, we get to go along for the ride.
Little Freddie King
Little Freddie King is the undisputed monarch of New Orleans blues, whose down-home, gut-bucket style emerged from the fertile crescent of the Mississippi River.
Going Back to Coolsville: Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones was no stranger to New Orleans when she flew in from California to play Jazz Fest in 1992. She’d lived on the seamy edge of the Quarter in the early ’80s with a tribe of swashbuckling outlaws while working on Pirates, the critically acclaimed follow-up to the meteoric success of her Grammy-winning self-titled debut.
Wendell Brunious
When you enter Preservation Hall, it’s like stepping back in time. The small no-frills room looks pretty much like it did when Allan and Sandra Jaffe first opened their now-legendary French Quarter venue on St. Peter Street in 1961. Bare unvarnished floors serve as the stage, surrounded by wooden chairs where the audience sits — until as often happens, they are moved to get up and march around with a band that celebrates the living past of New Orleans jazz.
Boo! Ghosts Are Watching: Stoo Odom on His Spooky New Album
In 2013, after nearly two decades in San Francisco, the nimble-fingered bass man and composer Stoo Odom moved back to his birthplace, where he was conceived in what is now the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum and his father co-founded the legendary Maple Leaf Bar.
Loose Cattle fans stampede over to Snake and Jake’s for a video shoot
Snake and Jake’s Christmas Tree Lounge, the iconic late night dive, is the perfect stage set for Americana cowpunks Loose Cattle to shoot a video for “Not Over Yet,” a quintessential New Orleans song and the first single off their Single Lock Records debut.
Bad-ass Babe: Ghalia Volt is a lot about feel
Ghalia Volt is one bad-ass babe. Though I came late to her raucous blues-rock party—she first hit town in 2014 and made New Orleans her homebase in 2017, when she Let the Demons Out on her Ruf Records debut with local bar-band faves Mama’s Boys—I became an instant convert when I blasted her latest release Shout Sister Shout! in my earbuds and kept it in heavy rotation.
A Personal Essay: The Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger taught me how to dance, as anyone who saw me strut my stuff on the dance floor in my prime can attest. Like many other smalltown Yankees in the ’60s, I was first introduced to the blues by the Rolling Stones, who mined the motherlode of music by Black artists from the deep south and its northern outpost in Chicago by listening to “race records” far more available in England than in Jim Crow America.
Alex McMurray Band & Tin Men: The Most Eagerly Anticipated
Alex McMurray is so deeply woven into the fabric of New Orleans music and culture, it’s hard to imagine his adopted hometown without him. He’s also no stranger to Jazz Fest, where he’s been performing in multiple configurations for 31 years.
Gogo Jewelry: Celebrating 20 Years at Jazz Fest
Bold. Bright. Geometric. There’s no mistaking a piece of Gogo jewelry, handcrafted by Gogo Bordeling, who’s celebrating her 20th anniversary as a Contemporary Crafts vendor. And if you’ve been to Jazz Fest before, chances are you already own a piece or two.
