All Star Tributes and Summits Close Out Jazz Fest

By I May. 2, 2005

A series of all star tributes and summits at the last day of the 2005 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival yesterday created the kinds of musical intersections and crossroads that define the town’s musical character.

Closing out the Jazz Tent, McCoy Tyner joined Ravi Coltrane, Terence Blanchard, James Carter and Charnett Moffett in a John Coltrane tribute that ended, appropriately, with “A Love Supreme.” The Jazz Tent stage often attracts a good number of ‘Festers seeking shade and a relaxed environment more than straight-ahead jazz, so moments like great bass solos can be lost on the crowd there. So when Moffett pulled out all his stops, flipping his hand against the bass strings like a bow, playing bent notes and syncopated rhythms at Coltrane-speed and bowing so hard and fast his bass sounded electric, the crowd’s standing ovations and deafening cheers proved their intentions were music-motivated.

Earlier in the day, North Mississippi Allstar guitarist, Luther Kent hosted a Hill Country Review, welcoming the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (Otha Turner’s former followers) and members of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band to join him in performing classics like “Down By the Riverside,” common to all three bands’ heritages.

The Blues Tent closed out the seven-day festival with a Slide Summit, featuring Drink Small’s deep, growling voice alongside slide guitar staples, John Mooney, Li’l Ed, Bob Margolin and Roy Rogers & the Delta Rhythm Kings. And at the Jazz and Heritage Stage, a tribute to Norman Dixon gathered some of the former second-line coordinator’s favorite artists together for a set that rivaled the music at Dixon’s legendary jazz funeral in 2003. In all, the Fest stepped up the representation of local programming this year and banked on the New Orleans tradition of all-star groups and guest appearances, giving visitors something they couldn’t hear anywhere but here.

Straight-ahead programming fell a bit flat this year, but the near-perfect weather over the last two weeks might give the Jazz Tent more budgetary freedom in 2006. If programming Widespread Panic for two slots on the mainstage-a favorite gripe of local musicians-helped afford such strong local representation, here’s to Quint Davis for finding a way to maintain a balance that represents what’s happening in the New Orleans scene and still draw the crowds needed to keep the festival financially viable.