as promised, i thought i would recap my recent visit to new orleans, where i attended the 50th anniversary of what is considered to be one of the more important and comprehensive music festivals in the country. i first had the opportunity to experience the new orleans jazz and heritage festival last year, but only attended two days. being the fiftieth anniversary this year, mrs. redeyegin and i decided to return with our good friends jim and tracy and make a week of it and see the entirety of the second weekend’s offerings.

we kicked things off wednesday night with a free music event at lafayette square featuring trumpet mafia and deacon john, and then headed off to dinner in the french quarter.

the second weekend of the festival started thursday morning, and local favorite cowboy mouth opened the festival on the stage that the rolling stones were supposed to have played at later that day. but since they had to cancel due to mick’s health, we got to hear cowboy mouth do a cover of ‘you can’t always get what you want’, which seemed appropriate. i then headed over to the cajun/zydeco stage for a while, took a tour of the whole venue, then caught a bit of widespread panic’s set before closing out the day hearing mavis staples in the blues tent. she shocked me about halfway through her set when the band broke into the talking heads’ ‘slippery people’. trombone shorty joined her for a bit as well.

friday opened with a couple of local favorites – the iguanas and honey island swamp band. if you are not familiar with them, please check both of them out. once again i headed over to the cajun/zydeco stage, and then went back to the blues tent for the night. first off was sonny landreth, and then los lobos. the latter was celebrating being together for 45 years, and essentially did a 90 minute retrospective on their career. they started with a few all acoustic traditional songs (i think they did nearly everything from their ‘acoustic en vivo’ album), worked their way through their ‘hits’, and then finished with a rocking version of ‘bertha’.

saturday looked questionable for a while, as a major storm passed through the area just before lunch. we got there around two and started off with a band from the republic of congo – jupiter and okwess. they might have been the winner in the category of ‘best band i saw that i had never heard of before’. we then caught some of marcia ball’s set, before heading over to hear jerry douglas and the earls of leicester bluegrass band. once again, i finished at the blues tent with robert randolph and the family band.

sunday was maybe the best overall lineup. i started the day with george porter jr., the only act i saw that was one of the original performers at the 1970 jazz fest. jon cleary was next up, and then little feat, also celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. it was probably not the liveliest set they ever did, but it was great to see them again, and it made mrs. redeyegin very happy. the radiators got back together for the occasion, and they were in great form. i caught a quick glimpse of terrance simien back at the zydeco stage, and then finished off the day, and the festival, with the mavericks. i am glad i did, and have resolved to make myself more familiar with that band.

what a great event. i want to thank my friends kevin and sean for talking me into going last year, and ‘showing me the ropes’. i am so glad that i finally ventured down to experience something that i had yearned to do for years. there is a very good chance i will be down there again soon.

and of course, it is hard to talk about the music of new orleans without a little professor longhair (more on him very soon):