pt at large

Boston Theater Marathon 2010: Laurels All Around

Boston Theater Marathon XII - Sunday, May 23
Produced by The Boston Playwrights' Theatre
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion
at the Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
Presented in part by the Boston University Humanities Foundation
$25 tickets in advance - $30 tickets at the door


If you had any teensy doubts that Boston was not a theater town, they would have exited stage right if you took in the 12th Annual Boston Theater Marathon. If you went, I’m preaching to the choir. If you didn’t, lemme tell ya, you blew your chance.
 
Here’s what you missed. 50 ten-minute plays   by 50 New England playwrights presented by 50 New England theater companies in 10 hours. I arrived for the starting gun at high noon and witnessed the first three hours - 37 actors performing in fifteen plays written by fifteen different playwrights, staged by fifteen different directors collaborating with fifteen different theater companies. What a glorious spectacle.

Like its namesake the Boston Marathon, the lineup is filled with names familiar to the crowd and ones you never heard of. Some of these unknowns will emerge from the pack and become local legends or pack up for the Big Apple. Some are living out a fantasy, will take a brief turn on the boards, and not be heard from again. All of them radiate the kind of passion that makes it a pleasure to sit in the seats and watch the shows go on.

Photo: 11:58 AM Patrons await the starting gun. The stage lights go up in two minutes.

The quality of the plays and performers is for the most part quite even. The vetting process in which over 350 submitted plays are whittled down to 50 takes care of that. Nearly all the plays followed the sage advice of veteran play selection committee member Bill Latanzi.

From the starting gun at noon until I left at 3 pm, at least three of the five plays each hour had the audience whooping with pleasure or admiration. When a play didn’t quite hit the mark, it was hard to see whether the actor didn’t channel the character or the playwright’s lines didn’t ring true but one thing you did see was that the actor up there was giving it his/her best shot.
 
This is bare bones theater. Most plays set up with a couple of chairs or a bench. The biggest set of in my three hour stint was a love seat, a sofa, two coffee tables and a couple of lamps. In the fleeting 60 seconds after each play, the actors take a brief bow, the stage lights dim, efficient techies reset the stage with the speed of a NASCAR pit crew, and the next play begins. The Paris Metro doesn’t run more efficiently.

As Will Shakespeare said, “The play’s the thing.” The content varies from sketches to compact playlets. Communications/Presentation Coach Ann Baker, who has 30 years of casting directorial experience, explained the difference to me.  "A sketch/skit is situational. A play is character driven."

“In a sketch/ skit, there is no change, growth, development, of any kind that takes place with the actors.  They simply react to the action taking place. After the action ends they go right back to who they are. They are the same character at the end of the action as they were in the beginning.”

“In a play, there is a beginning a middle and an end - exposition, climax, resolution. There should be a change in the development of the character or a change in the degree of the character's being. For example: The shy character, may come out of his/her shell, or become more shy, or become a raving lunatic. Something happens to the characters that alters their being by some  degree. The thing that happens might only be a tone of voice of another character which changes everything.”

Baker has packed a lunch and gone from start to finish for years. "This year was one of the best I've seen in the last 5-7 years," she said. "The writing was better and they used more of the best actors in town."

The net proceeds from this charity event are poured into the Theater Community Benevolent Fund, a fund for actors and theaters in need.

Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass tinkers with the lineup like Tito Francona manages the Red Sox batting order. Every hour has a mix of heavy, light, zany, zenny, ambiguous, or precisely pointed plays. Differentiating between sketches and plays is another way to keep score.

Timeless themes exploring romantic relationships of all possible permutations; friendship; history; personality disorders; guilt; coming of age; boomers coming to terms with mortality; and the occasional over the top politically incorrect sketch (Kosher Kop) kept me laughing, thinking, or holding back the occasional tear.
 
It’s a revelation to see how much drama can be packed into the time it takes to microwave your dinner. Whether you stay for one five-play hour or pack a lunch and go the distance, you will never be bored. Put this event on your calendar. You’ve got a year to clear your schedule.

BTM Play Lineup 2010 (All 50 plays)
pt at large's three hour stint
12-1 PM:
Kosher Kop by Robert Brustein/American Repertory Theater
Pseudoephedrine by Ken Urban/Pilgrim Theatre
Color Coordination by Benjamin Conrick/Emerson Stage
And Clouds Made of Bones by William Orem/Firehouse Center for the Arts
Hygiene by Gregory Hischak/SpeakEasy Stage Company



1-2 PM:
Rosie’s Things by Janet Kenney/Holland Productions
It’s the Jews by John Minigan/Actors’ Shakespeare Project
Girls Play by Masha Obolensky/Boston Center for American Performance
Pressing by March Schrader/Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
Go to Helen Hunt for It by Rick Park/Phoenix Theatre Artists

2-3 PM:
 The Driving Force by Jenny Lecce/Boston College Dept. of Theatre
Tricia and Tony by George Matry Masselam/Playwrights’ Platform
Open Position by Christyl Watters/Wellesley Summer Theatre Company
Quiet Killers by Kristin Palmer/Stoneham Theatre
In the Absence of Words by Skylar Fox/New Repertory Theatre

Couch Potatoes in Triplicate Plus One

triiibe meets pt at large
Friday Evening. May 28, 2010
Gallery Kayafas Open House
450 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA

Couch Potatoes (more like hot tamales) in Triplicate Plus One

Identical triplets Sara, Kelly, and Alicia Caslio (L to R,  the same order as in photo above) were the "Couch Potatoes in Residence" tonight as they greeted scores of friends, admirers, and adventurous gallery-hoppers at the Gallery Kayafas’s Open House on the evening of May 28 (the last weekend of the show). pt at large caught up with the trio to get some face time, in triplicate, of course.

Award-winning photographer Cary Wolinsky, who shot the photos for this exhibit, commented positively on the "focus" and "perceptive" quality of pt at large's  review of the show. Wolinsky's son, videographer Yari Wolinsky, who has chronicled some of triiibe's performance art, and Rick Kyle co-owner of 5000K Color Studios, were also on hand.

In collaboration with the triiiibe-sters and Wolinsky, Mr. Kyle added, with luminous skill, “the finishing 5% of perfection to the prints,” Cary Wolinsky said tonight.

Kyle took me for a brief tutorial walk through the gallery and explained his role in the collaborative process - scanning Wolinsky's original "raw" photographs, creating files to hold the huge size of the scanned photographs, and using Photoshop and other tools to emphasize color or manipulate objects. His unerring instinct for color composition and object placement imbues the photographs with an uncanny depth that borders on the third dimension.

Keep this triiibe on your radar screen for future exhibits and performance art.

Photos courtesy of an innocent bystander

Philadelphia: City of Brotherly Murals

 May 20, 2010

“How quaint”, I think after seeing a few murals splashed over the entire sides of brick walls in Philadelphia. More pop up after we leave Independence Square and make a very circuitous route from the 30th Street Amtrak Station to Ardmore, a suburb of Philadelphia.
 
My Philly guide is giving me the skinny about revolutionary history and Philadelphia political intrigue. She’s worked on a committee with former mayor John Street - and after 17 years here, she’s up on all the good stuff.
 
But what’s going on with these technicolor murals?  I leap out at a stoplight, retrieve my camera from my luggage in the trunk and begin firing away from the passenger side window. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Philadelphia’s got as rich a stew of neighborhoods as any city in America. It’s not unusual to see a mural three stories high (35 feet) by 30 feet painted across the wall at the end of a block of Philadelphia row houses. The murals are big, bold, and cast a redemptive spell over a whole street.
 
Back in the disco era, the whole city was a graffiti artist's open-air studio. Graffiti blight was killing Philadelphia. Got so bad back in the 1980s that local laws prohibited selling paint to minors. Mayor Wilson Good organized the Philadelphia Anti Graffiti Network PAGN in 1984. Good hired a young artist named Jane Golden to run the network’s Mural Arts Program (MAP).

Like another well-known former community organizer, the one who happens to run our country, Golden reached out to the community. She realized that many of these guys had true artistic temperaments whose specialty happened to be graffiti.

In a brilliant stroke, Golden hired several of the urban desecrators who’d been scrawling graffiti over every storefront, bus, and vacant wall they could reach to paint the first murals.

Golden offered them a chance to channel their inner Picasso and get paid for it. These days, IMAP employs over 300 artists a year and employs 36 former graffiti artists as staff members on permanent payroll. The idea has transformed the Philadelphia. Every demographic group shares the spotlight.
 
There are over 2500 murals spread over city walls. Drop dead gorgeous color and design, they saturate neighborhoods with cultural hosannas. For the most part without text, the murals shout, “We have culture, history, community, and pride.”

Philadelphia drips with history. Riding through the streets, you can see the lineage of American architecture from classic pre-Revolutionary brick designs to modern office buildings. Temple, Drexel, University of Pennsylvania and a slew of other college campuses have attempted to complement their architecture to the surrounding neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods in South Philly have resisted condo and croissants and look like they haven’t changed since the 1950s.

The ubiquitous murals glue the city together. Riding shotgun and firing away from the car, I saw less than 1 % of these urban masterpieces. They’re one of a kind monotypes and as arresting as any fresco you’ll see in Rome.
 
Over time, Jane Golden enrolled non-profits, public schools and private organizations to participate in the mural program.  Impressively, she’s developed programs that serve youth and adult offenders in local prisons and detention centers.

That’s what you truly call community organizing.
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The photos below were taken Center City, North, South, and West Philadelphia. Some were taken on the fly right out the passenger side window, some when I had time to jump out of the car to compose.  I missed over 2000 of them - a good reason to return, as was the hospitality of my tour guide. 

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Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Golytely": Colonic Fast Lane Pass

Whoever came up with the title “Golytely” for this pre-colonoscopy preparation liquid has a warped sense of humor.  First of all, you’re instructed to drink 8 fluid ounces of this liquid every ten minutes until the four-liter jug is empty.

Anyone with a brain knows that drinking that amount of anything that fast will certainly result in ‘going” that won't be “lyte.” The clear liquid looks like water but goes down like it’s laced with stealth mineral oil. Mixing it with a crystal light lemon packet improves the taste. Nothing improves the sensation that you’re drinking heavy water.

 By the time the jug is empty, every inch of the 5 feet of your colon, perhaps a whole bunch of your small intestine, and for that matter just about anything that was lurking in your alimentary canal will have been induced to discharge itself. You will not dare be more than twelve paces from a toilet of refuge for the duration. The word fire hose comes to mind.

Once the Golytely begins its volcanic activity within your innards, I warn you - do not read any email that might make you laugh.

A well-meaning friend sent me Dave Barry’s famous essay about his own colonoscopy experience. Had I read it twenty minutes later than I did, I would have been a sorry advertisement for Depends.

Do be in a mode Code Red of Sphincter Awareness. Do not sneeze. Do not cough. Do not lift. Do not even think about passing gas while your stomach is churning like the agitator in your Maytag.

Do have enough toilet paper handy so that if Christo were to drop by your house to borrow enough toilet paper to construct an installation to drape "Charmin Ultra Strong" from the Quabbin Reservoir to the Deer Island Waste Plant, you could say “Sure, pal, pull up your truck.”

Do have someone drive you home after the procedure, which you won’t remember, since a friendly nurse will lace the IV she inserts into your arm with a very dandy drip of versed and fentanyl. You won’t have been that buzzed since you left college.

You’ll walk out of the hospital with a goofy grin and walk the corridor like it was a giant slalom. You will sleep like a baby for several hours after returning home.
You will have, for the briefest of time, the cleanest colon in town.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: Part 6: Sunday, May 2

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival:
Part 6: Sunday, May 2

April 24,25,26 & April 30, May 1,2,3, 2009.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes place at the Fair Grounds Race Course, centrally located at 1751 Gentilly Boulevard, 10 minutes from the French Quarter. Hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.


MARDI GRAS INDIANS, SOCIAL AID AND PLEASURE CLUBS

By tradition, Mardi Gras Indians  come out to play twice a year - Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. Mardi Gras chiefs spend the whole year designing and sewing together their extraordinary costumes. By hand, bead by bead, they assemble huge head dresses and suits. They were on the Jazz & Heritage Stage today, strutting and performing with the brass band behind them.

 
The men who make up most of the second line social and pleasure clubs take a cue from these “Indians” and wave elaborate feather standards as they lead their parades through neighborhoods nearly every season, but that’s another story I’ll tell when I witness my first second line parade .

New Orleans writer Deborah Cotton has worn out several pairs of shoes chronicling Second Line parades for years. She has ideas about what elevates a second line parade from an uplifting event to an exceptional one.

 
 
 
 

 

 

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: Part 5: Sunday, May 2

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival:
Part 5: Sunday, May 2

April 24,25,26 & April 30, May 1,2,3, 2009.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes place at the Fair Grounds Race Course, centrally located at 1751 Gentilly Boulevard, 10 minutes from the French Quarter. Hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The drizzle on Sunday might have diminished attendance but did zip to dampen the spirits of tens of thousands who showed up. Slickers and ponchos were the uniform of the day. Unless you were a Tulane or Loyola student in which case a cut up garbage bag or raggedy T-shirt and shorts worked just fine.
 
Umbrellas popped up like mushrooms every time rain fell from the low hanging clouds scudding by. Most of them inverted when gusts of wind decided to play with the rain. The result? Laughter. Once you get soaked, you can’t get wetter. What with the standard issue New Orleans humidity, I felt like a happy hot-house tomato. Dancing outdoors in a Louisiana rain feels like a spa experience with a really good beat.


Walking around the Fairgrounds is a visual stimulus package. Every shape, size, color, and age of humanity is on display except with more imaginative attire. This was proof-positive that you can never ever identify a music fan by appearance alone. And every damn one of them sees to have left prejudices, biases, and politics at the entrance. This was as astonishing as the music floating through the air. 
 
The rain solidified the sense of camaraderie amongst the faithful. Getting soaked was one more thing we had in common. There’s a vibe down here that exists nowhere else. Grandpa Elliot, a blind street musician (Eliott Small, around 64 years old)  I heard play on my first visit to the French Quarter in 2008, has summarized it best.
 
“Hey, I don’t care where I go, I wanna come back to New Orleans. It’s just in me to be here because the love I issue out here, the people give it right back, right quick. They give it back away from here, too, but not right quick!”

Much to my surprise, most of the people at Jazz Fest are listeners, not dancers. One exception is at the “Fais do do Stage.” Cajun music aficionados were hoofing up a storm on the tamped-down turf. Even spectators with no clue what the dance was all about got out there and shook body parts to the music.

I have no idea why my Baton Rouge companion insisted we bring beach chairs. Every time an artist belted out a song from the Acura Stage she did a jack in the box out of said chair. Any guy recognizes that look women get, one hand on hip, eyebrows arched, that shouts, “I want company here.” When you’re at Jazz Fest, you get with the program. You get up and dance.

I admit being inspired by one woman who turned her own chair away from the stage to watch us dance every time we got up. And the other ones who told us how stylin’ we looked. And the one who tapped me on the shoulder, saying, “I want to dance!”

Now I know what kept Ginger and Fred going.

See those lines at the feet of the woman above and along the lane of photo top right? These define sacred territory. On one side, stake out your chairs, blankets, and coolers. On the other side are lanes for foot traffic and anyone who wants to stand. The Jazz Fest Nation abides by the rules. There were tens of thousands of people here - not one chair infiltrating renegade ignored the lines. This is another thing I love about New Orleans. They know they're in shared space and respect the rules of engagement.

 

 
The sound and image systems at Jazz Fest are state of the art (the Acura Stage above). You can see and hear from a distance. And by strategic geographic placement over the 145 acre Fair Grounds, music from one big stage doesn't override the music from another.

 

Clarence "Frogman" Henry...
 
and the wildly popular New Orleanian Irma Thomas.
 
 
“When people ask about how we’re doing in New Orleans tell ‘em we’re coming back, but we’re not there yet. We still need help.” The speaker is legendary singer Irma Thomas, resident of the Lower Ninth Ward whose house was swallowed by the storm. 
 
 
Van Morrisson on electric piano and saxophone...
 

and Jazz Fest closing act The Neville Brothers. The hardest part of being here is the triage mentality you have to practice - at any given time, there will be at least three acts you'd love to hear. That's why you vow to return for next year before your  shoes have dried out from this one.
 
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: Part 4: Saturday, May 1

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival:  Part 4: Saturday, May 1
April 24,25,26 & April 30, May 1,2,3, 2009.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes place at the Fair Grounds Race Course, centrally located at 1751 Gentilly Boulevard, 10 minutes from the French Quarter. Hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

 
Entering New Orleans
As we were crawling through traffic in the Mid City area of New Orleans en route to the Fairgrounds Racetrack where Jazz Fest is held, my travel companion and Baton Rouge native described her pilgrimage to New Orleans in 2006. “The yards were lined with FEMA trailers and I remember seeing a nine foot high bathtub ring around the uninhabited houses” -  left by the toxic flood waters they’d marinated in for ten days after the storm.

By then, New Orleanians had given the middle finger salute to Katrina. They made do without anything resembling normal for months. Out of sheer willfulness, they pulled Mardi Gras together and they were damn well going to have Jazz Fest.

Post Katrina New Orleans had survived without infrastructure. They could not, they would not, survive without music. Invite the musicians, set up the schedule, apply the paddles, and holler CLEAR! Music would help bring the Crescent City back from the brink. My friend with Louisiana blood in her veins got on a plane. She had to witness the resuscitation.  She witnessed New Orleans put itself back together with Jazz Fest 2006.

A Parking Angel

By the time we, along with tens of thousands of other vehicles, rolled into the city at noon, my Baton Rouge guide solved the parking dilemma.  “Last time I was here, lots of people who live near the Fairgrounds let you pay a few dollars to park in their yard,” she said.

We headed straight down Carrollton, turned onto DeSaix Boulevard and into the arms of divine intervention in the form of Judith Woods, an angel waving a bright yellow “Park $20” sign.

“Your car will be here when you get back,” she said with a smile. Judith’s mother Ruth and cousin “Ruth, Jr.” sat under umbrellas in lawn chairs and kept watch while Judith squeezed 24 cars in her vacant lot. She’s building a house right here as soon as she gets her permits on the lot she bought on 3460 DeSaix in 2009. I dream of driving down this street in 2011 and parking in front of Judith Woods new house – a five minute walk to the  Fairgrounds entrance on Trafalgar Street.

In a grim reminder that New Orleans is still hurting from Katrina, the house next door is still boarded up and unoccupied. The whole juxtaposition says all you need to know about the extremes of joy and hardship that live side by side in this city.

Gun-metal gray skies shook fingers and pointed down tauntingly but never opened up with rain. Wind, however, lifted the sand from the fairgrounds track turning it into tiny whirling dervishes. Add a helping of typical New Orleans humidity, and I felt like a walking, talking piece of sand paper.

After the first surprise gust coated my teeth with grit, I kept your mouth shut while anywhere near the sandy track that surrounds the fairground. A minor inconvenience. Within 145 square acres, a rippling sea of people sopped up music and food and danced when the spirit moved them.

 

Arrive way early, set down your blankets and chairs, and you're good to go. Nobody's gonna touch your stuff while you roam around.

 
Hats, shirts, jewelry, posters, knick knacks, CDs, shoes, boots, art...all kinds of stuff in the 'merch' tents... 
   
and two rows of Louisiana food

 
The wind whips up sand from the race track but hey, who cares when you can dance - the Fais Do Do Stage was the only place where dancing was the norm...
 

and lots of people dressed for the occasion.
 

The Gentilly Stage... 

the Congo Square Stage and the Acura Stage boasted giant video screens that made you feel you were in the front row.

The Congo Square Stage where The Rebirth Brass Band was a crowd favorite...
 

and people found ways to connect all day long...
 

even while waiting in line for a port a pottie.

The Blues Tent was filled all day long...

one of the only places where you could sit and catch a set or two... 

then walk to the Gospel Tent and listen to people like Aaron Neville sing like an angel...

and make you feel the feelin'.
 
 
 

 

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Part 3: Food

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Part 3: Food

April 24,25,26 & April 30, May 1,2,3, 2009.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes place at the Fair Grounds Race Course, centrally located at 1751 Gentilly Boulevard, 10 minutes from the French Quarter. Hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

  There are lines for everything, especially for food and for the toilets. Everyone in each line is in the mood to talk. “Who’ve you heard?” and “What’s the best food you’ve eaten so far?” are champion sparks for conversations that involve anyone within earshot.

I extolled the splendor of the pheasant, quail and andouille sausage gumbo and was crushed to find out that the cochon de lait which I didn’t get because the line was way too long for my hungry stomach to wait, was the best, graviest pulled pork the reporters had ever eaten.

Nobody’s shy. “Whoa, what’s that?” was my standard line to a stranger carrying something wowser from the vendor counter.  “Fried catfish with pecans and meuniere sauce, it’s great,” says the munching responder pointing her fork toward the booth.

 

A few hours later, I was pointing my fork toward the same booth when I got a “What’s that?” as I was carrying my own dish of catfish back to my chair.

Forget counting calories. Just about everything is fried, gravied, etouféed, sauced, mayonaissed, or buttered. There are rumors that the vibrations from the music keeps plaque from forming in your arteries. I hope so but the stuff smells and tastes so damn good you just won’t care.

For a list of food and vendors click http://www.nojazzfest.com and the food tab.Reprinted below is a snip from the Jazz Fest website.

Nowhere else will you come across such matchless cuisine as found at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  The Food Fair offers classic New Orleans staples and over time has expanded to include Creole and Cajun offerings as well as international cuisine.

The dizzying array of choices extends beyond pot-cooked favorites such as shrimp and okra gumbo, meaty white beans, crawfish bisque, oyster Rockefeller bisque, and sausage macque choux to New Orleans’ famous po-boy sandwiches stuffed with anything from fried local crawfish with jalapenos to luscious cochon de lait.  Savories include shrimp cocktail, fried green tomatoes, Creole hot tamales, fried oyster spinach salad, and catfish almondine.

Don’t forget to try such highly portable crowd pleasers as fried chicken livers with pepper jelly, turkey giardinera po-boy, Creole stuffed crab, cracklin and hot sausage po-boy.  Take a mini vacation and sample some of our extraordinary international cuisine from Vietnam, Japan, Tunisia and Mexico.  Indulge your sweet tooth with sweet potato cookies, banana bread pudding, pecan pie, couscous with yogurt sauce, spumoni, and lemon pound cake.  Look also for new items in our popular child friendly menu in the kid’s area including cupcakes and corn on the cob.

In addition to the many fine foods offered, there are two cooking stages at the Grandstand demonstrating our rich culinary history, and offering samples of signature dishes featuring local ingredients from celebrated chefs, farmers, fishermen, and home cooks.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: Part 2

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
Saturday May 1 and Sunday May 2, 2010
 
Overwhelming. All of it. The sprawl of the 145 acre Fairgrounds Race Course on the outskirts of New Orleans, the hundred thousand plus size of the crowd each day, the scores of food concessions selling exotic southern food, the huge stages and music tents strategically placed around the vast grounds, the vendor stands selling arts, crafts, clothing, hats, shirts, boots, programs, and the wildest collection of people I’ve ever seen in one place. Even the hundreds of bright green port-a-potties strategically grouped around the perimeter were impressive.
 
The real deal blew away the hype. An ear to ear grin spread across my face and stayed plastered there until well after I left on each day. There were moments when I didn’t know whether to cry with joy or shout hallelujah or amen or right on or aaiiyyeee or just let my mouth stay agape at the monumentality of 12 stages featuring the sounds of jazz, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin, Caribbean, folk, and much more floating through the air.
 
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is the biggest music festival in the world as I know it. Some in the crowd have been coming here for years - some, like me, are here for the first time. One universal theme on all our minds as we leave – we will be here next year even if we have to be borne in by stretcher.
 
Music goes on from just before noon until about 7 pm each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday both weekends. Triage by the hour is what it feels like to choose who to see since there are so many great acts playing at the same time in different areas. No matter. You’ll hear fabulous music wherever you are. The list of acts is as wide a swath of the music universe as the Milky Way. 

 

The event is carefully orchestrated. Order is maintained as much by self-regulation as by blue-shirted agents of the law unobtrusively walking the grounds. I didn't witness one incident of loutish or drunken behavior. Demonstrations of unfettered joy, however, erupted like roman candles. In front of the big stages, the area closest to the stage is for standing room and the huge expanse beyond is designated for people to set up chairs and blankets.
 
Thousands do what we did. Plunk down a chair near your favorite stage by noon and use it as a base of operations. The chair, plus your umbrella, poncho, cooler, picnic basket will be there when you return. No matter how packed the area gets (think of Jones Beach with music), there’s always a kind soul pointing out a path for you to get back to the little piece of territory you staked out.
 
Video crews project terrific crystal-clear images of the performers onto billboard sized screens next to the stages. Roaming crews project video of people having fun in the crowd. pt at large and the twenty-three year old daughter of his dancing partner got a couple of their fifteen minutes of fame as their cool dancing was projected to the multitude while they styled to the music of Clarence “Frogman” Henry.

For a music lover, going to The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is like stomping your foot down on warp drive and shooting into another dimension. It’s a gumbo of fabulous food, friendly people, good vibrations, volcanic energy and the best music on the planet. There are moments during this weekend when you think if someone lit a match the whole place would explode with joy.

Photo top  of page: Rebirth Brass Band rocks the crowd.

 

Where's the Gospel Tent?

  Aaron Neville sings in the Blues Tent.

 

Bird's eye view of the Fairgrounds Race Track  

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: Part 1

The 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival

All hell is breaking loose around Louisiana. A broken oil rig is vomiting over 200,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico every day and the slick is heading for the Pelican state’s fragile wetlands. In 2006, eight months after Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans, organizers found a way to produce the annual Jazz Festival, a spiritual transfusion to a city still in crisis.

What the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival let loose upon the land for the past two weekends is living proof that the spirit of New Orleans, its people and its music, will not be put down.

April 24,25,26 & April 30, May 1,2,3, 2009.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes place at the Fair Grounds Race Course, centrally located at 1751 Gentilly Boulevard, 10 minutes from the French Quarter. Hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

It happens to everyone. There are some places you just have to see for yourself to feel like you’ve truly experienced life. Venice, Monmartre, Sardinia, Jerusalem - everyone has a list.

I’ve been seduced by the siren call of Louisiana. If my ship founders on the rocks of New Orleans, Lafayette, Breaux Bridge, Mamou, Opelousas, Baton Rouge or dozens of other small towns that stretch southwest toward Texas, I don’t give a damn. I’ll find the nearest restaurant, bar, lounge, bowling alley, or festival where Cajun, zydeco, blues, or swamp pop will certainly be playing, find a woman who’s keeping time with the music, and ask her to dance.

Once I got this far gone, I began to think I couldn’t live another year without experiencing the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The line up of musicians over the annual two-weekend event is a colossal piñata of entertainment. One swipe and out spills the most spectacular collection of national acts and blow-you-away local legends unknown outside the bounds of Louisiana.

The day was a glorious blur of music, dancing, eating, and schmoozing. I knew that of all the places in the universe, this was just the right place for me.

I arrived just in time for the second weekend. Next year, I’m not going to miss a minute of any of it, Hell, I may be living there by then.

Rebirth Jazz Band playing at the Congo Square stage Saturday afternoon, May 1, 2010

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Zeeland Street Market: Comfort Food with Attitude

Zeeland Street Market  
Breakfast and Lunch
2031 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
Mon-Fri: 7:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Saturday: 7:30 AM - 2:00 PM

You never know what to expect when you push through the doors of any eatery from New Orleans to Lafayette. You might get part cultural amusement park, part chamber of commerce, and part family reunion. You will definitely get good food.

My travel companion, who knows just about every great spot to eat in Baton Rouge, has taken me to Zeeland Street Market. If you have a social bone in your body, you’ll know most of the staff by the time you leave.  In my case, all it took was to say, “You mind if I take a photo of your Zeeland Street T-shirt?”

Stacy not only obliges, but performs a sly 180 so I can see the print on the back.  Ten seconds later, a woman who’s been observing the action from the kitchen, strolls over, puts her arm around Stacy, and strikes a pose that playfully demands, “OK, baby, time to take another picture.”

“I see where this is going,” I say, and snap another photo.
 “My name is Nell, I’m her mother,” she says.
“Nail?” I say.
“No, baby, Nell, N-e-l-l.” she says, gleefully spelling it out for me as if I come from another country.

Great, now I not only need translation for the specials on the menu but how to wrap my Yankee head around these juicy Louisiana accents.

With ears recalibrated, I find out more.

“I’ve been working here for about 12 years and Stacy’s been here almost that long. My cousin is one of the cooks over there. We’ll call your name when your order’s ready,” she says after we’ve chatted for a couple more minutes. There’s a line of customers behind me. If this were Boston, I’d feel impatient eyeballs drilling into my back. Not here.

Just about all the people behind us yak it up when it’s their turn to order. Food is half the reason they’re here. The other half is to connect with the women who work here. It’s almost a customer’s obligation to add something to the dizzying swirl of conversation going on from the kitchen to the counter.

The women kibitz, joke around, sing, and laugh heartily - shrill giggles, long drawn out heee heeeeeeees, and snorts, all while taking orders, preparing food, and washing dishes. The place seems like a roost for a high-energy flock of birds. One of the cooks shouts something to another, a couple others join in, and before you know it, all of them get chirping and laughing at once.

If you want to join in, go right ahead. Like a bunch of jazz musicians, they’ll take what you say and riff on it and wait for your response. Your stomach might be empty but your wits better be ready serve and volley. Whatever cares of the day you’ve shouldered into Zeeland Street Market, they take a powder while you’re on the premises.

A stylishly dressed woman has spotted us sparring with Nell. This happens to be Stephanie.  “I bought this place when I was 29,” she announces, “and I’m going be fifty next week.” My companion and I stare in disbelief. Stephanie pushes back her sunglasses. “See those lines under my eyes?” she says. All we see is a smooth face that would be right at home on the cover of Oprah.

“We treat everybody like they’re friends, even the ones who come in here not rooting for the Saints,” she says cheerfully.

I was so busy making friends I didn’t check the specials before ordering my specialty po boy, The Belmont, with Mama’s pot roast, turkey, ham, and mozzarella and cheddar cheese dressed with mayo, lettuce and tomato.

It was gigantic and tasty. But geez, look at a few of the lunch specials I overlooked.Pecan Smoked Beef Brisket - "Slow Cooked Goodness" - with cornbread dressing, sweet potato soufflé green beans $8.99

Fried Catfish, potato salad or macaroni and cheese, with black eyed peas or sweet peas $8.99
Mama's Pot Roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, garden salad, bread $8.99
Red and white beans and rice, sweet potato soufflé, $5.99 - with Mama's Pork Sausage $6.99
Grilled crab cakes topped with lemon dill sauce, mashed potatoes with garden salad $9.99

I’ll tell you what made up for that miscue. The woman who sang “Misty Blue” as she was bringing our po boys out of the kitchen.

"Love y'all," says a customer on her way out the door.

Amen to that.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

  

Gulf shrimp sauteed with green onions and mushrooms dressed with lettuce, tomato,mayo

Mama’s pot roast, turkey, ham, and mozzarella and cheddar cheese dressed with mayo, lettuce and tomato

The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival

2010 Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival
Held the first weekend in May in the
"Crawfish Capital of the World"
Friday, April 30 - May 2, 2010

Friday night, May 1, 2010

Cajun and Creole music and Crawfish. The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival is just another of those mind bending all weekend long events that people in this part of the world take for granted - and love. Listening to music, dancing, and eating are a weekend way of life down in southwest Louisiana.

If you want to meet some of the friendliest people on the planet, just show up at one of these festivals and start wandering around. Don’t try to hide that silly grin that spreads across your face when you walk through the entrance and get your first whiff of something frying (is there any other way to cook down here?)

This is a black hole Louisiana style. Energy is swallowed up, syncopated, and boomeranged right back on the strings of a fiddle or the bellows of an accordion. Your feet lighten up, you feel a zip in your hips, and pretty soon you’re wading into a bunch of happy people inhaling the music and the food.

 Some of them, like Tony from down the road in Rayne, invited his whole extended family up from El Paso for the weekend - cooked them up a humongous batch of crawfish, shrimp and oysters, got ‘em all cleaned up and ferried them to the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival for some down home music and as much more food as they could eat.

Then there were Pete and Helen, two seniors dressed up in the finest Cajun dance outfits you’ve ever seen. If you’re old enough, just think of Roy and Dale Rogers riding the dance floor instead of the range. Every time they hit the dance area, flash cameras popped and people made way for Cajun royalty.

Dancers from all over the country get drawn to festivals like this as bees to honey. Don't be surprised if you leave dance area and bump into someone you've danced with in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California or earlier visits to Louisiana. Happened to both me and my dancing companion.

Festival organizers say this is one of the largest get-togethers of world renowned Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop musicians  in the country. Thousands make the pilgrimage to tiny Breaux Bridge for a three-day weekend party that's happened here the first weekend in May since 1960.

The Breaux Bridge Centennial Celebration was held in 1959, the same year the Louisiana Legislature named Breaux Bridge the Crawfish Capital of the World.

Louisianians had such a grand time at the centennial, they decided to memorialize the event by hosting a Crawfish Festival every year. For anyone vaguely familiar with how people enjoy life down here, this would come as no surprise.

Thanks to his musically inclined Baton Rouge born and bred companion, now of the Boston area, pt at large demonstrated that even a Yankee can two-step with the natives.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The People

 

pt and a Crawfish Princess!

pt and the Dancing Queen from Baton Rouge

The Food

 

Some of the Musicians

The Pine Leaf Boys 

 

Feu Follet Band

Dancers from all over the country

Dancing Queen from Baton Rouge meets man from California she last danced with in Arlington, MA

 

The Carnival goes with the Crawfish

  

Good Night, see you next year